Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

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From Doing to Being

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I’m still in a season of transition and directional change over here. I recently decided, after a 10-year stint as a monthly columnist with my local paper, to say farewell. I thought I’d share my final newspaper column with you (I’ll still be blogging and publishing my monthly newsletter though!). 

Ten years ago I was told by an expert that if I hoped to publish a book, I would first need to build a platform. I should have my own radio show or a newspaper column, plus a website and a social media presence, he advised. I needed to demonstrate to prospective publishers that I had an audience who would buy my book.

With that goal in mind, I suggested the idea of a column about “faith in the everyday” to a features editor at the Journal Star. A few days after I emailed her, I was flabbergasted and thrilled to receive a “yes” to my pitch.

Ten years and 117 columns later, I find myself on the cusp of a new season. Three months ago I announced on my blog that I am stepping away from book writing. After a long period of discernment, I finally acknowledged that the culture of publishing — with its relentless drive toward increasingly larger audiences, more self-promotion and bigger sales — is not a place I want to be anymore. After many seasons of planting and harvesting, I am stepping into a period of pruning and uprooting.

The message we hear again and again from our society is that more is always better. When we cut back at all, it’s often only so we can increase our capacity to produce more. We scrimp on sleep. We leave vacation days unused at the end of the year. We skip regular exercise and cut corners on nutrition. We even neglect our closest relationships. All so we can work more, earn more, succeed more and do more.

I’ve always equated “fruitfulness” with work. I believed that a person was “fruitful” only if he or she produced something — especially something tangible. Jesus, on the other hand, offers a different definition of fruitfulness. “As you live in union with me as your source, fruitfulness will stream from within you,” he told his disciples. (John 15:5)

Like a tender cultivar grafted onto a mature tree, we flourish when we graft ourselves to God. In abiding in his love, a new kind of fruitfulness flows out from us and into the world – a counter-cultural kind of fruit that is less the product of doing, producing, pushing and striving, and more the result of simply abiding in God.

Five years ago if you had asked me what I thought I would be doing today, I would have answered without hesitation: writing books, magazine articles, blog posts and this monthly newspaper column. Pushing to grow my platform, striving to grow my audience. I couldn’t imagine a time when I wouldn’t be producing more books, more articles and more words. I couldn’t imagine a time in which I wouldn’t be striving to be more productive and more successful.

Today if you ask me the same question, my answer is markedly different. The truth is, I have no idea what I will be “doing” in five years. This isn’t to say I won’t have a job – I certainly hope I will – but simply that my lifelong focus on doing and producing is shifting toward being and abiding.

Today I rest in quiet confidence, knowing that while it may not reflect our culture’s standards of “fruitfulness,” whatever is born of this new season of pruning and uprooting will indeed be fruitful in God.

Arrive at the Ground at Your Feet

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Recently, while I was enjoying a quiet summer evening on my back patio, I became aware of a low but persistent thrumming inside me, like a cicada’s relentless buzzing in the background of an otherwise still night. It was anxiety, I realized – not a paralyzing anxiety, but anxiety nonetheless.

I was unnerved, not so much by the anxiety itself, but rather, by the sudden awareness that this anxiety I felt is nearly always there, simmering just under the surface.

For most of us, the temptation when we come face-to-face with something unfamiliar or disconcerting or downright uncomfortable about ourselves or our circumstances is to move on as quickly as possible. After all, who wants to sit with anxiety? Who wants to sit in the presence of grief or regret, disappointment or anger? This is precisely why we stuff our days full with work and social activities, errands, to-do lists and Facebook. This is why many of us numb ourselves with alcohol or peanut M&Ms, with shopping or Netflix. We stay busy, distracted and numb. We avoid quiet and stillness. We don’t want to see – or feel – what’s underneath.

Recognizing that anxiety is constantly eddying below my surface was hard and uncomfortable for me. Honestly, the moment that fact made itself known, I wanted nothing more than to bolt from the patio, grab a sponge and a bottle of Formula 409 and start scrubbing kitchen counters or the bathroom sink.

