God Knew

My camera roll is a study of contrasts.  Google reminded me recently of five years of memories.  I studied the layers pealed back to see who appeared in the shots, where I was and why it seemed important to document for the lady who clicked the button.

Five years ago today I was journaling my every day Moscow life.  This was my second full school year in Moscow.  My neighborhood was familiar, comfortable.  I recognized people and knew my way around enough to not be lost.  One photo is the landmark church that guarded the street where home could be found.  But the photo was not a creative “shot,” just the view through the fence.  It was the view that you see when walking home from the grocery store.  I feel the bags pulling on my hands, my feet are sore, the wind has blown my hair into my face.  No glamour, just common. 

The next photo is a tired, solid apartment building.  The brown wood of the balcony has seen better days.  Weary lilac bushes are seen trying to push out leaves to welcome spring.  The sidewalk is littered with leaves and small bits of trash.   Another common view of my Moscow home. 

Four years ago today I see a myriad of shots from a long Moscow walk.  Instantly I am transported to that day.   The sun shone cooly and teased us with its brightness.  Thankful for a warm jacket and hot coffee, we walked.  I was accompanied by a young historian full of knowledge who practiced his English while I absorbed the culture of this grand city.  The photos are full of contrast.  A sleek, modern mirror building reflecting an ancient church.  An Easter Village sprung up in the court of the Bolshoi Theater. 

At the end of our walk, outside of a metro station named for the Revolution of 1905, beneath a statue honoring Communism, we happened upon a parade of Russian military tanks and soldiers walking with guns drawn.

My friend took a sip of his coffee and said with a smile, “So, when you were  in your 20s like I am now, did you ever imagine you would be standing here?” 

When I was 25, the Berlin Wall still stood staunchly in place.  I was someone who hardly left the South Side of Milwaukee, let alone would stand calmly watching a Russian military parade in the middle of Moscow. 

But God knew.

Three years ago I was in Thorp, Wisconsin, at a picnic table in a little park surrounded by my grandbabies.  Hardly able to keep them in the frame, they are running, playing, laughing at the day.  Such a contrast of the last year’s location!  American freedom exemplified.  Had you asked me at 16 would I be so richly blessed with my family, I could not have imagined it.

But God knew.

Two years ago my worlds collided.  Friends in Moscow took a picture which was tweaked and printed by friends in Eau Claire who brought it to me in Milwaukee.  I see my reflection in the photo of the photo.  I am reminded how small the world is.  Had you asked me if I expected my love of history to bond two artists across the continents, I would not have expected it.

But God knew.

One year ago the photos are filled with ministry at church and work.  It’s funny, in a way, that my work would become more ministry than profession and my volunteer time would be the same.  I see the people that I work with at church in the photo and the kids that we get to bless together.  I’m a facilitator that makes sure the teachers have the tools and training they need to be successful.  I love it.  I get to enjoy the students, but also enjoy helping brilliant young teachers thrive.  My profession is a teacher, but it’s more ministry than teaching.  My students come from almost the same starting place that I did.  I see myself in them so often.  It’s my privilege to help them academically in a place where their spiritual growth is just as important. 

The church photo shows a room full of listening hearts lifted up to hear an encouragement, a puppet speaking from a tree, several teachers filling the air with their love and compassion.  I can feel the joy of the place. 

In the second photo there is a line of young artists, fresh faced, innocent smiles, best and brightest. They are together enjoying a taste of victory.  They have well represented our school by their excellent work and character. 

I remember being the age they are.  When the world was full of possibilities and I began to stretch my creative wings.  I dreamed of being a writer at a famous magazine or newspaper.  I would travel the world and write, write, write!  Or maybe I would be a teacher. I would go to a foreign country and teach impoverished children how to read and write.  Or maybe I would be a social worker and help foster kids and kids in jail get out of the life of drugs and alcohol and hurt. I would have a big family with lots of kids and extra rooms for more kids so they would never feel left out.  

Then life happened and all those dreams lay beneath the will to survive.  Hard years happened.  If I were smarter I may have avoided some of those hardships.  If I had more direction I may have not become so scarred and calloused.  Had you told me there would be a time when my life would become enveloped in helping kids in various ways, I would not have believed you.

But God knew. 

Now I see in these pictures the reflection younger me couldn’t imagine.  I see healing, confidence, strength, love, compassion and strength.  I did go and do all those things I dreamed of.  I have filled my life with people in every place who occupy spaces in my heart and, I hope, I in theirs.  

