There Is a Time for Everything

I preached my last sermon two weeks ago. Sometimes all you can do is to preach right out of the situation you have in your own life. So it felt very fitting and somehow comforting for me to go back to the wise old man and his words, "There is a time for everything / and a season for every activity under the heavens / a time to be born and a time to die / a time to plant and a time to uproot / a time to kill and a time to heal / a time to tear down and a time to build..."

There is wisdom in knowing when some things end and other ones begin. There is wisdom in recognising the change and rhythm of seasons in one's life.

Oftentimes the changes are gradual and not dramatic. Who notices when spring has turned into summer? Who pays attention to the first yellow birch leave (the first gray hair)? But on other occasions, the changes are sudden and sharp. You lived in one season, one reality just yesterday but today everything has changed and a new season has begun. 

This Bible text felt so relevant because we live in the middle of very sharp and big changes in our family.

First, it was just last week we moved apartments. We put our lovely home in Arninge on sale in September and by God's help and guidance, we managed to sell it fast. Just this Tuesday we wiped away the last specs of dust in the empty apartment, signed the last papers, and gave the keys to the new owner. Our new apartment is about a kilometer away from Ekebyholm which means that it suddenly takes us 4 minutes - instead of 40 as it used to - to go to work or church. 

I have managed the move surprisingly well. I have only a very few real childhood traumas but moving was one of them. The frustration and helplessness I felt as a child or a teenager when my dad would come home from the Conference's constituency meeting and announce that he has been sent to pastor a church in another town... No-one ever asked us, no-one ever discussed these matters with us. Whenever we moved, I cried for months and months. And interestingly enough, it never got easier. I remember the last time I moved together with my parents - I was 19 (!) and had already gone through my first year in university and yet, the day the moving lorry took all our things away, I sat on the stairs of our empty home and cried like a little baby. A small part of me never got over losing my homes like this.

There has been no rivers of tears this time, thank God. Sadness, yes, but no bottomless agony. It just makes sense (also economically) to come closer to Ekebyholm now that we still can. Trying to stay rational about it helps a great deal.

Secondly, it is my last day at work today before the maternity leave. I will not manage to clean my desk in the office today and a couple of emails may still have to be sent next week but by and large, I am done. I have a mixed feelings about it, from sadness to exhilarating relief. The plan is to use up every single drop of generosity of the Scandinavian parental leave system and be off work for about two years. 

The biggest change - the birth of the baby - has not happened yet. Officially, my due date is still two weeks away but things can happen any time now. So I try and notice every tiny milligram of pain, do my daily exercises and eat dates (the amount of old wives' tales out there!!), hoping that the little one would arrive rather sooner than later. 

The imminence of the baby's arrival has heightened the sense of gratitude for the soon-ending season of life. I remember sitting in the Royal Opera some weeks ago and thinking, "When will I get to enjoy a luxury of a 3-hour opera again?" I am much more conscious about the little freedoms and joys I have taken for granted for so long. So, I have made myself stop and notice good things every time the thought "This will change soon" has crossed my mind. It's a good exercise, I recommend.

To sum up life in the past month or so, I have...

enjoyed opera...

and jazz...

done some lecturing...

visited some dear old friends...

waved goodbye to my church...

enjoyed the thrill of IKEA puzzles...

and been blown away not by one but two surprise baby showers! 

It has been a good season indeed. Now bring on the new one!

Dreams and Dreams

There are different kinds of dreams. In some cases you have a goal, a vision, and a way of getting there. You dream of becoming an elementary school teacher or a vet, and you know which uni you should go to and which course you should enrol in. There are steps you can take. But then there are the other kinds of dreams which seem so outlandish and unattainable that you have no idea how to make them come true. Or even if they could possibly come true. 

For a good number of years I had a dream that belonged to that second category. As a homiletician, I dreamed of an opportunity to preach at the European Pastors Council one day. That was the peak of Everest for me. 

Why?

I suppose there are several reasons for it. The main one has to do with the fact that my first EPC was a ground-breaking and mind-blowing experience. It was in 2007 when the EPC took place in the Netherlands. I had just started my MA studies in linguistics, and the thought of studying theology hadn't even crossed my mind yet. I was happy doing what I was doing. But then I spent five days in a translator's booth, and was absolutely shocked by the quality of sermons - I had never heard such powerful preaching before. The best preachers from Europe and the US seemed to be there! After the event, they published a collection of DVDs with the worship services, and I watched the sermons over and over again, mesmerised. Preaching suddely became an art - an art where intellectual and theological and emotional parts could come together in perfect harmony. I think this is why EPC has had a special place in my heart ever since. 

