Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

small moments

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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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.

How to Choose the Moment Itself

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I wanted to share the piece I wrote for my monthly column in the Lincoln Journal Star last week.  This moment and what I learned from it in retrospect really resonated with me, and I hope I captured it well enough so it does for you, too. Peace, friends – and thank you for this quiet break I am so enjoying during these summer months…

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One afternoon last week I spotted my son, Noah, perched on the edge of one of the raised beds in the garden, his lunch plate balanced on his lap. When I saw what he was gazing at so intently, I ducked back into the house to grab my camera.

Noah was watching a particularly large and beautiful black swallowtail butterfly as it sailed from coneflower to coneflower. The butterfly’s wings spanned nearly the length of my open palm. Its iridescent body, intricately decorated with splashes of orange, indigo, and yellow, shimmered in the summer sun.

Camera in hand, I circled wide around the blooms, hoping I could photograph the swallowtail unnoticed. I crept in close from behind, zoomed my lens on the insect, and snapped six images in quick succession. Bending low at waist, I leaned in and refocused the lens for an even closer shot.

I chased the butterfly around the garden, snapping more photographs each time it alighted on another coneflower. When it glided over the fence, I followed it, bent on capturing one more picture, this time with my camera phone so I could post the image on Instagram and Facebook.

Pulling the garden gate closed behind me, I stopped to say something to Noah over my shoulder, and just as I was pulling my phone from my pocket, I caught a flash of black swoop in low over the flowers, then up over the fence. When I turned back, the swallowtail was gone, evidently plucked from its perch by a bird.

There’s a scene in the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, in which Walter crouches next to a renowned nature photographer on a remote mountainside. The photographer has been waiting for the elusive snow leopard to appear, but when the mysterious animal finally creeps into sight, perfectly framed in the camera’s viewfinder, the photographer doesn’t click the shutter.

“When are you going to take it?” Walter whispers. The photographer waits a moment, peering into his camera. Finally he lifts his head to answer, his gaze still trained on the snow leopard.

“Sometimes I don’t,” he says. “If I like a moment personally, for me, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it. Right there…right here.”

These days it seems most of us rarely give ourselves the opportunity to simply be there, undistracted in the moment – to stay in an experience, observing and admiring something beautiful for the simple gift of it. My habitual response when I witness a moment of beauty is often to document it for the purpose of sharing it on social media. I appreciate the moment, but it’s a distracted appreciation, diluted by my ulterior motive.

I ended up capturing several stunning photographs of the butterfly balanced on the purple coneflowers, its vibrant wings fully open. I felt a twinge of guilt over my role in the butterfly’s demise – after all, in pursuing “just one more” photograph, I’d chased the swallowtail from the relative protection of the garden into an open space where it was more vulnerable to predators. Nevertheless, I was pleased to share the photograph on social media and pleased by how well it was received.

Noah, however, made a different choice in the same moment. He sat quietly and unobtrusively, admiring and appreciating the swallowtail’s elegance, beauty, and grace as it danced from flower to flower.

I have the photographs that document the moment. Noah had the pure, undiluted moment itself.

Stopping to Build an Altar

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The boys and I took Josie for a walk at the park on Sunday night. The grass swished around our shins as we ambled toward the pond, the sun golden, the shadows long, the air completely still.

We paused to watch a graduate posing for pictures, her robe a waterfall of scarlet, mortar board bobby-pinned to her shining hair, high heels sinking into the soft earth. Nearby a couple walked slowly toward the water, his hand on her rounded belly.

Noah bent low, aiming his camera to capture a bumblebee tumbling amid the purple catmint, sunlight streaming through the cypress. Rowan crouched over the murky water, seeking frogs who held their breath among the reeds. A flock of geese honked overhead, disappeared beyond the rise. A meadowlark trilled, yellow breast catching the light.

We stopped to watch a deer watching us from the shade, her ears perked. Josie stood still, tail taut, nose quivering.

I’m reading Genesis again in the mornings, beginning at the beginning, not aiming for a certain number of verses or chapters every day, but meandering, taking my time, pausing when a verse or a word resonates. I try to read aloud, whispering as the orioles and cardinals call outside the window in the early morning half-light.

In Genesis 12, God sends Abram out from his homeland on a journey into Canaan. Along the way, when he stops to make camp, the text notes, Abram builds an altar to God.

I noticed, as I read along in Genesis, that Abram does this more than once. Every time he pauses to rest along his journey, Abram builds an altar to God.

Abram didn’t have a church to worship in every Sunday morning. He didn’t have a specific place to go in which to acknowledge God and praise him in community. Instead, he built that place for himself, for his people, and for God. Abram acknowledged God’s presence, not just one day of the week, but every time he paused along the journey.

Church — a place to worship, a community with whom to worship — is a blessing and a gift. I love my church. I look forward to attending worship service on Sunday mornings. And yet, there is often a complacency in my worship. I take it for granted. I compartmentalize my acknowledgement of God into an hour a week. Often, even in spite of my best intentions, God is overshadowed by the busyness and distractions of my Monday through Saturday life, in the rush of soccer practice and orchestra concerts and deadlines and dog walking and laundry.

We came upon a man half-hidden at the bottom of the hill. He’d parked his bike under a lone oak tree, and as we approached him, he sat up to greet us. I glanced at the book in his hand, The Mill on the Floss, curious about his choice.

We chatted for a moment. The evening was remarkably beautiful, we agreed. After a minute or two, the boys, the dog and I continued on, and when I turned back to look at the man, I saw he’d lain back down and been swallowed up by the tall grass, his bike the only sign that he was still there.

Later that night, the boys asleep, the house dark and still, I thought about our walk in the park –  the light, the stillness, the man under the tree, the Meadowlark trilling, Rowan loping, the light on his red curls, Noah bending low to capture a bee on a bloom.

I thought about Abram, about stopping to build altars along the journey not once in a while, but every day.