I've been thinking about it for a while and somehow it feels right so I've made up my mind - I've decided to stop blogging for a while and close my blog. I've immensely enjoyed writing and sharing my thoughts but like a wise man once said, there's time for everything under the sun. Time to blog and time to be silent. I think I need some silence.

It probably doesn't look that way but there are some areas in my life I'm very private about. So there are things I don't really want to write about. Plus there are some things I can't write about - my job for example. And it's weird as my work takes up most of my time and energy and yet it's something I can't share my feelings about. So sometimes I feel there's not much to say anyway.

And my blog reached a lovely mile stone last week - 10 000 page views. That looks like a good time for a break!

I know there will be days when I will terribly miss blogging and sharing my life. I don't even know what I will do on those days and how I will solve the tension. But I hope I'll come up with something.

So thank you for reading. And thank you for being there for me, I know it's such an anonymous business, this blogging thing, but I still feel people have been there for me through it.

One day I'll be back.

Oh. And if you happen to know a publisher offering a book deal, let me know, I'm interested! :)

My little brother (who's not little any longer) got a job last week. That's not anything hugely special in itself. But on Tuesday evening I found out about something that made me very glad. It turns out his office is located in one of the poshest only-cool-people-work-here-blocks which - and here's the awesome part - happens to be just across the street from my church! I mean, I know Tallinn is no London but there are still almost half a million people living and working here. So what are the odds of two of us working in the city centre about 300 meters from each other! This is just too cool. And as his salary is astronomical compared to mine (an obvious result of different career paths - that's what happens when someone decides to get a MA in IT rather than theology lol), I count on him to pay for our numerous future lunches and tea dates haha! But seriously speaking, I haven't really seen him that much over the past years. When I was in Newbold getting my degree, he was in Copenhagen getting his. So we mostly saw each other during Christmas time and occasionally over the summer break. And thus I'm really looking forward to hanging out with him more. Oh my. Little brothers grow up. :)

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I had a new year's resolution last year - I wanted to read 30 books in 2014. I'm in the middle of book No 25 at the moment so I'm doing pretty well, thank you very much. It's Frederick Buechner (again!) and his marvelous Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who. As it says on the cover, in that book Buechner "profiles more than 125 of the Bible's most holy and profane people - and one whale", lol! It's such a joyful reading I suspect it's actually meant to be a children's book. But it also has its serious moments. One of which I want to share with you. Under letter G there's a short paragraph about angel Gabriel and it's so beautiful and profound I almost teared up when I read it. Here it is.

"She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child, but he'd been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, and who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. "You mustn't be afraid, Mary," he said. As he said it, he only hoped she wouldn't notice that beneath the great, golden wings he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of a girl."

Wow.

I made a surprising discovery last weekend - nature still exists. I wouldn't have believed. The thing is that I'm slowly getting use to living in a city centre, and that also means that I'm getting use to living without any nature around me. Well, we had ONE big tree in front of our church... Until last week. It was probably the sadness of being the last tree standing in the middle of all this concrete and asphalt that broke its spirit - so it kind of became withered. And last week there came some guys who cut it down in couple of hours. So I don't have a tree in front of my church any more. And when I look out my windows (both my bedroom and my office face the same direction), I only see a parking lot and couple of pubs (one of them has a really strange effect on me - when I hear all that drunken yelling in perfect British English coming from Beer Garden, I get slightly xenophobic), and some Old Town pinnacles. And no nature. So when we headed to Southern Estonia last Friday to take part in ecumenical youth event, I was like, Oh my days, there are still trees and yellow leaves and the smell of autumn out there, and when I woke up in the morning I was amazed to see a colourful forest just outside my window, and when we hit the sauna on Saturday night and ran from the sauna to dip in the icy lake, there was wet grass and sand beneath my bare feet, and the sound of water. And I was like, let me get back to a normal environment! I don't think we're created to live in the midst of concrete and exhaust gas. Well. One day.

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I just finished reading Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies and I've decided to become a writer just like her one day. That also means that I'm going to use swear words in my books. I don't seem to get much support on that front and I might have some battles to fight with my publisher about it, but that's ok. I've made up my mind.

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I don't want to talk about football. Not with my English friends anyway. So I'm ignoring you, S., until you start behaving again. Yes.

