Autumn Winds are Blowing

Autumn.  In America.

New season.  New life.  New start.

Again. 

Not completely new for me, however.

I am back in Milwaukee.  It’s where I’m from.  Where the story started.  Where I was standing when the miasma of wind blew into my life and I floated away to another place, another chapter, another life. 

In some ways everything is familiar here.  I know the streets, where to turn, where to walk, where to shop.  In others it’s all different.  I don’t see many of the same people, but I have made many new friends.  I don’t live in exactly the same neighborhoods, so I have new routes to drive.  I don’t go to the same church, but my new church has already welcomed me with open arms. 

I am doing what I love – teaching.  And where I’m teaching is both familiar and strange. 

The students are, of course, familiar.  Kids are kids no matter what uniform they wear or where they are born.  They all want to be loved and acknowledged and helped.  They both reject and accept their teachers on a minute-by-minute basis.   (One day this week I was told I look like Adele.  The next day, Mrs. Doubtfire.  I’m not sure I resemble either, to be honest.)  Their minds and hearts are open and I thoroughly enjoy them. 

The curriculum is different from what I’ve done before and so I am challenged in finding the right ways, the best ways, the most creative ways to present learning.  It requires a lot of energy from me and I see my days overflowing with the demands of it.  My mind and my heart are open to it and I thoroughly enjoy it.

Once again I am doing something I didn’t expect.  This whole idea of living for God and following His lead has some rather unexpected turns.

I thought at 50 I might be teaching, but never expected to come back to Milwaukee.  I thought at 50 I might own a house, but never expected I would own a house, but rent an apartment in another city.  I thought at 50 I might be writing more, but life drains me and writing sits on a shelf with all the other fun things right now.

I wrote once about autumn as a time when everything dies.  Colors are profuse, but for such a short time until the wind and rain destroy them.  I talked of the cooler air blasting the world with its chill. 

Last night I was at a bonfire with some of my new friends from work.  Much like Moscow, I am, again, somewhat of an outsider to their group.  It’s clear they have shared much of life together.  Their familiarity draws them into a tight bond.  They correct and love each other’s children.  Long standing jokes ripple through their conversation. 

The event was quite similar to those enjoyed with my Russian colleagues. I, also, was somewhat of an outsider there.  They had shared much of life together and enjoyed each other’s company.   Commonalities bound them together.

But this time I understood the language and the customs.  The same, but different. 

I wasn’t lonely on the outside looking in.  I didn’t feel left out.  I didn’t wonder what was happening around me.  It was nice, actually, to see my new colleagues through this lens and the warmth of their friendship.  I felt encompassed, surrounded, peaceful.

In the center of the clearing was a large bonfire fed by wooden pallets.  A ring of merrymakers were singing with a box drum, guitars and heavenly voices.  Beyond that circle were tag-playing children whose location could be seen only by the glow-in-the-dark bands about their neck or wrist.  Like neon lights they circled the space.  Above us, tree branch fringe laced the evening sky.

The wind was cool, but not harsh.  Leaves had begun to change, but had not fallen.  Many things have changed in Milwaukee these ten years I’ve been gone.  Especially me. 

It’s a new season, it’s true.  But I am not afraid of it.  I look forward to it with open arms and a curious mind.  What exactly will we learn here?  Who exactly will we meet?  How exactly will this chapter look at its conclusion?

This time, the writer doesn’t mind autumn. It’s nice.

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. 

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.

Spring is Here!

Is it spring yet?

I am exercising faith today.  You know the "substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" and I am hereby declaring that winter is over! 

I am done with snow.  Done with cold.  Done with bone chilling wind.  Done with shoveling.  Done with the whole kit and kaboodle! 

I declare that spring is on the way!  It is, after all, the morning we Spring our Clocks ahead and that's a harbinger of longer sunlight days, which assumes we will have sunlight.  That's a spring thought.

It is also March which is the month when Spring arrives on the calendar. 

The average temperatures start to change in Spring, too.  Gradually warming until the snow is melted and flowers start to push up through the ground.

I'd like to declare this as a Spring season in my life as a whole, too. 

If you have read my book, A Friend Named Jesus, you know I see life in seasons.  Winter is closed in and lonely, sometimes.  Spring, on the other hand, is full of promise, change, newness, good news. 

