Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

small moments

How Doxology Can Change Everything

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Recently I talked to a friend who was having a hard day. It was nothing catastrophic; simply that the mounting demands of her work had taken their toll, and anxiety had gotten the best of her, leaving her feeling overwhelmed and stressed.

My advice to her was twofold. One: get outside; and two: practice doxology.

A few years ago I learned about a Japanese practice called shinrin-yoku, which roughly translates as “forest-bathing.” In Japan, whole forests are set apart for the sole purpose of inviting visitors to be present to the sights, sounds and scents of nature.

Studies show that spending even a few minutes outside each day in any kind of natural space – forested or otherwise — can have a profound impact on our physical health by lowering blood pressure, decreasing cortisol levels and increasing immune function.

But I’ve also found that “forest bathing” – or what we Nebraskans might more accurately call “plains bathing” – can also have a dramatic effect on our spiritual life and the state of our souls, especially when combined with doxology.

Earlier this summer I attended a women’s supper at a local Lutheran church, and at the close of the event, the host suggested we all sing the doxology together before going our separate ways.

“Huh? The what-ology?” I thought to myself, as the women around me began to sing:

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”

After fake lip-syncing my way through the unfamiliar hymn that evening, I later learned that the word “doxology” comes from the Greek doxa, translated as “glory,” and logia, translated as “saying.” There are a number of different iterations, but in short, doxology is a fancy word for the simple practice of giving praise.

Since learning about the doxology, I now often sing it quietly to myself while I walk my dog (lucky for me, Josie makes sure I get my daily shinrin-yoku in). As we meander along the path, I notice and give thanks to God for the vibrant black-eyed Susans dotting the meadow, for the melodious call of the Oriole hidden amid the oak leaves, for the sleek fox I spot darting into the underbrush across the ravine.

Giving thanks to God while immersed in his creation not only settles my racing mind and brings me a measure of peace, it also offers much-needed perspective.

Photo by Noah Johnson

There is something deeply comforting in acknowledging and accepting my smallness in the face of nature’s breadth and depth. Noticing the intricate design of the blossoming Queen Anne’s lace at my feet and the vastness of the sky over my head reminds me of how fleeting and inconsequential most of my anxieties and concerns really are.

Singing the Christian doxology while I practice the Japanese shinrin-yoku under the wide Nebraska sky is a somewhat strange and unlikely spiritual discipline, but it’s become a favorite, near-daily personal routine. I’m always amazed that two simple practices – noticing and giving thanks – can make such a profound difference in my mental, physical and spiritual health.

Turns out, shinrin-yoku doxology worked for my friend too. A few hours after I’d talked to her, she reported back that she’d taken my advice. After a quiet walk around the lake and a few minutes spent gratefully cuddling a newborn kitten in the barn, she had returned to her desk with a lighter heart, a less frantic mind and a replenished soul.

This post first appeared in the Lincoln Journal Star on September 8, 2018.

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Find and Be Found

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“Find, rather than seek.” When I read those four words in Joan Anderson’s memoir A Year by the Sea, they stopped me short.

I was sitting on the back deck of our family cabin at the edge of Lake Superior. I stopped reading mid-chapter, laid the open book face down on the arm of the Adirondack chair, and stared out over the expanse of gray water stretching like a metal sheet to the horizon.

Sitting in that chair, the sound of gentle waves at my feet, I was at the same time drawn to and troubled by Anderson’s words.

The problem was, her instructions seemed to contradict a statement Jesus makes to his disciples in the gospels of Matthew and Luke: “Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened to you.”

These words Jesus offers about seeking and finding have resonated with me for a long time. I am a seeker and a questioner. Part of this tendency is simply who I am; questioning is stamped on my DNA. But there is also a deeper force propelling these seeking, questioning tendencies in me, which is the fact that, for as long as I can remember, I’ve wrestled with a sense of restlessness, an unrequited yearning deep in my soul.

While I don’t believe God gives us everything we ask for, I have always found comfort in the words Jesus offers about seeking and finding. They’ve been a balm for my restless soul, a promise of sorts – reassurance that I will indeed someday find what I am looking for.

And yet, that day on the back deck, the cold breeze blowing off the lake, I couldn’t get Anderson’s words out of my head. “Find, rather than seek.” The more I pondered her words, the more I realized Anderson’s advice might not be in direct opposition to Jesus’ instructions to us after all.

I’ve spent most of my life relentlessly pursuing goals I’ve set. I accomplish one goal and then immediately fix my mind and heart on the next. I’ve pressed on, ticking item after item, ambition after ambition off an ever-growing list. My life has been built on striving, pushing toward something I couldn’t quite identify.

Turns out, in 48 years of seeking, I am finally beginning to find. And ironically, what I’m finding is that I already have, and have always had, what I’ve been seeking all along.

Everything we need is right here, right now, in this very moment. We find God, and we find who we are, by being present, by opening our eyes, ears, hearts, minds and souls to the here and now.  To find rather than seek means to uncover and to be present to what’s already here and to who we are, and have always been, in Christ.