Listening to India Arie's Beautiful this week. Someone reminded me yesterday that nothing's certain in life. And that's a tough pill to swallow, especially for someone like me who's working hard to create at least an illusion of certainty. So I'm not certain (ha!) but I still have a feeling that one day I'll pack my suitcase again and go. And on that sweet day I'll listen to India Arie again. Because it's a song for people who journey.

The time is right
I'm gonna pack my bags
And take that journey down the road
Cause over the mountain
I see the bright sun shining
And I want to live inside the glow

Reading Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies.

Thinking about my friends who are far away.

Asking God for some certainty. He doesn't seem to care too much about it.

Drinking tea. It rains.

I've been really bad with children my whole life. Most of the time I don't know what to do with them or how to talk to them - I just feel awkward around kids. I've avoided teaching children's Sabbath school like plague haha (I think I've only done it once in my life), and when I think of all the teaching I've done, I've always had grown-ups sitting in my class room, never children. I've considered it to be one thing that has made me very different from my mum who taught children her whole life (all those countless Sabbath school and Pathfinders' classes and the piano lessons and singing classes!) and who was always loved and respected by them. I've been like, nope, that's not for me, I need adults.

Thus it's just overwhelmingly sweet when some special children find their way around my awkwardness and uneasiness and hang out with me and think that I'm actually cool and all. When it happens, I feel a bit embarrassed and I'm like, hey little dudes, I don't really deserve you being so nice to me. It's a good thing children don't care too much about my quiet apologies.

Things have started to shift lately, I've noticed. No, I still don't feel like crashing a children's Sabbath school class but I'm increasingly enjoying spending time with them. I think my cousins kids have a lot to do with it - the way they insist on me showing them pictures and explaining things from a National Geographic magazine or the way they demonstrate their swimming skills or the way they count me in when it comes to playing with Lego, well, it has pretty much disarmed me. And there are some other children as well. Just yesterday evening I found a new best friend in Tartu when we shot the new episodes for our church's video program. This sweet three year old child just shows up and decides that two of us need to hang out the whole evening, and I mean, who am I to disagree, right! So that's what we did. The evening couldn't have been lovelier.

And I think I'm just a tad more like my mum again. It makes me very happy, very happy indeed.

Yesterday with E.

I've been listening to Eva Cassidy lately. And the song I keep coming back to and listening to over and over again is her Autumn Leaves. I know it's meant to be a classical love song but every time I listen to it, I think of my mum. Which I do a lot these days. It's tough at work. And I just miss her so much, miss hearing her say that everything will be well again. She's the only person I'd believe.

Since you went away
The days grow long
And soon I'll hear
Old winter's song
But I miss you
Most of all, my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall

I could have just stayed in my room yesterday evening and watch Downton Abbey but something in me made me go out. Last night it was exactly 20 years since a ferry named Estonia which cruised between Tallinn and Stockholm drowned on the Baltic Sea. There weren't many survivors, most people died that night. So late in the evening yesterday, although very tired after a long day in church and after preaching two sermons in a row, I went to the memorial of Estonia and stood there with many other people and looked at the names of all these people who died way too early - all 852 names are engraved on the memorial - and saw all the candles and flowers and hundreds of glowsticks and a light installation which was really a huge clock counting the hours until the exact time of drowning... And it dawned on me again that life is a gift, a precious gift, we haven't chosen it, we haven't deserved it, we don't own it. Life is beautiful and painful and often so very unfair. But we're still ought to be thankful for the time we're given. I know I was extra thankful for my life yesterday as I walked back home from the memorial.

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And thus here's my thankfulness challenge, vol 2. Today it feels appropriate again to list a few things which have made me happy over the past few days and which have made me appreciate this little thing I call my life. So. I love it...

...when my brother calls me for no reason.

...when I receive a letter from far-away country!

...when my senior pastor calls me just because he needs to talk to a colleague.

...when a good friend sends me his sermon and asks me for feedback.

...when my auntie asks me if she can crash the youth meeting just to hear me preach.

...when a kitchen disaster like me manages to cook something really nice haha! (a tomato-goatcheese puree soup it was this time)

...when my dad sends me fresh apple juice.

...when it's only 4 weeks left until my vacation in the UK.

:)