Instead, I stayed where I was. I sat with the anxiety. I resisted self-judgement. I resisted solutions and strategies.

“Arrive at the ground at your feet and learn to be at home,” suggests author Wendell Berry. It sounds lovely, doesn’t it? But the truth is, being present is not always an easy or a lovely practice. For many of us, the practice of being present to our own selves can lead us into surprising or disconcerting terrain – anxiety, grief, fear, anger, disappointment, bitterness, regret. And yet, arriving at the ground at our feet and planting ourselves there is, ironically, one of the most important steps we can take on the journey toward uncovering our true selves.

When I first moved to Nebraska from New England 18 years ago, almost everything was unfamiliar. The wide-open landscape and vast sky felt strangely oppressive. The searing heat of summer and the bone-jarring cold of winter were disarmingly extreme. The pace of everyday life felt too slow and the people seemed far too enraptured with the local university’s football team. Even the food was unfamiliar. People drank their Bud Lite mixed with tomato juice and ate a strange meat-and-cabbage concoction called a Runza.

Slowly, though, we carved out a life and a home for ourselves here. We made good friends. We painted the dining room walls, hung our kids’ drawings on the fridge, and grew a garden. We learned to appreciate the seas of bluestem, the trilling Meadowlarks, the big sky, the ever-present wind. We found satisfying work. We wore red Cornhusker t-shirts on game days.

In short, we planted ourselves in this place and we stayed. Over time, this place – once so foreign and even, at times, uncomfortable — became familiar. Over time, we learned to be at home in Nebraska.

Benedictine monks and nuns make a vow of hospitality upon entering the order. The Benedictines believe that all guests who present themselves at the monastery are to be welcomed as Christ. According to St. Benedict, “Our encounter with strangers – the unknown, the unexpected, foreign elements that spark our fear – are precisely the place where we are most likely to encounter God,” explains Christine Valters Paintner.

In her book The Artist’s Rule, Paintner suggests that we take St. Benedict’s vow of hospitality and turn it inward toward ourselves. “Inner hospitality is to open our inner selves to everything we fear and reject in ourselves,” she writes. “We extend a welcome to the stranger who dwells inside us.”

Discovering anxiety simmering below my surface was unnerving and uncomfortable. There is work to be done there, to be sure. But none of that work, no matter how important, can happen without first arriving and then staying in that uncomfortable place. We extend hospitality to ourselves – even to the parts of ourselves that unnerve us, the parts of ourselves we don’t much like.

Just like learning to be at home in Nebraska was born out of the long, slow work of arriving and then staying in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable place, finding and learning to be at home in ourselves comes from the long, slow work of arriving and then staying in the sometimes-uncomfortable places in our own selves.

We arrive at the ground at our feet. We stay. And we learn to be at home.

I Am Not a Brand

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A few weeks ago a good friend admitted to me over lunch that for the last few years, whenever she read something I’d posted on Facebook, it had struck her as “a little off.” “I can’t explain it exactly,” she said. “I knew it was you, obviously, but at the same time it didn’t seem to be totally you.”

I cringed. After all, no one wants to be accused of inauthenticity. Yet it seemed that was exactly what my friend was implying. What I heard her say, in so many words, was that I was not quite the same person online that I was in real life.

Years ago, long before I’d published my first book, my agent and I talked often about marketing and branding. She’d encouraged me to figure out who I was and where I fit in the Christian publishing landscape. “You need to find your place and your people,” she advised.

It was good advice. Finding your audience is important, especially for a new writer. The problem was, I didn’t seem to fit anywhere.

As a member of a mainline Protestant denomination, my personal theology aligns with that of “progressive” Christians, yet I’m not outspoken, and I shrink from controversy like it’s the Black Death. I admire many progressive Christian authors, read their work and agree with many of their views, but I also knew the online realm they often occupy was too contentious for me.