What seeking ultimately reveals in the end is that we need not seek at all. Once we realize this — once we discover that we’ve already found and been found — we can rest in peace, understanding that what we’ve found is abundantly available to us.

Abundant love. Abundant peace. Abundant beauty. Abundant freedom. Abundant truth. Our finding is limited only by the boundaries we put it around it.

I sat in the Adirondack chair on the back deck for a long while that afternoon. In time, the clouds over the lake began to break. Bands of sunlight streamed down to the water as dragonflies, lacy wings glinting, swooped low over the lawn and arced back up again, snatching smaller insects from the air.

The sound of a hatchet cracking wood, my husband chopping logs for the fire, pierced the quiet. A hummingbird, jeweled ruby throat, visited the feeder, drinking long and deep from each plastic floret, wings whirring.

The breeze stilled. I unzipped my sweatshirt, leaned my head back against the wood, closed my eyes and felt the sun warm on my face.

We have all, each one of us, found.

We have all, each one of us, been found.

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How Will You Live Your One Life?

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My husband Brad and I attended a memorial service a few weeks ago for a person we hadn’t known well. Between the two of us, we’d probably engaged in fewer than a dozen ten-minute conversations with Dennis in the several years we were acquainted with him. Yet as Brad observed, he always walked away from even the briefest conversation with Dennis feeling lighter and more positive. It seemed important to honor that, and so, on a Saturday morning in early May we slipped into one of the back pews to pay our respects.

As we waited quietly for the service to begin, I read the obituary printed on the inside of the program. I knew Dennis had been a quarterback for the University of Nebraska Huskers back in the 1960s, but I hadn’t known he’d also been drafted by the NFL. Turns out, he attended the University of Nebraska’s College of Dentistry during the NFL off seasons until he was asked by the dean to make a choice between full time school and football. The obituary noted that Dennis chose dentistry and never looked back.

The eulogy offered us further insights into Dennis’ character. We heard, for example, that he had used his dentistry skills to help the less fortunate, a passion that was kindled during multiple mission trips to Honduras.

We also learned that he was the kind of person who sought out those who were suffering. On Sunday mornings, the pastor noted, Dennis always made a beeline directly to the person he knew was going through a tough time. In the midst of Dennis’ own three-year battle with cancer, for example, he regularly visited a young man in the congregation who was undergoing chemotherapy at the same time.

As I listened to the eulogy for Dennis, I couldn’t help but recall the last line of Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Summer Day,” in which she asks, “So tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

The more I thought about the poem’s question in light of Dennis’ obituary and eulogy, the more I realized Oliver isn’t referring to our professional successes, our awards or our accolades – in other words, the kinds of details that might be listed in an obituary.

With the exception of someone like Oprah, most of us won’t be remembered for our professional achievements. Dennis’ accomplishments as a star college quarterback, as a successful orthodontist with his own practice and even as an NFL football player are important, to be sure, but in the end, those professional accomplishments are mere footnotes in the larger story of his life.

What his colleagues, friends, loved ones, and even acquaintances like Brad and I will remember most about Dennis was who he was as a person.

We will remember his kindness, his gregariousness, his genuine smile.

We will remember his generosity and compassion.

We will remember his solid faith.

We will remember the simple fact that chatting with Dennis, even for just five minutes, always gave us a little more spring in our step.

I think Mary Oliver would agree that Dennis lived his “one wild and precious life” well, not because of the extraordinary things he accomplished, but because of how well he lived the ordinary, largely unseen moments of his one life.

Each of us is allowed the same choice Dennis had. The question is: how will we live our “one wild and precious life,” not just in the extraordinary moments, but in all the ordinary moments in between.

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If this post resonated with you, consider signing up to receive my weekly blog posts in your in-box (or, if you’d prefer, my monthly newsletter, The Back Patio — a casual chat about books, podcasts, and fun, everday life kinds of things). You can sign up over HERE, and as a free gift for subscribing, I’ll also send you my free e-book, 5 Unconventional Spiritual Practices for Your Soul.

Why a Small Gesture Makes a World of Difference {a story of the warm cookie angel}

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One day a few weeks ago, as I was staring out the sunroom windows into the middle distance, ostensibly “working,” I spotted The Warm Cookie car idling in front of my house.

Let’s pause right here for a moment of silence to appreciate that there is such thing as a Warm Cookie delivery service in Lincoln, Nebraska. It’s true. You can order a dozen chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, butterscotch oatmeal chocolate chip, or any other number of flavors, and they will deliver a box of cookies still warm from the oven right to your door. You can even add a pint of milk or a single serving of vanilla ice cream with your delivery.

Jesus himself came up with this concept, I am sure of it. In between changing water into wine and distributing fish and bread to the multitudes, he trademarked The Warm Cookie.

Anyway, when I saw the Warm Cookie car idling in front of my house, my heart leapt. I’d never been the lucky recipient of a box of Warm Cookies, and I thought my time had finally come.

Alas, it hadn’t. My heart broke as the car accelerated past my house and turned into my neighbor’s driveway. No warm cookies for me.

I posted my disappointment on Facebook, received much empathy for my cookielessness state, and promptly forgot about the whole incident.