I love to look through my camera roll.  It reminds me where I’ve been and where I’m going.

Hidden Cost of Missionary Work

I am re-posting this very popular piece.  Not because I'm planning to go overseas anytime soon, but because it is now a sample of what you will find when the Moscow book is finally in print.  I am hopeful that will be soon. 

Also it's a reminder to those who go and those who stay that there are hidden costs and blatant blessings waiting for you. 

God is good.  

Are you planning to go somewhere this year?  Tell me about it!  Let me join your prayer team.

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There is a hidden cost of missions work that is overlooked.

Yes, it’s expensive to buy plane tickets, food and daily supplies, lodging, transportation.  Those are all budget items that are fairly easy to plan for.  We take our savings or retirement or offerings and sparingly apply them to stretch across the months, or years, we are abroad.  Those are expected expenses and we do our best to be wise.

There is the obvious emotional expense of unfilled heart time.  You know, the deposits made into our lives by those we love while we do everyday life with them.  When you’re abroad, you are not holding your grandchildren when they scrape their knee.  You’re not kissing away the sad days when a dog is lost or a friend moves away.  You’re not listening to the saxophone rehearsal, the reading practice, the math drills.  They can video you in, but it isn’t the same.  Your arms are empty and your heart is drained.  You are glad they are happy and healthy and living well without you, but your arms ache for them. 

Your peers, friends and family, don’t always quite understand why you’re gone, and that’s an emotional drain.  Some of them resent that you aren’t there to help with the life chores.  Someone else has to take mom to the doctor and call you with results.  You can’t be available to babysit or rideshare or decorate.

You pray they have found a new mother figure, a new best friend, a new co-problem solver so they are not facing the problems of life alone. 

You call to catch up and realize you have no idea who is married to whom and when the baby shower will be or what the garden looks like this year.  You realize that moments are slipping away in your time clock which can’t be re-stocked.

It’s hard to communicate what you are seeing and hearing every day.  The market buzz, the language difficulties, the smells of every day life.  You talk about baking banana bread and hoping that you have figured out what the notches on your oven mean.  They smile but can’t understand. 

If you’re really blessed you find a community that becomes a family to you on the field.  You commiserate with them in the morning after the long walk to work.  You hold their babies and plan their birthday parties.  You laugh with them about the awkward language exchanges in a grocery store or metro.  You find familiarity in struggles.  They may be from completely different parts of the world.  Their language base will not be yours, their history will be unknown to you. Yet, you find yourself walking beside them as if you are intrinsically connected.

They are living the same sensations and challenges.  They “get it” without explanation.

All of that is difficult, but not the hardest thing.  The hardest thing is after you’re home.  You return!  Yay!  Everyone rejoices!  There are greeting hugs and special dinners and welcomes of all kinds.  Then day turns to week to month to year.  You realize that your heart is in two places. 

You wonder how your friends over there are managing life. Are they still continuing the things you tried to teach them?  Did they pray today?  Are they reading their Bible?  Is anyone confusing them with a different message of God’s love?  Are they studying?  Are they working together to be better?

The handprints of the expat family members are deep within your memory.  You are glad to be with your family and friends, again, but you miss the others constantly.  You wonder how they are re-settling in their new life.  You pray they have found a new mother figure, a new best friend, a new co-problem solver so they are not facing the strangeness alone. 

You feel guilty for wanting to be back on the field after having missed so many moments with everyone.  You try to swoop back into the common paths, pick up where you left off. 

But you’re different.  You say weird things like, “pass the smetana” and then realize that no one at the table knows what that is.  You stand in a grocery aisle ten times the size of the one you had become comfortable with and feel overwhelmed.  You tear up when someone says the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag while everyone else repeats with boredom.  You watch the news with new insight and have new opinions that no one cares about. 

You try to share it.  That’s not always wise.  “In Russia we….,”  “When I was there …,” You see the glazed eyes of the listener and then the kids tell you it sounds like you’re bragging.  You realize they were busy living a different life which filled your spot in their path.  Meanwhile, your experiences pushed them out and they resent it. 

There is the real cost.  The shaping and pruning which happened while you were being stretched into a useful vessel for the work of God has made you different.  Your family and friends don’t want a new you – they liked the old one well enough. 

