Gym Talk

It was around the time I moved to Tallinn that I realised that in order to survive ministry, I have to pick up a gym regime. So for the first time, I became a club member. We have this nice fitness club chain here called MyFitness. And I signed a deal that lets me visit all MyFitness clubs in the country. It’s quite pricy but then again, I get a decent discount since the CEO of MyFitness is our church member (high five!).   

I dropped out of the gym sometime in autumn 2018. I can’t remember why, I think there was no specific reason. I just couldn’t drag my butt to the gym any more – I was mentally tired of it – and after a couple of months I realised there was no point in my paying for nothing. But last summer I made a decision to pick it up again. There have been ups and downs but in general I’ve managed alright.

It was about a month ago when a good friend (who’s also a member) wanted to visit a specific club in Tallinn (they are all over the place) where they have a decent spa area with a smallish swimming pool and jacuzzi and a couple of saunas. I had never been to that club… and it was love from the first sight. Now I only go there. And it has become a bit of an obsession. Or a really healthy regular regime, if you will. I go swimming four times a week and I don’t know how I ever survived without it.

The spa area is a bit of a microcosm by itself. It has its own life and rhythms. The more I go, the more I like it, and the more I notice. There are times when it gets terribly crowded, around 6-7 in the evening. I don’t mind much. But I’m one of those introverts who sniffs out the quietest hours, too. Sunday morning at 9 is my absolute favourite. There have been occasions when I’m the only one there for almost an hour and it’s heavenly. Then I get a little confused, like a kid in a candy shop – I should first go to the pool, no, the jacuzzi, no, it still should be the pool, oh, but what about the saunas, do I ever get to enjoy them privately! People, when they are there, are also fun to watch. Sauna and a pool is actually a great place for people spotting. There are all kinds of them. Some are terribly self-conscious, some very confident, some are loud and others are quiet. Some could be on a cover of a fitness magazine, others, hmmm, probably not. There’s a lot of rating going on all the time, I’ve noticed. As soon as someone new comes to the spa area, there are all those glances flying back and forth. Sometimes one whole side of the pool is full of young men, clearly rating and giving points from one to ten to girls. One time there was a group of gals sitting on the edge of the jacuzzi, watching others like hawks. Guys seem to be rating only girls but girls rate everyone. And by the looks of it, they are not particularly merciful to their fellow Eves. Brotherhood seems to be much stronger a bond than sisterhood.

Being there every other day, I am surprised how few of these people are actually regulars. There are only a couple of them I recognise. There’s a girl about my age who comes quite early in the morning (sometimes I go before hitting the office) and who swims as if her life depended on it, and always leaves at 9 a.m. sharp. She’s never with a friend, never says a word, never goes to sauna. She just swims and swims and you don’t want to get in her way. Then there’s an elderly couple, and they are very sweet. I salute them for being there among all those fitness-obsessed youngsters. And then there is a young guy who is the most regular; I see him about twice a week. He is very handsome and in amazing shape, in my vainest moments I call him Mr Six Pack – for obvious reasons. I told my girlfriends about him and they screamed their heads off, and now they are asking me every other day if I have spoken to him yet. I never have, so they are disappointed and bombard me with pick-up lines (which, they think, I ought to use) that are so cheesy they make my teeth ache. But it’s all great fun, I've had some good laughs about it.

There’s so much stress at work these days. It’s not all bad stress, some of it is of the good kind. Teaching Greek is mostly fun, for example. Or radio devotionals – my morning devotionals were aired in the national radio last week and judging by the feedback, they were a success. But there are also tensions and messes, one particular having to do with money. So every time the topic comes up, my blood pressure sky rockets. So. This swimming pool with all its wonderful and weird people has turned into a life line for me. I would like to take a solemn moment and thank the heavens for all the swimming pools in the world.

Hate & Books

I'm on a ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn and since I forgot to bring a book with me on the trip, I can pass the time by writing a bit.

The Christmas time and the New Year passed like a blink of an eye. I got to spend time with family and some close friends and for some reason, I kept thinking of something Hemingway says in his brilliant Paris memoir A Moveable Feast. He's talking about spring time in Paris but by kneading and paraphasing it a bit, it can also be about Christmas in Estonia, "When Christmas came, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as Christmas itself." This is exactly how I felt. Except for these few peeps I actually wanted to see and spend time with, I tried to stay away from people. By the New Year's Eve I had turned into a real secluse, staying home, just cooking and reading (A. N.'s Christmas parcel of books arrived just on time!) and barely getting up from bed, going out only for walks, trying to avoid conversation and eye contact. Somewhere beneath that lies the real problem - I am way too introverted for ministry, and my work makes me to be around people way too much - and only when I have time to wind down I understand the scope of that problem. But that's something I don't want to mull over too much as I'm afraid I might come to some very uncomfortable conclusions...