I'm ready for that Spring, too. 

Winter causes me to be too much alone gives too much time for introspection, self-doubt, insecurities.  Too much time for wondering what if - not enough time for basking in the blessings of the season.

I am ready to see some promises break forth!

In light of all of that, I have made some minor changes to the website to include a chapter from Spring and a link to the Kindle Ebook editions of both of my books.  If you're of a mind, wander over and check that out here:  KrisANewman.webs.com

I would also note that the latest edition of the Chippewa Valley's 5ive for Women magazine is on the stands.  It includes the stories of several exceptional women, some of whom I was privileged to interview.  You can also find it online by following this link:  5ive for Women Magazine

So, there ya have it.  I hereby do therefore declare it is Spring! 

Happy New You!

Aha!  There it is!  The September/October edition of the Chippewa Valley's premier women's magazine is on the stands. Here is the link to the website where you can find full editions.  5iveForWomen

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Here's to a Happy New You!

Autumn always catches me by surprise.  It seems as though I go to sleep one night to warm summer breezes and wake up to a cool catch in the sky.  The trees burst in gold and red.  Shadows are sharper and longer.  Autumn is here!

Other seasons sort of slide into each other.  The air warms slowly in spring bringing bits of bright flowers one bloom at a time.  Spring slips into summer with temps climbing with the corn.  Even winter sneaks in behind Thanksgiving and teases until Christmas.  But autumn bursts in, forcing the door wide open and catching me off guard.  One of these years I will remember to throw a jacket in the car for those days that start with the AC on and end with a chill.  

The “Back to School” ads should be my first warning sign.  Every marketer worth their salt will take advantage of it.  All the things a student needs to be the smartest, best dressed, most popular shout from every vantage point.  Every corner store touts all the right tools to give the student the best boost.

Even with all those red and orange shouting sale signs, autumn shocks me.  The leaves begin to fall, the flowers begin to fade and the bustle of summer gives way to matters of great importance.  It feels like autumn should be the beginning of the year.  Maybe it’s all the stacked up years of school behind me, but I feel like I should be doing something new every fall. 

Life seasons are like that, too, I have found.  We skip our way through the school and work years -building careers and families one small moment at a time.  Laced with laughter, stitched with weary work, life builds a full photo album of Kodak moments.  

We are in college or engaged or starting a new career.  We sing through the pages presented hardly noticing the pace increasing stanza by stanza.  Possibly children are added to the symphony bringing their own joyful sounds to the concert.  No time to stop and listen!  The conductor pushes us forward to the fine!

Wise live-rs soak up the memories banking them against the future.  They take long walks holding small hands.  They swim and boat and splash while the sun is high.  They take time for coffee breaks with friends absorbing the good of their fellow travelers.  These are people who know it is much easier to carry a burden with a friend than to stumble along alone.  They use the precious commodity of time to stash away smiles to pull out when the season changes.

Because, one day, suddenly, without warning it changes.  The nest is empty, trauma knocks on the door, the company downsizes and we find ourselves looking at a new path that we didn’t expect to see.   Change appears and challenges our perceptions.  It’s disconcerting when everything we worked so hard to build begins to fall.  The very foundation beneath us shakes until up is down and down is up.

The trick to getting through the change is to find something to focus on that is good, beautiful, fulfilling.  Use the season to your advantage.  Pull from the storehouse of relationships you have built in the summer season and you will find shelter and strength against the hard days.  

It’s likely you cannot control the catalyst of this change anymore than you can put the leaves back on the trees.  It’s likely you didn’t realize how much of yourself you had given away to the summer sunshine and now you find yourself depleted and chilled.  It’s likely you have been made to stop, to wait for the bus, to hold the new tools given by someone else as you face an uncertain day.  

What does “normal” look like now?  When the rain stops dripping and the wind stops blowing and all the golden drops of promise have swirled away, what remains?  Your character, your loved ones, your talents. 

Like a kid with a new school year, look beyond the challenges and invest in a new outcome.  

You will find deeper riches in this season.  Kick up that carpet of leaves and dance on the crunchy floor of them!  Invite a friend in and treat them to tea for two!  Breathe deeply of the fresh, crisp air!  Fill your lungs and sing! 