Why would someone pay all of those expenses?  Why would someone give up life-moments to go somewhere far away and face untold challenges?  Why would someone cash out retirement and savings to live like a pauper during – and after – a missions trip?  Is it worth it?

Each individual has their own answer to those questions.  For me, I see my life as a gift from God.  I know the failures I have amassed, the foolishness that I walked into full of purpose only to find my life at risk, my money gone, my need for a grace-full Savior to get me out of a mess.  My every day is a present.  I don’t deserve it.  I look at the full, good life of my family.  They live surrounded by goodness and hardly notice.  They are healthy, strong, creative Christians.  I know those are gifts from God and I owe God in return.  Not only my family, but also my abilities.  If I am able to teach and love, it’s only because God has shown me how.  Statistically, that’s not how I should have turned out. 

But God… in His goodness has made me who I am.

When He opened the opportunity, I was compelled to go.  I could not say no.  Not to Moscow, not to Milwaukee, not to wherever He sends me next. 

Is it worth it?  It is.  When I look back at all of the details of my life, when I consider the experiences and the sharing and the praying and the blessings … in spite of the cost … I would do it again.  I am richer for it.  I have learned to hold my memories in boxes.  There is an American box full of fireworks and coffee sipping.  There is a Russian box full of walking and laughter.   There are boxes full of brilliant, rich friendships. 

Life is full of complications wherever you are.  You may as well go where God sends you.  Live fully.  Don’t be afraid to do what is at the end of your hands to do.  Don’t be disappointed when a door closes.  Trust the Author and Finisher of your faith to know what is best. 

In the end, you will find a blessed life with full pages. 

The Kitchen Table

“The end of a matter is better than its beginning and patience is better than pride.”

Ecclesiastes 7:8

That verse has long spoken to me when I’m faced with a difficult new challenge.  It helps me to remember that when things change it means a disruption to the routine, a shift of the normal, a restructuring of paradigms.  Eventually, if you wait it out, things will get better.  Give it time.

However, it also means there is an end to things.  Good things end, too. They shift away in the passing moments.  Nothing gold can stay.

I face these two truths as I sit in my Moscow kitchen.  I can hear the laughter over coffee or dinner.  I feel again the frustrations and sorrow sorted out over this table.  I pray again for the answers to questions raised by expectant friends looking for understanding.  If these walls could talk, the stories they would tell! 

This kitchen has been mine for less than a year and yet it became home to many.  “Something smells good in here!”  “Thanks for cooking, again!”  “Is that banana bread?  MMmmmmmm!”

We shared a slice of life here, my Moscow family and I.  Sheri and I prayed and talked and sought ideas over breakfast here.  Jeanie explained to me her project across this table and recited her speech before class, just one more time.  Skype even brought Kellie to this table.  We laughed and commiserated thanks to modern technology.  Shalom and I sorted out students and parents, looking for the best ways to help them move forward.  Mari and I talked about food and families and Ave Leigh and relationships and life.  And Stas.  With Stas there were lessons in language and culture and literature and politics and dreams growing from ideas.  Ava took some of her first steps here, her first bites of real food, her first teeth were bragged about here.  Kolya and I made pizza and banana bread sorting out daily life while Zhenya arrived in time for tea and conversation. 

Birthdays and Christmas and Easter and every day life were celebrated here.  Sunday School planning and student summaries written.  In this room.  In this space we shared.  We lived.  Beneath its African curtain, beside its orange rag rug, next to the coffee cart, hands resting on the glass table top.  We lived together here.

There is the other room, too, where we taught Bible studies, watched movies, talked about life and love.  But, like any good Polish home, life centered around the kitchen table.  Words and thoughts swirl around the air, hovering above the table. 

I can’t help but compare it to the first kitchen, the first year, when everything was new and much more difficult.   The table was too big, the chairs were only stools with no back.  The food was strange and difficult to prepare on a stove that I hadn’t yet figured out.  There were some memories there, too, but it wasn’t home.  The second year brought new things in the same cramped space.  An improvement, for sure, but still it was shared space that felt borrowed.  Somehow it was intrusive to the other roommate when guests were invited in.  It was nicer, but it wasn’t home.

This kitchen considering reflects on the whole experience of Moscow for me.  I see the same comparisons in time.  Getting used to the harshness of this country was like walking through winter’s slush.  It must be done to get out of the cold, but the act of it was so tiresome.  Everything was new and so different.  How things are done here is in stark contrast to American expectations. 