Anyway, it took me a while to get over myself and get back to work (I wrote to A. N. after the first week of January, "I'm back to work although I still hate people" lol). Now everything is running smoothly again, meaning that I run around preaching and giving lectures and, like I said, ignoring my core problem.

I'm just on my way back home from Helsinki where I preached and had a weekend seminar on preaching. I had agreed with S. V. that I would speak about what preaching is and how to prepare sermons, and we were supposed to have five hours in total for that, two hours on Friday evening and three hours on Saturday afternoon. The Finns said there would be translation needed so I prepared material only for 2,5 hours, knowing the translator would take the rest of the time. Just about 20 minutes before boarding the ferry on Friday afternoon I got a message from S. saying that they had made a last minute decision about using simultaneous translation instead so that I could have all 5 hours to myself and wouldn't have to be slowed down by translation. I had no extra notes or PP slides with me... With the notes I had and with a little improvisation, I managed to speak for 4 h 45 minutes. I got back to my hotel last night, totally brain dead. Ate fast food in bed and watched some British crime series without a single brain wave crossing from right to left (or left to right, for that matter). Phew!

I usually give out my personal Booker Prizes (with uttermost value) in the beginning of each year. Unfortunately I don't have the list of last year's 40 books with me right now but what I can say even without my list is that last year was an exceptionally good year for biographies and travel books. I love them both deeply so it was a really good reading year! As to the traditional Top 5, the best ones were:

• Ryszard Kapuscinski, Imperium
• Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Shadow of the Sun [it is not difficult to guess who was last year's rock star for me. I fell in love with Kapuscinski!]
• Shiva Naipaul, North of South
• Eva Hoffman, Lost in Translation
• Ernest Hillen, The Way of a Boy: The Memoir of Java

I warmly recommend all these authors and books!

Anyway, happy new year to eveyone! Here's a random video from our Christmas Eve. My dad and my cousin having fun at the piano.

Collection of Moments

Am I the only person who browses through their phone gallery every now and then? When I have a free moment late in the evening, I love to do that. It has nothing to do with the quality of these photos (my phone is no good when it comes to taking pictures) but about the moments they've caught. These pictures always make me smile, even the blurry ones, because they remind me I have a lot to be thankful for.

I thought I'd share some with you - a collection of moments from 2019. Some of them have a longer story behind them but I'll keep things sweet and short.

This is a picture of my first concert review in the biggest Estonian newspaper. You can guess whether I ran to the nearest newsstand first thing in the morning or not, haha!

Celebrating my birthday among my sweet classmates in Newbold. They even put candles on my cake(!!!) although the fate of the cake remains unknown. I put it in the dorm freezer and then simply forgot about it. I hope someone ate it. Otherwise I will when I go to Newbold next year.

The first cafe date with my dad and little brother after I got home from my school session in Newbold. There are a couple of places and people I miss so much it hurts almost physically when I'm away. My family and that particular cafe happens to be one of them.

We need more graffiti like this in Tallinn!

My cousin's son J. - one of my favourite kids in the whole world! That's us spending some quality time at their family's summer cottage.

This makes me laugh out loud every time I see this. A snippet from a conversation I had with U.

Nothing will ever beat autumn in a Northern forest.

A coctail night I had with a pastoral team of a US evangelical mega church. Don't ask how I ended up there because I'm not sure myself. We had a lovely conversation and they went to great lengths to make sure I got a non-alcoholic drink lol.

When I'm completely empty, I might or might not sneak to a nearby Lutheran church sometimes. Don't tell my church members.

This is one of my absolute favourites. This is our Conference's leadership team, having a regular Monday afternoon meeting in our office. The Union president is taking a nap (proper 10 minutes of it) and no-one pays any attention. I love my colleagues!

Another Shoebox Presents' project. This is how our Conference's desk looked like this Tuesday. Yesterday they were given to children in need. All 50 of them. 

This is my small group. Gotta lo-oo-oo-ve these guys!

Sitting in my favourite cafe and praying for the people who requested prayer on Facebook. A good cup of tea and chocolate cake always helps, even when praying.

From an art museum. This is Konrad Mägi, one of my favourite Estonian artists. I mean, the colors!

I love finding a torn piece of paper I've forgotten all about when reading my Bible. It looks like a program for the JUMP Church in Newbold. The handwriting must be U's. Who the singing Brazilians were and who are M & J, I no longer know. But it is a piece of history nevertheless!