If autumn has caught you by surprise, unwrap the present and see what blessings it holds.  Today is the first day of the rest of your life.  Love lavishly.  Live deeply.  Laugh richly.  

To order a copy of A Book of Pages About Crossing Bridges or a Friend Named Jesus, please visit my website:  Writer's Pages

Facebook:  Author Kris A. Newman

Next Slice of Life

It has flat out been an almighty long time since I sat down to write.

Anything. 

Well, anything not work related.  And even that is mostly someone else’s words to get someone else’s message out to someone else.

But for me to just let my words ramble, it’s been awhile.  Busy living life, I guess.

I bought a house.  That was a bit of a time for me.  Waiting to see if there was any possible way it could happen, waiting for the disappointment which I was sure was to come, waiting for the final straw that would break this camel’s back.

But all those black words were held back by some unseen Hand.

Instead, the mortgage was granted.  The money came through.  The miracle was known.

Then came the packing and the moving and the unpacking.

Well, the unpacking is still to be done.  I figure I have 30 years.  I can take my time.  No one else here seems to mind.

It’s different, this home ownership thing.  I like it, mostly.  I haven’t really been here much, truth be told.  I have work to do and people to see and relationships to build.  It’s a good season, but busy.

Spring has opened its door to us, too.  One day we had snow – lots of it, heavy, slushy wet and chilly snow.  Piled up hither and yon and making the world a dangerous place to drive.

The next day it was spring.  50 and then 60 and then 70 – almost 80 degrees.  We’re not even done with March, yet, and it’s practically summer out there.

But some seasons are like that.  You don’t expect them to end.  You think they are going to be here awhile and you kind of get used to them.  The crowded space gets comfortable.  The negatives surrounding you become bearable, even familiar enough that you don’t try to change them.

Then.

Suddenly.

The season changes.

You wake up and it’s 70 degrees and you own a house with a yard and a garage.  It doesn’t seem possible, this new season, but there it is.  You can’t deny the flowers budding.  You can shut your eyes, but when you open them, the sun will still be shining.

I want to walk on this water to test it out and see if it’s real, but I’m afraid if I push too far the curtain will fall and I’ll realize it was only a short act before the final scene. 

Maybe that’s what’s kept me from writing.  Putting the words on paper gives them credence and life. 

So.  Here they are.  The words that need life.

I own a house.  I have a college degree.  I have a car.  There are two books floating around the universe right now with my name on the cover as author.  Me.  Kris A. Newman.  My kids are grown and amazing.  I have a vast, eclectic collection of friends and kids and people I love.  I have memories of incredible, frightening, hilarious, amazing times through which I’ve lived.

I crossed the bridge.

The season changed.

I’m alive.

Thanks, God.

Ok.  Let’s start the next slice of time…..

Second Book, Much Like the First

Anyone who would like to place an advance order for my second book - A Friend Named Jesus - can do so by a quick note to my e-mail at imnewkris@yahoo.com.  I will let you know an expected ship date and where to send payment.  Also let me know if you would like a signed copy - which will take a little longer.  Cost is $15 (plus shipping). 

This book is about seasons of life and how a follower of Christ sees them.  From the freshness of spring, the busy-ness of summer, the stillness of autumn and the quiet of winter God is unchanging.  Like my first book, it is a collection of short stories, poems and reflections.  Some of them you have read here on the blog, others were written many years ago - as far back at 1988. 

To whet your appetite, many readers requested an account of Lisa's version of A Night at the Theater.  As fictional as the first, A Night in the Audience tells Lisa's story.  

 Below is a sneak-peek:

A Night in the Audience

 ***

 

            Protected by the leather about her, she huddled in her seat hoping he wouldn’t know she was there.  She wondered if her Day Class peers would fill the front row or be seated elsewhere.  She hoped she would recognize the professor, so as to assure her attendance would be noted.  She wished she could have been at the performance with her Week-End classmates, but she would be busy getting divorced when they were in the audience.

Lisa was startled by a deep bass voice suddenly beside her, “Good evening.”

            “Hello,” she responded politely.

            “I believe you may be in my seat,” he stated quietly.