But how do you get there? How does one make The List? How does it happen that in some planning committee meeting your name is mentioned (and another name, just as worthy, isn't)? There was no way for me to climb that Everest by myself. It was an unattainable dream. 

But the dream came true regardless. Someone mentioned my name; someone made the decision; someone thought it was worth the risk... 

So I preached my sermon last Wednesday. It was beautiful and emotional and tough, I felt the weight of the privilege and responsibility, and I was in awe of the miracle God has done in my life since that week in 2007 when I sat in the interpreter's booth at EPC, amazed. 

The positive feedback has been overwhelming. The best feedback was, of course, the utter silence in the meeting hall. That moment when you realise that no phones are glowing, no-one is fidgeting or coughing, and that the Spirit is breathing life into your words and making them come alive for the listeners... 

But just as I was grateful for this opportunity, I was equally happy for other plenary speakers. It was so special for me to see J. and M. take the stage - they were the older, more experienced students in Newbold who got preaching invites from all over London and went about with a certain degree of confidence, and yet they had the grace to notice and encourage a small and quiet white girl, sitting in the homiletics class, taking her first shaky steps. This is true especially of J. - I actually don't think I would be where I am today without his constant encouragement and support. So it was a historical thing for me to share EPC's platform with him. 

With M. and J.

So, now I wonder. Where do I get a new dream from? 

Good News?

  

It is such a long story I don’t even know where to begin.

But basically. I ended up having three miscarriages last year. Two of them were so early that there was no medical intervention needed nor help available – they just happened. The third one happened after week 12 and then – after three doctors had confirmed there was no heartbeat – they made me go to a hospital since they wanted to be sure I had all the help I needed.

It is not a pleasant experience in any way. I do not recommend.

And it is a very strange kind of grief you go through afterwards – you grieve for something that could have happened but never did, you grieve for a person who could have been but never was. How do you even properly grieve for something that just isn’t there? How do you get over a non-existent future?

In the end of the last year, after it had happened for three times, I finally qualified for medical help. I gave a total of 10 blood tests as everything needed to be checked – my blood, hormones, immune system, genetics, etc. And I remember clearly the day when I was at my doctor’s office in Stockholm, he gave me a pile of papers with the test results (which I didn’t know how to read) and told me that there was absolutely nothing wrong with me. They didn’t find a single thing that could have caused all these miscarriages. There has hardly been a more disappointed person than me, leaving a doctor’s office with a message “You are a completely healthy person”. But he said that since we cannot find anything to fix, we can at least shoot from the hip and see if we hit some mark or another. Take these two medicines, he said, sometimes they help.  

As it turns out, they did help.

After week 12 of the fourth pregnancy, I came off all the medicines and my doctor said he didn’t want to see me anymore. Bye!

The rest has gone very well so far, I do not have any complications or red flags that should make me more nervous than usual. And now, thank God, we have crossed the magical line of week 24 after which – should anything bad happen – the medical knowledge should be able to keep the baby alive. At least theoretically.

There are only a couple of signs of last year’s trauma left. First, I didn’t want people to know anything, I didn’t want to tell anyone because I didn’t really know if we had good news or not. Every time I told someone I felt guilty. Imagine messaging them later and saying that nah, never mind, forget what I told you. Things didn’t turn out well after all. And secondly, there is a sort of an emotional buffer I need between myself and the baby. So, when the opportunity came at the 20-week ultrasound appointment, I decided not to know the baby’s gender. It’s somehow easier not to know, although if the strength of the kicks and punches are anything to go by, it is one strong dude in there.

Now we just wait and count the weeks. A couple of more months to go. I feel utterly ready – I have studied and worked so much in my life, I would love to take some years off (grateful for the generosity of the Scandinavian maternity leave system) and be home. I have nothing to prove, no hurry to get back to work, no things left undone. I’m ready for the new chapter.   

The Booker Prize 2023

I have dropped the blog ball almost completely. I haven't meant to do it but life is busy (the usual excuse) and energy is limited and so it has happened that I haven't written much. But I feel like if I drop the yearly book review ball, too, then it is truly over. So this is my attempt to save the blog.