On the other hand, my views on marriage equality don’t square with most evangelicals. Though I was always welcomed with grace and love, I also knew in my heart that the more traditional evangelical online communities for women weren’t the best fit for me either.

It seems there is ample room if you sit squarely on either end of the theological spectrum as an outspoken “progressive Christian writer” or a more traditional “evangelical writer,” but, ironically, less space for those who roam the gray area in between.

I wrote both biography and memoir. My first book was released by a progressive Christian publisher, my second (and third and fourth) by a conservative evangelical house. Depending on both my mood and the tenor of the piece I was writing, my “voice” swung from gritty, self-deprecating and sardonic to encouraging, contemplative and lyrical. Once or twice when I was feeling especially convicted I wrote provocative “lightning rod” pieces, but my preferred sweet spot was writing stories and observations about ordinary life and faith.

In short, I did not write in a single genre. I did not have a finely tuned message. My voice varied, and I didn’t fit neatly in one place with one particular audience.

I also did not have a consistent personal brand.

“A brand,” marketing expert Debbie Millman said recently on the Hurry Slowly podcast, “is the result of manufactured meaning.”

Think of the Nike swoosh. What was once simply a random mark, something you might have absentmindedly doodled in the margin of a notebook, has become imbued with meaning. Today we can’t see “the swoosh” without automatically connecting that once-random symbol with attributes like strength, power, athleticism, success, action and “just do it.” Nike manufactured meaning around its brand.

With the rapid explosion of social media came the rise of the personal brand. Influencers from entrepreneurs to movie stars to talk show hosts have personal brands, and these days, most authors – particularly non-fiction authors – have a personal brand too (or at the very least, a consistent, recognizable image and message).

The fact is, the most successful non-fiction authors – both “regular” market and Christian – have constructed powerful personal brands (to be clear, I’m defining “success” based on sales numbers, and, to a lesser extent, number of social media followers). Look no further than best-selling author Rachel Hollis, whose first book Girl, Wash Your Face – published by Christian publisher Thomas Nelson – has sold 1.5 million copies. Hollis has 1.4 million Instagram followers and 1.5 million Facebook fans. Readers know exactly who and what they’ll get when they pick up a book by Rachel Hollis (or when they visit her Instagram, listen to her podcast, watch one of her FB Live videos or attend one of her RISE events), in large part because Hollis has masterfully built a clear, consistent and compelling personal brand — a brand that sells.

Hollis has done exactly what Forbes magazine journalist and entrepreneur Goldie Chan advises in her article “10 Golden Rules of Personal Branding.” Along with “Have Focus,” “Be Consistent” and “Be Genuine“ is Rule #8: “Live Your Brand”:

“Have your lifestyle and brand be one and the same…Your personal brand should follow you everywhere you go. It should be an authentic manifestation of who you are and amplify what you believe.”

At first glance this sounds perfectly acceptable. Who can argue with authenticity and beliefs, right? And from a business, marketing and promotions standpoint, it makes sense. Consumers like to know what they are getting and to have their expectations met, and branding helps achieve that goal. If you like the image and message Rachel Hollis projects online, chances are good that you’ll like her books too.

The problem, though, is that we are talking about human beings. And human beings are inconsistent by nature. We are complex. We are messy. We are complicated and unpredictable. No matter how genuine or authentic we aim to be online, these projections of ourselves are mere holograms. Our very inability to be defined and contained is what makes human beings both amazing and, at times, awful. We are fearfully and wonderfully made; we are flawed and fallible.

We are both/and. And both/and does not make for an effective brand.

Branding works great with sneakers, cars, appliances and handbags. But human beings are not sneakers. We are not cars, appliances or handbags. Human beings are not intended to be brands.

