In youth, the soul lives without giving anyone an account of its desires and sins. For example, what’s so bad about a boy destroying a bird’s nest and stealing a chick? It seems that the game will not harm anyone, and even if the chick dies, everything will eventually be fixed in some magical way. In the story of the famous Orthodox writer Nikolai Konyaev, a miracle really happens: the grandmother, nicknamed “bird girl” for her ability to speak with birds in their language , nurses the chick, showing the children the miracle of resurrection. Using the example of a life story, Konyaev shows the possibility of a miracle in our world. And it instills faith that the soul can grow towards God, also realizing itself as a miracle. Konyaev’s new book “The Distant Parish” contains stories, each of which will become for the reader a ray of hope in the darkness of doubt and sadness.