As to 2023, it was quite a good reading year. I really felt I got back into a reading rhythm. The historically disastrous reading year from summer 2021 to 2022 when I used all my evenings for phone calls with S. has turned into a routine of an old couple who have been married forever and who don't need to speak to each other that much anymore. I'm kidding, of course, we are still very much on speaking terms and - spoiler alert - even more so from March onward when he quits his old job and comes to sit in the same church office as me five days a week. He will be (a much-appreciated, if I may say so) addition to our Union's media team. This will change some of our life dynamics completely and I am rather excited about that. :)

But we were meant to talk about books today...

When I look at my book list from 2023, I can see some real gems there. So many, actually, that it is difficult to find the winners. But I try to keep to four of my favourite thematic sections: theology, history, biography, and travel literature. And here are the winners:

1. theology - Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday. RHE was probably the brigthest young star on the progressive theological lit scene in the USA but her death at the age of 37 some years ago ended all that. Thankfully, she managed to write quite a few books during her short life. And although her experience as a girl from a small and terribly conservative Trump-voting southern town where everyone is a fourth-generation baptist is very far from mine, her search for meaning, for community, for the mysterious and divine in the midst of the mundane is so easy to relate to. She is both sharp and soft, and the book is a balm to one's soul. 

2. history - Philippe Sands, East West Street. Curiously enough, the best history books from last year were all about the Second World War and Holocaust. It just happened so, I wasn't particularly looking for that theme. And while I wonder if anyone in 70 years time will write the same way about the present Gazan genocide, it is somehow fitting that the last year's best history book talked about the man who came up with that very term after the WWII - genocide. East West Street is a marvellous mixture of biography, history and legal study, showing how one man's experience in a world where everything came crushing down around him gave birth to new ideas and new understandings of the world. It is a sad world where we need that kind of terminology, but as the news show - we cannot retire that word. Not by a long shot. 

3. biography - Simon Winchester, The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Maybe some of you have seen a film titled The Professor and the Madman. This film is based on that very book, telling the life story of a strange character who, by today's medical standards, suffered from something like scizophrenia and who, according to the 19th century's medical conventions, was locked up in an asylum for life for killing an innocent man during a manic episode. There have been many sick and unfortunate people locked up during the history but against all odds this guy, William Minor, became the most valued contributor to the New English Dictionary, an insanely big dictionary project in Oxford in the 19th century where they wanted to record all English words in all possible contexts. For those of you who like both biographies and linguistics, this is a real gem. Even dry dictionaries are interesting after reading this book, I promise. 

4 travelogue - Edmund de Waal, The White Road. Read everything that man has written! His sweeping family history Hare with Amber Eyes is just breathtaking. But this book, where he as an acclaimed ceramist goes to different places around the world to trace the history of porcelain and its journey from China to Europe, is so slow and beautiful you never want the book to end. And I kid you not, every time I happen to see porcelain cups and plates in some museum or shop, I stop and look at them with completely different eyes. There is marvel in my eyes now, thanks to this book. 

But sometimes slightly lighter reading material is required:

The Parallels

I remember clearly a counselling session I had with H. P. It must have been in the very beginning of my pastoral internship so my mom was either dying or dead. I remember telling H. that I was not cut out for pastoral work, that I was not strong enough and my own life was a smoking pile of rubble. H. asked, "Well, would you want to go to a church where the pastor had a perfect life? Where (s)he didn't know what pain and grief felt like? Where (s)he couldn't emotionally relate to others' sorrows?" No, of course not, I replied. Then H. just looked at me and let me figure things out for myself.

This conversation has come back to me a couple of times over the last month or two. In several situations I have sensed a clear link between what others go through and what I have gone or go through. 

Just last weekend we said goodbye to a church member whose godliness and gentle spirit touched many lives. I had my own story with her. The story actually started the first day I ever set my foot on Ekebyholm campus - on June 10, 2021 - when she was the first person to greet me and give me the keys to my room. We developed a really nice, close bond as there was something very similar between her and my mom. The wisdom. The gentleness. The undying faith. And then visiting her in the hospital over the past months and seeing her body slowly lose the battle to an evil disease let the memories come flooding back. The links were so obvious although, thank God, the light of resurrection shone much stronger this time. We will see again soon, very soon. 