I think this is what my friend was getting at when she observed that there was something not quite right about my online presence. She couldn’t put her finger on it exactly, but I suspect what she was intuiting was a subtle tension, a quiet battle of sorts unfolding just under the surface. I was trying to convey a consistent message. I was trying to offer a consistent voice and a consistent image. I was trying to find a place to fit. I was trying to have focus and be genuine – please believe me when I say that I was genuinely trying to be genuine! I was, in short, trying to give my “audience” what I thought they expected or wanted. In my own stumbling way, I was trying to have a brand, to be a brand. But on the inside, my soul knew better. My soul knew that a human being can’t be a brand.

Here’s the truth about me: Sometimes I’m crabby as all get-up. Sometimes I’m snarky and cynical. Sometimes I’m funny, silly, lighthearted, full of joy and optimism. Sometimes I’m morose. Sometimes I’m energetic. Sometimes I’m withdrawn. Sometimes I’m outgoing. Sometimes I’m exuberant. Sometimes I’m subdued. Sometimes I’m compassionate. Sometimes I’m selfish. I’m two parts sweet and sentimental, two parts crass (or maybe that ratio is 1:3). The scent of a blooming apple tree can move me to tears in the middle of my morning run. I also burp out loud in the privacy of my own home (much to my family’s ongoing horror) and use the F-word from time to time.

I mean, can we just be honest here? No brand in the world could be an “authentic manifestation” of that!

If there’s anything consistent about me (and dare I say, about any human being, even the most masterful personal brandmasters!) it’s that I am inconsistent. I’m a bundle of contradictions. I’m always changing. Sometimes I’m growing, moving forward, being transformed. Sometimes I’m stumbling one step forward two steps back. I won’t be the exact same person tomorrow that I am today. I’m not the same person today that I was yesterday.

In short, I am a human being. I am messy and magical, mundane and mesmerizing. And here’s the truest thing I can tell you about myself right now: I’m grateful that everything that makes me both fabulous and flawed can’t possibly be captured and contained in a brand.

Why {and how} I’m Slowly Becoming a Digital Minimalist

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It used to be that before I clipped Josie’s leash to her collar and walked out the front door, I made sure to slip my phone into the back pocket of my jeans. I took my phone with me on our afternoon walks, not so I could be reached in the case of an emergency, but so I could snap pictures along the way. I didn’t want to risk missing the perfect Instagram shot.

These days I leave my phone at home when I walk Josie. The habit began back in February, when I gave up all social media for Lent, and has continued long after the fast ended on Easter morning. Now, instead of fishing my phone out of my pocket when something catches my eye, I simply take note of it.

A painted lady butterfly balances on a swaying blossom, its proboscis nuzzling into delicate petals.  

The way the evening light warms the greening landscape golden.

The Scotch pine bark that fits together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

It’s refreshing, liberating even, to appreciate beauty for its own sake, rather than as the means to an outcome.

My Lenten social media hiatus was transformative, not only because it helped me break my addiction, but also because the time and space revealed the deeper reasons I gravitate toward social media in the first place.

The truth is, while my intentions to use social media to share beauty and encouragement are genuine, underneath those good intentions also lurks a quiet but persistent vying – a vying to be visible, heard and relevant. A vying for approval and affirmation.

As psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman explains, stepping away from social media is a way to “quiet the ego” – and my ego is in constant need of quieting.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately not only about what compells me to post on social media but also about how I use it for entertainment and to quell boredom. Since reading Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism earlier this spring, I uninstalled Facebook and Twitter from my phone. But those are low-hanging fruit. Instagram, my biggest social media distraction, still tempts me daily, sometimes hourly.

Instagram is where I’m most likely to scroll mindlessly. It’s where I go when I’m bored or to kill time. It’s where I spend the largest portion of my social media time each day. When I finished my Lenten social media fast and had every good intention to keep my digital habits in check, Instagram is what derailed me.

The key to living successfully as a digital minimalist, according to Newport, is to “optimize” what brings you value while minimizing mindless scrolling. In other words, he says, “Take steps to extract the good from these technologies while sidestepping what is bad.” Aim for long-term meaning over short-term satisfaction, and “focus online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support the things you value.”