And now?  Three years later?  I feel at last like I am home here.  I understand most of the things happening around me.  The language is not a strange sound, but a song to me.  The expat family has grown in my heart until I can hardly bear to leave them. 

Why change then?  Why leave?  Why not just stay and do the things I have learned to do well?

Life has taught me that it is constantly changing for me.  I am not one of those people who will be at a job for 30 years and living in the same home for 40 years and buying my groceries at the same store for 20 years.  It just simply isn’t me.  I’m not sure why.  Where did I find this wanderlust?  It’s not that I think the grass is always greener somewhere else.  It’s not that I crossly desire to leave something behind.

I feel like life is meant to be lived.  I need to live while I’m alive.  I don’t know how many days I get to spend here on this planet, but I want to spend them well.  I want to exercise my super power of loving deeply and seeing the best in people.  I want to see who else there is to know and love and what else there is to do and learn in the next place.  I want to follow the leading of God to do whatever He gives me to do.

That’s the real crux of it.  I know that I owe my life to God.  I ought to be dead.  I ought to be bogged down beneath the consequences of bad choices.  I ought to be struggling with the generational problems of my family. 

But, comma – conjunction, God.  Change of perspective.  Change of life.  Change of view.

But, God, saw some good in me that He could use to bring something good to one place or another.  Because of that I will continue to go where He leads.  I will do my best to share His grace with whoever He sets at my kitchen table, wherever that table is.

I am really not leaving anyone behind.  I take them each with me, buried deeply in my heart.  Their smiles and hopes and genuine love I take with me.  I leave behind my admiration of them, my prayers for them, my trust in God to guide them. 

Today I will fly to London.  Tomorrow to Chicago.  The next chapter will begin. 

Dancing with Spring

Sometimes words follow me around.  I can’t seem to get away from them.  They crawl out of my heart before my hands are ready. 

I’m walking around or working or hanging out with a friend and the words start to push out.  “HEY!  Stop a minute and get a pen!  You can’t even believe what we just saw!  Didn’t you see that?  Didn’t you hear it?  The smell of those colors!!  Write this down quick before the words run away.”

Sometimes they do, run away, that is.  Like a rainbow dancing on a rain puddle, they dry up, float away, and are gone in the mist of the morning. 

Sometimes they don’t. They stay.  They walk along my veins waiting for me to sit still long enough to let them fall onto the paper. 

I see words everywhere and hear them calling to me.

I see them on the branches of a spring birch dappled with sunlight and raindrops. 

“Isn’t that beautiful?” she said.

“What?”  he answered.

“The tree.  The light.  The branches.  The Springiness of it.  All the new hope and promise of Spring is dancing in that tree.”

“Yeah.  Sure.” 

I know that my eyes are different, but I didn’t make them that way.  I know that my ideas are odd.  But life just grabs me.  I see the moment in a snatch of time and I do my best to live it.  Sometimes the moments are golden and take my breath away.  Sometimes they are deeply sad and I have to fight the tears to just carry on. 

The words of these experiences pile up in my veins until I let them breathe.  I’m not sure why I was made this way, but I was.  I can’t anymore stop the words from living than I can stop myself from breathing.  It’s how I see things.  How I feel.

If there is ever someone who will understand the words and be drawn to my side, he will understand. 

Until then, I will do my best to help others to stop, smell the roses, and see Spring dancing in the trees. 

Spring News

Just a quick note and a couple of links to take you to the website where you can read the current newsletter or order book copies or sign the guest book.

Hope all is well with all of my readers wherever in the world you are.  I am so very thankful for your support and encouragement.

You are a blessing to me!!

Drop a line and let me know how you are and what's news with you.

See you here, there or in the air!

Kris

Here's the link to the newsletter page:  NEWSLETTER
Here's the link to the bookstore page:  BOOKSTORE
Here's the link to the guest book page:  GUESTBOOK

Wait-y Words

It’s been a bit since I sat down at the computer to write on purpose.  I have done some scribbling and some rambling, but they aren’t words for sharing, just for emoting. 

I’m not sure where my serious words have gone.  I apologize for having lost track of them.  I know you are waiting to hear all about my marvelous Moscow adventures.  But the words are winding elsewhere winging away on the winter wind.

I go from here to there in Moscow surrounded by millions of people.  I am lost in a sea faces moving from one place in line to the next.  Forced to walk the pace of those before and behind and around me.  I am closer to them than to any other human being here, but without words.  We move in syncopated silence. 