Four days later, I was having a terrible-no-good-very-bad day. You know the kind. My writing projects were backlogged at work. I sucked up the vacuum cord, shorted out the vacuum and nearly electrocuted myself in the process. My kids needed to be in two different places at the same time. And I’d just found out my closest friend was moving 1,500 miles away. That kind of day.

Walking in the door after my hour-long commute, I dropped my bags on the living room floor and slumped into the kitchen. And that’s when I saw it. There on the counter sat a cardboard box wrapped in a raffia bow, nestled inside of which were a dozen warm cookies. I read the card: “I wanted The Warm Cookie car to stop at your house.” It was from Kimberly.

Warm cookie in hand, I immediately Voxed my friend Kimberly in New Jersey, gushing into the phone, detailing the terrible-no-good-very-badness of my day and thanking her for her kindness.

But here’s the clincher: the warm cookies weren’t from my friend Kimberly. She messaged me back a little while later, sheepishly admitting that though she would love to take credit for the idea, the surprise delivery was not from her.

Here’s the second clincher: to my knowledge, I do not know any other Kimberlys. Mystified, I called The Warm Cookie, explaining my conundrum and why I hoped to track down the giver. Turns out, The Warm Cookie company had no record of a Michelle as a recipient nor a Kimberly as a giver.

I call her the Cookie Angel now, the mysterious Kimberly who gave me a reason to smile on a terrible-no-good-very-bad day. And as I write this, I’m thinking, wouldn’t it be fun to make this a thing? To launch a Pay it Forward Warm Cookie Angel Campaign? As far as I can see, the world could really use some snickerdoodles right now.

In all seriousness, though – we would all do well to remember the lasting and powerful effect of the small but meaningful gesture. Maybe it’s a handwritten note slipped into the mail. Or a bouquet of zinnias snipped from your garden. Or a lively greeting along your daily exercise route. As Mother Teresa so famously said, “We can’t all do great things. But we can all do small things with great love.”

Thank you, Kimberly the Cookie Angel. Your small thing turned around my bad day and made me smile all week (and my kids were pretty happy about it too).

Put Your Kindness into the World

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* It’s the first week of September…how did that even happen?! My kids have been back in school for three weeks, and I am back into a regular work routine — all the amens! Today’s post is  my column that ran in the Lincoln Journal Star this month, but next Wednesday I hope to back to a regular weekly blog schedule. I’ll have some news for you, plus some thoughts on recovering from a hard season. Thanks for sticking with me during my blogging respite – I missed you!*

A couple of weeks ago I did something uncharacteristic while I was jogging on the bike path. I stopped to talk to a stranger.

You know the runners who seem like they have springs coiled in the soles of their sneakers? The ones who pass by all chipper and spry? That’s not me. My primary focus when I run is oxygen intake. I typically don’t have the energy to extend much more than a teeth-clenching smile to those I pass by.

This summer, though, I couldn’t help but notice one walker in particular. In fact, it was hard not to notice him, because every time I passed him on the trail – which I did two or three times a week all summer long — he offered an exuberant greeting or a kind word.

Sometimes when he spotted me he complimented the color of my shirt or shorts, which made me laugh, because I don’t wear the snazziest fitness gear you’ve ever seen.

But more often than not, he looked me straight in the eye as we passed each other and called out, “Have a wonderful day!” with more enthusiasm you would ever imagine an older gentleman could muster.

I began to keep an eye out for the man with the paddler’s hat and the peppy greeting. I noticed I had more spring in my step after he greeted me; I began to look forward to seeing him.

This past July my friend Amanda launched a project she called WholeSpirit – 31 days of speaking kindly to strangers, complimenting people just because, and writing encouraging notes. When the 31 days were done, she wrote a recap about it on Facebook, noting how surprisingly difficult and often awkward it was to say real, meaningful things to strangers. “I’m a tall blond woman, so maybe people thought I was trying to sell them real estate,” she quipped.

Despite the inherent discomfort in speaking words of authentic kindness to strangers, though, Amanda noticed that every single person she spoke to reacted positively. “Everyone’s face lit up,” she recalled. “They smiled. They looked genuinely shocked, and they usually responded with a simple ‘thank you.’”

A few days after reading Amanda’s Facebook post about her WholeSpirit project, I saw the cheerful man approaching on the bike trail. Before I could lose my nerve, I plucked out my earbuds and veered onto his side of the path. “I appreciate you so much, and I just want to say thank you for being a bright spot in my mornings,” I gushed breathlessly.

His name is Ted, and Amanda was right, he seemed a bit surprised by my declaration of gratitude (or perhaps he was simply startled by the middle-aged woman who had unceremoniously lumbered sweaty and gasping into his morning reverie). Seconds into our brief conversation, though, Ted’s surprise turned to delight. We introduced ourselves, he thanked me for stopping him, and then, as is his habit, Ted wished me a wonderful day.

“Being kind in our minds may be easy, but are we putting that kindness into the world?” Amanda asked in her Facebook post. “Be overwhelmingly generous with your kindness. It literally costs you nothing, and makes all the difference in this world.”

Ted puts his kind thoughts into his small piece of the world every day, and I, for one, am grateful.