Instagram does offer some value to me, namely images of beauty and nature when I don’t have access to it in real life and a place to connect with people I know and like but from whom I am physically distant. With Newport’s advice in mind, I recently curated my Instagram feed so that it better reflects what I value. I unfollowed hundreds of people, keeping only those accounts in my feed that align with these values:

— Friends and people I know in real life but don’t see as often as I would like

— People who live in Nebraska

— People whose pictures appeal to me visually (namely, they share images of nature that I consider beautiful)

— People I might not know in person but who I can count on to share meaningful content that resonates with me.

Now, because I’ve curated my feed to optimize what I consider valuable and don’t waste as much time scrolling through content that doesn’t interest me, I actually spend less time each day on Instagram. And the time I do spend there is more fulfilling and meaningful because I am seeing more of the content I value.

It’s not a perfect solution. I still spend far too much time on Instagram, though I’m not quite ready to abandon it entirely. And if I’m honest with myself, I still also post content to social media at least in part as a means to be seen and feel relevant. Slowly, though, I am inching my way toward a more digitally minimal lifestyle that is both quieting to my ego and less consuming of my time and energy.

Church Doesn’t Always Have to Happen in a Church

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I skipped church last Sunday. I wasn’t sick or out of town, and I didn’t have a scheduling conflict. I simply decided not to go. Instead, while the kids slept in, I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, slid on my running shoes and slipped out the front door. I jogged down the bike path with the sun warm on the back of my neck and the sound of birdsong in my ears.

Fifteen years ago, when I started attending church regularly again after a two-decade hiatus from both religion and faith, I couldn’t get enough of it. I sprang out of bed every Sunday morning, eager to immerse myself in the worship experience. I drank in every part of the service, from the scripture readings and the sermon to the hymns and the communal prayers, like I was drinking a tall glass of cold water on a scorching August day. I loved the anticipation I felt almost every time I opened my Bible or walked through the church doors. The weekly ritual of liturgy and community became the rich soil in which my faith grew and flourished.

More recently, though, I admitted to my husband that attending church has come to feel less imperative. While I’m always glad I went, and I am especially grateful for my church community, which nudges me out of my comfortable places to connect with people whom I might not ordinarily cross paths, the truth is, the spiritual practice of weekly worship doesn’t enliven me like it once did.

In some ways this feels like a loss. I miss the freshness of my new faith. I miss the energy that zinged through my heart, mind and soul on Sunday mornings. I miss feeling invigorated and inspired after nearly every church service, eager to do my small part in furthering God’s kingdom on Earth.

At the same time, though, I am aware that both my experience of church and my faith itself, while mellower and a little less sparkly, have also matured into something deeper and wider.

My understanding of church and God is less contained. There is an openness and an expansiveness to my faith that feels right in this season of my life. And I know this faith that is both more grounded and more expansive has its roots in all those years of weekly church. Those 15 years of Sundays are the foundation upon which my faith of today continues to change and grow.

Last Sunday morning as I ran along the bike trail, I prayed for friends facing health challenges, for loved ones traveling overseas and for people I know who are grieving, lost and lonely.

I inhaled the scent of freshly mowed grass and noticed the orange flash of an Oriole swooping overhead.

I smiled and huffed a breathless “good morning!” to the runners, dog walkers and cyclists traveling in the opposite direction.

I gave thanks for the cool breeze on my face and for a body that can run (albeit less quickly than it used to).

Last Sunday morning I didn’t sing hymns or pray aloud in unison with others. There was no bread and no wine, no scripture read, no sermon preached. I didn’t wear heels or mascara or sit in a pew. But there was communion, peace, prayers and the presence of God.

Last Sunday morning, out running on the trail, I was at church.

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This essay was originally published in the Lincoln Journal Star on June 8, 2019.