I purposed to share that with you in a long short story so you can see through my eyes, but there seemed no reason for the writing.

Yesterday I sat down on purpose with a blank sheet of paper before me and started six time – SIX TIMES – to tell you something important.  But nothing important wanted to be heard.  Stumped, I closed the computer and made my way to the house of a great writer – Count Leo Tolstoy - hoping he had left some words for me.   Like a slow-moving lava, the ideas began to surface. 

But not enough to write about.  And evening turned to morning and a new day dawned.

This morning, thanks to modern technology, I saw the home going service of a patriarch of Pentecost - Bishop Frank Tamel.  In true Pentecostal fashion there was rejoicing and laughter and much, much music.  Story after story was told of the influence of this man.  Thousands of voices rose together in affirmation of the affect this life had had upon their lives. 

There, in the middle of the Pentecostalisms, in the middle of the crowd thousands of miles and hours away the words began to form.

One of the sons of the deceased told the story of how one man talked to another man who was the father of the Bishop.  Because the man and the father spoke, Bishop eventually gave his life to Jesus.  One conversation caused a chain reaction shift that changed an entire city worth of lives. 

Imagine that.  One man talking to another man offering a simple sentence of hope. 

It occurs to me that the real reason words exist is to communicate a message between persons.  I have something to tell.  You are listening to what I am saying.  If my message is mundane, you will quickly lose interest and move on to another conversation elsewhere.  When the words are hiding, it is because they think they have nothing to say.

As a Christian, as someone whose life has been changed by a message of grace and hope, my words carry an extra treasure.  No conversation, no communication, no sharing of words is ever rudimentary, it is never useless.

With that in mind, I thought again of what I have to tell you. 

Much is happening here in Moscow.  It is easy to make an acquaintance in Moscow, but not so easy to make a friend.  There is a definite distinction.  Yet, I find the grace of God creates a strong bridge easily crossed regardless of language and culture. 

I have mentioned before my classroom full of bright, curious minds.  One of them is a Muslim girl who is always quick to raise her hand to pray “In Jesus Name!”  She loves to read the Bible and to tell the stories she is learning.  Another child has asked me to write down the simple prayers we pray in class so he can teach them to his family at home.  Yet another comes to me frequently with Bible questions.  Those conversations are eternally valuable and only time will tell how many lives are affected.  I hope I don’t brush them off as incidental conversations, but see the weight they carry like the man-to-man conversation above.

My classroom is also a place where parents come to talk with me.  Sometimes we talk about their children, sometimes we talk about them.  Mothers in difficult situations have sat at my table as they tried to sort out what the Bible teaches, what does God expect of them.  I find myself struggling for words of hope.   I recall my own dark nights of the soul and dredge up the hopeful verses that shone brightly into my life.

This room is also a place of prayer.  I pray there myself, often as a means to keep balance when the students’ personalities ignite one another to mischief.  I pray there also with my colleague as we seek God’s help for problems bigger than our experience.  The joined faith of those words brings courage to us as we listen to the other.

Yes, there is much to talk about in Moscow.  It’s not that the words have escaped me.  They have just found another way to be expressed.  I hope that my words would have a lasting impact on many generations.  I hope that my faith would create a chain reaction so explosive a city’s worth of people can be changed.

I have decided that words are treasures to be spent lavishly.  If you feel you have run out of words, just wait a minute.  They will come.

Latest Newsletter

For those of you who are only connected through the blog, here is a link to the latest Moscow Update Newsletter.

Hope this finds you enjoying a blessed start to 2014.

Enjoy!

Kris

MOSCOW UPDATES NEWSLETTER

I'm the Project

I have met many new acquaintances, and some very good new friends, here in Moscow.  One of them is an English teacher who has assigned me to several of her students.  They are to take me places in Moscow and speak only English with me.

To me, this is an amazing opportunity to see this marvelous city through the eyes and experiences of the young people who will be leaders of the next generation.

Yesterday was the first event in the project.  A young man, Sergey, was in charge of me for the day.  He said we would go to a conservatory for a free concert performance involving graduates and students.  He didn't know exactly what to expect, only that there would be music and it was free.  

Although my words below do not begin to scratch the surface of the experience, I wanted to get the words out of my hands before they are lost.  Some of these phrases were formed while I sat beneath the music's spell, others while I slept last night.  