A little hangout with Mr Nephew. <3

Bird by Bird

I thought I'd talk about studying today. Because every Tuesday morning sees me sitting in a library and working on my papers.

There are as many different styles of studying as there are people. And I've studied for so many years that I've developed my own very distinct and yet a simple method - my only rule is that I need to get 500 words on paper on any given library day. No more, no less. If I've written down 500 words, I can leave the library and go to a nearby cafe. Sometimes it takes me about 2 hours, sometimes 4 and there have been cases when it has taken me almost an entire day. There are also a couple of sub-rules. One is that if inspiration happens to hit me on my head and I write 800 words one day, the next time I'm in the library I still have to write 500 words. There is no borrowing or lending of words, no playing around. A day's work is a day's work. The other - probably the most important - sub-rule is that my butt cannot leave the library under any circumstances (well, a fire breaking out would be the only exception) until these 500 words have appeared on paper.

The benefits of this system are manyfold. First, it's a small bite. I can always aways manage 500 words. It was a couple of weeks ago that I slept badly before my weekly library day. But I didn't worry too much about it. I took an ice-cold shower in the morning (works much better than coffee), hit the gym and then went to the library. Needless to say, the quality of my work was not outstanding (is it ever?) but by late afternoon I was done with my work and I could head home. The other benefit is that it forces me to start all my assignments really early. 500 words aren't much so my progress over time is very slow (although equally steady). But this slowness is exactly what keeps me from falling into the pit of procrastination. I admit, sometimes it is difficult to keep my motivation up. I have a deadline in the beginning of March, why on earth should I start writing this paper in the beginning of October? But once I get over that mental obstacle and get into a good rhythm, I work steadily.

As to now, I am almost finished with my homework for this year (my school year ends in May). I started with the easiest bits - reading and writing book reports - and am now 2/3 through the chapter of the dissertation we need to write this year. If I can manage to force myself to go to the library every Tuesday until Christmas, I think I will be all done by the end of this year. It will be an occasion for a happy dance for sure!

I just finished reading Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. I was very surprised to spot that book in my local library as Lamott writes mostly on Christian faith and that kind of authors/books are not overtly popular around here. But this book is really about writing. She talks about how she works as a writer and she tells a sweet story in that book. It's about her brother who once had an assigment of writing about birds in primary school. He had not started on time so when he finally got to his assignement the evening before it was due, he couldn't do anything else but panic. And then their father - who also was a professional writer - told him, "Just write about one bird at the time. Bird by bird, little buddy." I like that story so much because this is exactly how I'm going to drag myself through these doctoral studies of mine. Bird by bird.

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There is not much else to report on. I'm starting to get desperate about first snow that is still nowhere in sight. And since the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir's concert I attended with my dad last week, Arvo Pärt's Sieben Magnificat - Antiphonen has been on repeat. It's seven miniature choral pieces meant to be sung during the Orthodox lithurgy the week right before Christmas. So it's just about right to listen to it now.

Me in the end of my library day yesterday.

October

I walked to work this morning and saw a big triangle of birds, flying south, wet sky as their backdrop. It felt like utter betrayal. It is strange how some things are so natural, so usual, and yet we never get used to them. Birds leaving us for some place warmer and lighter is one of them. Every October I see this picture and yet, every time it hurts. It's as if something dies when autumn comes and death, as we all know, is forever unnatural.

It's not too bad, of course. When so much withers outwardly, it is time to turn inward. It's time to arm oneself with a shield of good books (Ryszard Kapuscinski and Shiva Naipaul lately), buy new candles, make sure you don't miss any one good concert, listen to songs like Ben Abraham's A Quiet Prayer, and let the time pass quietly.

It might be even time to acquire a new skill and start baking bread. I went to a baking workshop last week and for the first time ever, if you happened to come by my home, you would occasionally smell the sweet, lifegiving smell of dark rye bread in the oven. It feels somehow fitting to start making my own bread in the abyss of October darkness.

But I admit, there's not much light. Not outwardly, not inwardly. At times I get a little scared because darkness seems to take over completely. Then it's good friends who shine the light and help you stay on the path you've chosen (or that's chosen you).

Last night I was walking home through the Old Town and suddenly, for the first time this year, I could feel the nearness of Christmas. Could smell it. I don't know how far we are from the first snow, in any case I am very much looking forward to seeing it.

Over and out.

Spontaneous

Friday afternoon. I am sitting in a library, hastily wrapping up an essay that’s due in a couple of days, and my mind is already elsewhere. How much still needs to get done before the end of the day, cooking, cleaning, some prep for the next day’s Bible study, slides for worship service… Then a friend sends me a message: Mervi, the weather is perfect, I happen to have my camera on me today, and I need a model. Let’s go and shoot some pictures.