Yesterday I visited an elderly lady who buried her 18-year-old grandchild last week. We sat in her living room, drank tea, and talked about lives that are cut short too early. Of course, I don't know how she feels, I don't know how unnatural it must be to say goodbye to someone who should live much longer than you. But I do know what it is like to live in parallel realities and imagine a life that should have been but never was. My first baby should have been born last week...

The going is rough right now. The extraordinarily high sensitivity that I have and that can be a blessing in some situations is a very heavy burden to bear these days. The feeling of not being enough, of not doing enough, of not being able to fix broken things or heal hurting people. The helplessness. Somewhere in the back of my head I have a constant conversation with God, begging him to let me go and do something else, something easier.

But we survive. 

"We are hard pressed on all sides, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body." - Saint Paul 

I just want to say a big thank you to all of you who reached out to me last week. I was overwhelmed by the messages and the love I received, and most of all by all those prayers sent up on my behalf.

I could sense the power of prayers surrounding me on Wednesday and the following days. In the hospital on Wednesday, things went as quickly as they possibly could have - I spent some 6 hours there before I was sent home. On Thursday, I didn't need painkillers any more, and I felt strangely energised. On Friday, I took a long walk in Stockholm's old town (and unintentionally got stuck in the crowd celebrating the king's golden jubilee) - 12 000 steps. And although I felt weaker and had more pain over the weekend, I have still been able to visit some lovely church members, we've been helping out at the renovation of our "church home", and on Saturday evening my father-in-law taught me how to bake proper British scones. :)

The sadness I feel is not on a surface level but somewhere deep down. 12 weeks is a time long enough to get used to an idea of a completely different future. It is a time long enough to start imagining what that little boy or a girl would be like. So, when things end abruptly, you have to take on the hard work of re-imagining life, the work of going back to the way things were before, of erasing all the pictures from your head of what could have been. It's very strange. 

It still hurts my brain to think about future. 

Other than that, I'm fine. I'm not depressed, I'm not crying myself to sleep, I'm not isolating myself from the world. I'm back to work again - a sermon needs to be written today and a Bible study needs to be prepared. It is good to do meaningful things.   

--

I found this poem a little while ago, and it resonated with me. And I can't help - every time I read this, I think about all those people in my life who are dealing or have dealt with major losses themselves. May these words help us see the wonderful stars in the middle of a dark night:

Two Sides of a Coin

It's as if we walked on water

It's roughly a year since I started working in Sweden. And it is only now that I begin to realise how very different my work here is, compared to the work I did in Estonia. Looking back at that first year, the things that make me the happiest are the things that I was never able to experience - for different reasons - in Estonia. My involvement on the local church level was limited there. Here, on the other hand, I have been able to take part in and experience all the different aspects of pastoral life. 

I call them The Big Four - a funeral, a wedding, a child dedication, a baptism. For the first time in my life, I have been able to do all of them. I had my first funeral early in spring, my first baptism in August, and my first child dedication and wedding now, in the beginning of September. Plus, I have also been able - again, for the first time ever - to take part in serving at the Lord's table. Like someone asked me when I told them this - what did you do in Estonia?

I didn't expect these things to mean so much to me. It has taken me by surprise that the services of The Big Four have touched me so deeply. It is a very special privilege to serve people at the happiest and saddest moments of their life, to break the bread and share the cup, to remember the Lord's death, to say an encouraging word when it is needed, to be in the long line of generations of Christians over hundreds and thousands of years who have taken part in these ecclesiastical services. It is nothing short of a miracle for me that I have been able to do these things and even if my work changed one day - maybe we will go back to Estonia one day? - I will treasure these moments dearly.

But of course, every coin has two sides, every equation has two sides. There are moments when I can serve others, do something meaningful for them, and then there are moments when I really need others to serve me, to do something for me that I can't do myself. 

Right now it is me who needs people to take care of and serve me. There is no nice way of putting it so I might just as well blurt it out - I am in the middle of my second miscarriage. This time we made it a little further, until the 12th week ultrasound. The baby was there, heartbeats weren't. Now, after three separate doctors have confirmed there is no sign of life inside me, I have to go to the hospital tomorrow (Wednesday) and go through the rest of the miscarriage there as they keep an eye on me, ready to help if need be.

If you are a praying type, please say a prayer for me tomorrow. I would appreciate it very much.

And that't the miracle of the church community. It is only by serving and supporting each other whenever the need arises that we know we will make it. And we will make it.