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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Nebraska

When It’s Time to Head to the Big Sky and the Grassy Plains

September 10, 2015 By Michelle

Prairiegrass

My mind and body crave air, wide spaces, big sky. So we go, the kids and I. We go to where the wind rushes loud in our ears and where our hair blows tangled. Where the sun sets hot and grasshoppers ping off our legs and caterpillars munch milkweed into kaleidoscope designs.

We go to the grassy plains.

I press the pedal close to the floor as soon as the Capitol fades blurry in the rearview mirror and roll down the windows, wind whipping, boys laughing. When we arrive the preserve is empty, save one photographer buried beneath a camouflage tarp, a mammoth lens protruding like a periscope from the folds.

We meander. Truthfully I trudge while the boys skip. But with each step, my body lightens, my breath evens and my limbs settle into a rhythm.

The boys capture soldier beetles. The yellow bugs are easy prey, bumbling slowly in flight like tiny blimps, gathering in the mossy brown center of a sunflower, lazy drunk on nectar. Whole families picnic in those petal-framed circles, and as the stalks pitch and bow in the wind, I imagine it must be a little like dining on the plunging pirate ship ride at the state fair.

At the top of the hill we stop and turn, facing west as the dry wind gusts fierce and the sun slides low, pond glinting like mica. “It looks like the land goes forever,” says Noah, and we talk about how this was the way Nebraska used to be, before acres of corn and soybeans, before grain elevators and downtowns and cul-de-sacs. When wagon wheels lurched over uneven ground toward promise and hope.

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Copy of grass and sunsetwater

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grass

Noah spots a stick bug, spindly twig delicate against waving grass.

Rowan finds a katydid, emerald treasure buried deep in goldenrod.

Cottonwood leaves sizzle in the wind like bacon hot in the pan, grasshoppers sing loud, sunflower leaves rustle as the clouds light up a Monet display. Each moment is more spectacular than the next as the sun inches lower, shimmering the grasses in gold, and the whole earth is filled with his glory.

It’s getting late. The wind stills and the grasses sing louder with nighttime sounds — crickets’ steady song, gulping frogs, a splash of something into the pond water. I cajole the boys back to the van. Rowan lingers, leaping to catch a hawk moth between clasped hands, and I call him in from the draping dusk.

We drive the back roads home, dust billowing a Hansel and Gretel path behind us. I turn the van onto the pavement toward the glittering city. Out the dust-streaked windows, a sailors’-delight sky fades to grey.

 The Luthers are killing me this week, so I’m dipping into the archives again today with a post from September 2010. Some weeks I just can’t blog and write a book at the same time, so thanks for giving me a little wiggle-room so I can focus on Martin and Katie. Yup, we’re on a first-name/nickname basis now.

Filed Under: Nebraska Tagged With: Nebraska

Dragonflies, Quiet, Hot Prairie Sun

July 10, 2015 By Michelle

blue dragonfly

Mountains, forests, farms, shore – New England’s landscape is as varied as its seasons, which present a fresh palette like clockwork every three months: delicate pastel crocus in spring; summer’s emerald rolling hills; autumn’s sapphire skies and raucous sugar maples and sassafras; the pristine white and steely gray of winter’s snow, slush and ice.

When I moved from Massachusetts to Nebraska nearly 15 years ago, the landscape seemed drab in comparison. Autumn and winter presented a dull palette of brown, gold and gray; spring was the green upon green of soybeans and early corn; summer, the washed-out beige of dried stalks. And in every season, the air seemed to hold the scent of manure, even in the city, miles away from the fields.

It’s taken several years, but over time as I’ve explored the land, I’ve come to realize that Nebraska’s landscape offers its own beauty and diversity. It’s subtler — one needs to look more closely and carefully to notice its nuances – but it’s here.

…I’m over at Tweetspeak today, writing about one of my very favorite spots in Nebraska…join me over there for a walk through the tall-grass prairie? 

Filed Under: Nebraska, Tweetspeak Poetry Literary Tours Tagged With: Nebraska, Spring Creek Prairie, Tweetspeak

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: No Exceptions

September 17, 2012 By Michelle


 
As the sandwiches, Cokes and chips slid down the conveyer belt, the cashier turned to me with a question: “Likethatinasack?”

“I’m sorry, excuse me?”


“Likethatinasack?” 

I looked at her blankly.


“Do…you…want…it…in…a….sack?” She pointed at the plastic bag with a magenta fingernail.

“Ohhhhhh…a bag.Yeah, yeah. Please. A bag.”

I wondered if she could tell. Was it clear that I hadn’t known what she meant when she used the word “sack” instead of bag? The realization was sharp, sudden: I’d been in Nebraska all of two hours, and it felt like I’d landed in a foreign country. I didn’t even speak the language.

I often think about my move to Nebraska when I read the many verses about foreigners that are peppered throughout much of the Old Testament. I can’t imagine how difficult it is for the immigrants who come to the United States, most without a job awaiting them, or adequate housing. Most not knowing more than a word or two of English. Many not knowing a single soul. I can’t imagine how overwhelming it would be to navigate the aisles of SunMart, never mind converse with the cashier.