We met on one of the platforms of one of the stations that lay deep within the earth beneath the center of Moscow.  I can't tell you exactly where we were from the outside of the Metro, but from within it was the Red Line station - I call it Lenin's Library because that is my scratchy translation.  I scurried behind my guide glad for his height making it easier to keep track of him through the maze.  Once upon ground we sloshed between the slush and the snow and the freezing rain, dodging people and traffic and flying puddles, we made our way to an impossibly old building.  

If you have ever been to a piano recital you could describe the audience we joined.  Parents, grandparents, instructors, siblings, roommates and assorted other supporters politely lined the small hall where the first performances would be held.  Sergey read through the program and tried to explain it to me.  

It's funny, really, as much as I enjoy classical music I don't have any knowledge or training in it.  I don't know Bach from Chopin, but I know what I like and I know when something is properly executed.  I just do.  I've not had a lot of exposure to it and it's not something I would turn the radio dial to.  Yet, here I was infinitely excited to be seated in this lovely place anticipating lovely music.

The hall was a room really with high ceilings framed with careful molding and painted a soft yellow.  In the center was a stunning crystal chandelier.  I wished instantly for my good camera when I saw it.  

"Oh my!"  I said aloud.

Sergey looked around puzzled.  "What?"

"Look at that!  It's so beautiful!"

He sort of laughed and shook his head doubtless wondering about his addled American project.  

As the music began I watched as light and music danced together along the crystal beads playing with centuries of sound and life.  These chords so new to the young rang richly with history to the old.  Crossing generations, politics and lifestyles the music breathes.  

I watched one particular pianist who diligently worked to maintain decorum.  It was good for her to be a part of a duet as it allowed her some freedom while helping her follow the straight lines of the piece.  Her hands and face danced jubilantly with each note played.  Floating along the keyboard, she had forgotten her audience and played only for the joy of sound.  I couldn't help but wonder where her imagination took her as the music sang to her soul. 

I looked around the room more closely at the audience.  It occurred to me that many of them had been raised during Soviet times, some even during Stalin's reign of terror.  I watched the music behind their eyes and wished I could ask them where the memories of the music took them.  Did they see days when music was taken from them and given to another?  Or was music given the people in a general sense as a replacement for God?  The need for beauty and purpose did not cease when the government decided that God was for fools.  Rather, it found a new avenue and I wondered how that affected these lives around me. 

Leaving the small hall behind, we joined the larger performance venue to see who might perform there.  We were pleasantly surprised to find children showcasing their talents.  Even more spellbound I sat watching them participate in centuries of timeless expression.  

I considered how I was surrounded by a rich heritage of beauty and art in these rooms and yet I seemed the only one entranced by its significance.  Perhaps the others had been there so many times, had heard the beautiful notes so frequently, had listened to the crescendo and fall until it had all become common place. These audience members have been here before.  To them this is lovely, but not stunning.  

It occurred to me that the participants in this act playing out before me were much like their American counterparts.  I have watched my friends in Russia stand amazed when they encounter a divine touch from God.  When His quiet amazing presence fills a room, the awe on their faces is easy to see.  Often in America it is not so.  Many of my American friends are so awash in His grace and presence, it has become common place to them.  Bored, they look around, chat idly, play on their cell phones - and don't even notice He is there.

Afterwards I walked with my young friend down Arbat Street.  Fresh new architecture lines the sky above centuries old, solid buildings.  At the end of the avenue one of Stalin's Seven Sister buildings holds court.  The contrasts are stark here.  Western capitalism is making its mark, but not without allowance made for Russian tradition.

At the close of the day, the music warmed my heart and caused me to smile long into the wintry walk home.  I find I am rather excited to be a part of this project.  My next tour guide is expected to take me to an art gallery and then another will take me to the Kremlin.  God is good.  That's a fact!

Tolstoy? Timeless!

Now that I'm in Moscow I find myself discussing Russian literature at odd turns and my love for Tolstoy's short stories always rises to the surface.  

My Russian friends look at me oddly as if to say, "Of all the great Russian writers, you pick Tolstoy?  You are a crazy American!"

In my defense, I thought I would post a reprint of an article I wrote in 2003 for the e-zine Ninetyandnine.com.  I believe it will help you understand my fascination with Tolstoy's work.  I love his use of language and the twisting of his allegories.  I am curious about his life and how he saw himself though the lens of a Christian.  I am drawn into his teaching - but not quite as much as those who followed him religiously.  