I’ve never been a spontaneous person. I need rhythm, I need time. But I’m learning to recognise the moments that can, if you only give them a chance, take you off course and surprise you. I’m learning to put my need for rhythm and time on hold, just for a bit. I’m learning to seize the moment. I’m learning to be surprised by joy.

We went out although I really didn’t have time for it. And we ended up in a strange district in Tallinn I had never visited before. It’s an old port, an industrial area with massive rusty hangars for ships. Old brick buildings, probably some sort of factory buildings from bygone days. Abandoned. Spooky. And then have come people with money and ideas and vision, and have created a wonder of a district out of that godforsaken harbour. New buildings, old buildings, colors and textures, restaurants and art galleries, yuppies walking their dogs and sitting on the water’s edge with coffee cups… It is such a dizzying mixture of creativity it makes your head spin. The smell of sea and gusts of strong winds. And my friend with a camera.

Of course, we ended up having a wonderful time.

The Radio

When we started the church planting project some three years ago, the plans and conversations often ended with the same appeal, "Everyone, invite your friends!" Every time it happened, a big question mark appeared above my head, like in cartoons. "What friends?" I would think. "Where do I get those friends?"

Now, I have many good and dear friends but they are almost exclusively from the church. It's the worst here in Tallinn - I came to work in the church, having no former school friends nor any other social network here. I was just dropped in the middle of church. It's quite absurd when you think of it - I live in one of the most unreligious societies in the world (post-Christian is the right term, I believe), and yet I manage to live in a total Adventist "bubble". I share the office with our church leaders five days a week, and then on the weekends I preach to and hang out with my friends... church friends.

So I started praying about it.

Now, I am not one of those people who would be all extraverted and who would take cooking classes or join a local charity to meet new people and make new friends. I'm still as introverted as ever. And I was actually very curious about how God would find a way to answer my prayer. How can I meet new people when I don't even feel like making an effort?

What ignited the change was classical music. It is so strange and yet so very logical now that I think of it. The more I started going to concerts (still by myself, of course), the more I recognised the musicians. With some, I just spoke after concerts. Some made their way to my FB friends list. Then came the review writing. Then came singing classes. And I realised at some point that none of it was random. There was something in this that looked a lot like God's fingerprint.

It was this spring when a good (church) friend shared an advertisement with me. The Estonian Classical Radio (part of the national broadcasting company) was looking for new radio voices. She thought I should give it a try. If I had known they had a serious competition going on, I probably would not have tried. But in my blissful ignorance I wrote an application and sent it. They took so long in replying that I had almost forgotten all about it but finally their reply came. Congatulations, you have made it to the next round! Uhmm, what? There are rounds? Then I had to send them an audio file, introducing some classical piece. These congratulatory instructions came just one day before I was scheduled to record my monthly program in the Christian Radio. So I did not have to use some dubious app on my phone for the recording, I had a professional studio to use! That's when I realised I could actually make it. I sent the file, endured some more silence and then, in June, I was scheduled the first meeting with an editor. I kept very quiet about it but just one day before heading to vacation I went to the national radio station and had the first meeting with her. She said they would give me two programs to prepare. One is a simple one, I would just have to choose a classical concert from a massive data base, write introduction to each piece and then record them. The other one would be more challenging - a two hour program straight on air, with only an interview recorded previously. Oh my sweet goodness, I was as scared as I was thrilled. So I worked as hard as I could on that program. There was a point where I seriously started doubting myself and my abilities but in the end it all turned out fine. On August 13, I was on air. I chose music and I spoke to the listeners, and it all felt wonderful. The amount of work I did beforehand was ridiculous, there was hardly a sentence during that program which I hadn't previously written down and practised. I literally practised my sentences over and over again. But the result was well worth it. The head editor was pleased enough to make me an offer of further collaboration. The second program will be on air in the end of August.

And the whole time I was in the studio last Tuesday, there was a deep joy in me - this prayer of mine has brought me to places I've never even dreamt of! I am here, among people who are not my church members. I am here, doing something cool, something that actually gives me an opportunity to be around people my work wouldn't bring onto my radar.

I am still unsure about the future collaboration. I have a 40 hour work week, and I have my studies. I am not sure I have much more energy left. Nor time - even those hours I spent in the studio last week were stolen from my office hours, I admit. But there is something that makes me excited to look forward to the future.

The next time this "friend appeal" is done in the church, I just might have someone to give the invitation to.