God is very clear about how he wants us to help these newcomers. Just as he loves the foreigners living among us, giving them food and clothing, he expects we will do the same:

“So you, too, must show love to foreigners, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:19).

The problem, of course, is that sometimes we make exceptions to this command. We decide only certain foreigners deserve our help – the ones who are here legally, the ones who aren’t stealing our jobs, the ones who we deem are working hard enough or who are assimilating as they should or who are learning English adequately. The ones who aren’t abusing the system.

We make exceptions. We determine who we will help and who doesn’t qualify.

I know this because I have thought exactly this way from time to time. And I’ve been set straight by God.

The truth is, God “shows no partiality.” (Deuteronomy 10:17)

He doesn’t separate foreigners into two categories: the deserving and the undeserving. Instead, he loves, clothes and feeds all, and he states explicitly that he expects us to do the same.

“Show love to foreigners,” he commands – not “show love to some foreigners” or “show love to these foreigners, but not those.” Simply, show love to all foreigners.

Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in politics and controversies and lose sight of what God wants. In the end, though, it’s not that complicated. The Bible is clear. God wants us to show no partiality. He wants us to love everyone.

No exceptions.

Do you ever make a distinction between who you deem deserving and who you deem undeserving? Have any of the verses about foreigners in the Bible ever changed the way you think? 

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One little note…before we get to the Hear It, Use It link-up: I wanted to let you know about a new link-up community launched by my friend Jenn LeBow — a Monday link-up community called Mercy Mondays. Today’s prompt is “Singing of his Mercy — How Mercy and Music Intersects for you.” Will you pop over to Jenn’s place to check it out? I think you’ll find it a cool place to hang for a while!

 : : : :
 
Welcome to the “Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday” community, a place where we share what we are hearing from God and his Word.

If you’re here for the first time, click here for more information. Please include the Hear It, Use It button (grab the code below) or a link in your post, so your readers know where to find the community if they want to join in — thank you!

Please also try to visit and leave some friendly encouragement in the comment box of at least one other Hear It, Use It participant. And if you want to tweet about the community, please use the #HearItUseIt hashtag.

 Thank you — I am so grateful that you are here!


 

Click here to get Graceful in your email in-box. Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!

Filed Under: immigrant, judging, Nebraska, Old Testament, Use It on Monday

Graceful Summer: A Day of Small Things

June 15, 2012 By Michelle


It’s blowing so hard dust swirls in a cloud across the gravel lot, raining grit on the windshield and coating the van. The sign says the nature center doesn’t open until noon, but the kids beg and plead and we’ve driven 25 minutes from town, the wracking wind bullying us across the yellow dotted line.

I say yes, let’s stay. The building itself may be closed, but the prairie is always open.

Open.

I stand on the rise, hair tangled across my eyes, and I shake my head, laughing, because it was exactly this – this wide open land, this vast space I called “nothingness” – that I’d dreaded so much. I didn’t cry when I first heard I’d be moving to Nebraska. I was simply quiet with a sick dread. I had deemed Nebraska among my top five worst places to live – third behind only North Dakota and Nevada. How would I survive life in a giant rectangular state filled with nothing but corn and cattle?

And now? Now I can’t get enough of these huge skies and low clouds, rippling grass, flash of gold wing, hot wind.

The boys skip, each with a bag of baby carrots in his hand. Noah spots scarlet on black, and a red-winged blackbird trills from the willow. Rowan crouches, tall grass itching his calves, to watch a caterpillar on a balance beam blade. I tip my head back far to glimpse a dipping, soaring, wheeling hawk, graceful daredevil of the plains.

We sit out of the wind on the wooden bridge, dangle our feet over a chartreuse marsh, spy on the still frog.

He doesn’t move. Neither do we. I resist the urge to hurry the boys along. A hot summer day on the prairie seems like the perfect time to break a bad habit.

“Who despises the day of small things?”
Zechariah 4:10
{Pictures from Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center, near Denton, Nebraska.}
What’s your favorite way to spend a day of small things?
Welcome to Graceful Summer, a new link-up community here on Fridays through the end of August. We’re sharing stories about the smaller, quieter moments of summer – will you share yours, too?
1. Write your post and link it up here on Fridays.
2. Visit someone else and leave a little comment love  – you might get a new creatively quiet idea!
3. Please include the Graceful Summer button or a link in your post, so people can find us if they want to join in.

 

Filed Under: graceful summer, Great Plains, Nebraska, quiet, small moments, Spring Creek Prairie

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Triple Type A, “make it happen” (my dad’s favorite mantra) striver and achiever (I’m a 3 on the Enneagram, which tells you everything you need to know), but these days my striving looks more like sitting in silence on a park bench, my dog at my feet, as I slowly learn to let go of the false selves that have formed my identity for decades and lean toward uncovering who God created me to be.

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