So here I go throwing words into the universe which I hope will inspire you to read some great words, to think on some broader views and to strive to consider the value of your fellow man.  

What does a writer do in a Moscow winter?  Studies great writers to learn to write!

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Tolstoy? Timeless!
What Men Live By
By Kris A. Newman
November 3, 2003

In an age where we are inundated with information, sometimes it’s hard to remember what the nitty-gritty of Christianity is all about—is it found in worship? Is it found in Bible memorization? Is it found in hearing the best preacher? Isn’t there someone who can tell us the simple rules that men ought to live by?

Actually, the simple lesson has been found. Count Leo Tolstoy wrote it many years ago in his novella and short story collection entitled What Men Live By and Other Tales.
It begins with What Men Live By, where we find an angel named Michael, disobedient to the plan of God, has fallen to earth and relies upon the mercy of a simple peasant family. Michael is assigned three lessons to learn—what dwells in man, what is not given to man, and what men live by. Unwittingly, the peasants and their neighbors teach him the answers.

Woven through this beautiful allegory of giving is a sense of common beauty. The beauty of family life and community breathe through every chapter. Tolstoy’s characters live simply, unburdened by the traps of possessions. They have one another. They have their work. They have God. What else could they need? They are not oblivious to the grand riches of the wealthy around them. Rather, they are satisfied with the richness of their relationships.

The first lesson is learned when the peasant looks beyond his own discomfort to share his coat and clothes with Michael as he suffered by the wayside. The peasant’s wife, likewise, has pity on Michael. They feed him, clothe him, and give him work. Their kindness teaches Michael that love is what dwells in man.

A year later, a verbose, obnoxious wealthy man demands that Michael make him a pair of boots from a specially tanned piece of hide. The rich man threatens that Michael will not be paid for the work unless the boots last for an entire year as if they were new. Michael, however, sees the death angel hovering near the rich man. He knows that God is about to take the man’s life. Carefully, he cuts and stitches the leather into a very fine pair of slippers. While the confused peasant is reprimanding Michael for wasting the gentleman’s materials, a messenger enters to tell them the gentleman perished before arriving home. They will need burial slippers instead. Thus, it was learned that it is not given to man to know what he needs. One must rely upon God for his needs to be met.

Several years pass before the final lesson is learned. Through the telling of a sad story with a rich ending, we learn that men live by love for another.

I John 4:20 tells us, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (I John 4:20). Tolstoy is clearly teaching this lesson in What Men Live By. This thought is exemplified by the last line of the story, “All men live not by the thought they spend on their own welfare, but because love exists in man.” When we learn to give, we discover a new depth in God and the relationship He has with us.

Continuing on this theme, Tolstoy moves on to “Three Questions,” the story of a king who seeks to find the answers to these questions—“What is the most important thing to do? Who is the most important person? When is the most important time?” The answers are found when the king becomes actively engaged in helping others. The busier the king is about giving, the happier and safer his life becomes.

“The Coffee House of Surat” explores thoughts of spiritual prejudice and misconception. A discussion of religiosity introduced by a bitter, deceived man causes a disruption in the coffee house. Finally, a student of Confucius quietly addresses the crowd. He likens God to the sun and man’s ideas of God to their ideas of the sun. He concludes that the more learned a man becomes about the subject of God, the more he realizes how big God is, how small man is; He points out that our relationship with God should draw us closer to one another and never cause us to become haughty.

Finally, the Devil presents himself to a man who is overcome with greed in “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” Driven to succeed, Pahom continues seeking after the elusive perfect piece of land. Finally, the title question is answered—six feet deep by six feet long. That’s all you have in the end.
It is common knowledge that the great Russian author was a wealthy landowner. How, then, could he write about peasant life, and why would he choose peasant life as his recurring subject in this book? (After all, he did write War and Peace.)




However, Tolstoy had a spiritual awakening of some sort in his later years. Realizing his need of people rather than riches, he denounced the money he made, freed his serfs, and worked among them as an equal. Thus, his teachings relating to Christianity flow from a forgiven heart.

Although rife with historical intricacies, the substance of Tolstoy’s teaching is timeless. Likewise, the opium drink in the coffee house was a common thing in Tolstoy’s day and certainly not allowable today. However, coffee houses still brew conversations and discussions as meeting places for bright minds.

Tolstoy is worth reading. Just don’t start with War and Peace. Start with his short story collections. You need go no further.

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© 2003, Kris Newman