Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

the writing life

To the Land I Will Show You

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I have always loved the start of a brand-new year. I relish swapping out the wrinkled, scribbled planner for a brand-new one chock-full of white pages and empty squares. I love to make resolutions, to list out goals, to dream and plan. I love that the dawning of a new year offers the perfect opportunity to reflect on what has passed and plan for what is to come.

I spent some time over the holidays thinking back on 2019. It was a year of big change and transition for me – both  professionally and personally – as I stepped out of the publishing arena, put book-writing on the back-back-back burner, turned my attention to my work at The Salvation Army and began to figure out who I am and who I want to be.

The year was not without sorrow. Case in point: I bawled my eyes out at the end of the new Little Women film, as Jo stood behind the plate-glass window and watched her novel being typeset, printed and bound. The joy and satisfaction on her face as she held her first book in her hands pricked a tender spot in me, and as I left the theater all glassy-eyed, still dabbing at my nose with a Kleenex, I couldn’t help but panic a little bit: “Why on earth did I quit? What have I done?!”

Still, when I look back at all of 2019, I feel solidly good. On one hand, not much happened – at least outwardly. But the transformation that has taken place within made it one of the most exhilarating years of my life. I’ve stripped a lot away; I’ve been pruned back to what feels like my pith. This past year marked the beginning of a journey toward reclaiming myself – a journey that will continue for as long as I am alive.

At the same time I am sensing a restlessness, a low-level agitation humming beneath the surface of these early January days. I feel like there is a “next thing” on the horizon – the problem is, I don’t yet know what that “next thing” is. I’m confident that writing will continue to be an important part of my personal story and my vocation, but I am still uncertain as to what shape it will take. A new creative project? A more substantial commitment to non-profit work? Blog writing? Something else altogether?  The role writing will play in my life going forward is still a shifting mirage in the far-off distance.

In the quiet early morning of New Year’s Eve, tucked into the corner of my brother- and sister-in-law’s sofa in Minnesota, eight inches of freshly fallen snow blanketing the back yard, I read the story in Genesis of Abram’s calling, specifically these words:

“The Lord said to Abram: ‘Go forth from your land, from your relatives and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.’” (12:1)

The distance between Haran – Abram and his wife Sarai’s current town of residence – to the new land God had for them in Canaan was about 400 miles. Abram didn’t know which land, exactly, God had for him. He didn’t know where it was, what it looked like or how long it would take to travel there. He couldn’t see Canaan from where he stood in Haran. And yet, with his wife, his nephew Lot, and his livestock and people, he set out for that unseen land. Abram simply trusted God at his word. He trusted God would tell him when he had arrived at the place God had for him.

Turns out, like Abram, I’m en route to the place God has for me. This place has not yet been revealed. I can’t yet see it from where I stand, and I don’t really have any idea what it will look like. It is, at this point, a matter of trust – trust that God will indeed show me not only the land I am traveling to, but also the way to get there.

Why Your Passion Doesn’t Have to Be Your Job

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This morning on the way to school, my son Noah, who is a senior and deep into the college application process, mentioned he might want to attend the University of Nebraska here in Lincoln. “That way,” he said, “even if I live on campus, I can still come home to take care of my plants.”

I bit my tongue to keep from blurting, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!” I mean, really — who selects a college based on its proximity to their houseplants?

Well, the answer is: Noah does. Because plants are Noah’s passion.

Noah started collecting plants almost before he could speak in complete sentences. This is the kid who, when he was a preschooler, sat on Santa’s lap at the mall and asked for the book Designing with Succulents for Christmas. I’ve never seen a Santa Claus look so utterly baffled as I shouted out from behind the velvet rope, “It’s a gardening book!”

The shelves in Noah’s room are lined with succulents and cactus. A rubber tree is staked near the window, and a dracaena marginata sits adjacent to his nightstand. In the early mornings, a fuchsia glow seeps from the crack beneath his bedroom door, light from the “grow lamp” he bought for his candelabra cactus. When I went to Honduras this summer, I texted him photos of giant agave clinging to the rocky hillside. I know my son; he prefers pictures of plants over people.

I thought about all this in the car this morning after Noah made his declaration about choosing a college that’s close to his houseplants. “That’s fine; I get that,” I finally said (diplomatically). “But you know,” I added, “I’m surprised, given how much you’ve always loved plants, that you don’t want to major in botany or horticulture. Plants are your passion, so why wouldn’t you want to major in something that would lead to a career working with plants?”

Noah has told us that he wants to pursue a major in the humanities. He’s mentioned English, German and history as possibilities; he insists he’s not interested in science, in spite of his obvious proclivity toward plants, the environment and nature.

“What about botany? What about forestry? What about environmental studies?” my husband and I ask from time to time. We’ve always expected, assumed, Noah would pursue something planty, something sciencey. Which is why I asked him this morning, “Why? Why wouldn’t you pursue something that is so obviously your passion?”

Noah shrugged. “Your passion doesn’t always have to be your job,” he answered.

Photo credit: Curt Brinkmann

Photo credit: Curt Brinkmann

I wrote my first book, Spiritual Misfit, 12 years ago (it was published in 2014, but it was written long before that). It took me two years to write the first draft of that book, during which time I would awaken before dawn, pull on my red fleece robe and a warm pair of socks and traipse down to the basement, where I hunched over the keyboard for an hour or two while my preschooler and toddler slept.

During those early mornings, tapping out words on the basement computer, I lost all track of time. The world did not exist during those hours. Time did not exist. My responsibilities and the demands of my daily life did not exist.

There was no blog (that came later). I didn’t have a Facebook account, Twitter hadn’t gone mainstream and Instagram didn’t yet exist. I didn’t know what a “platform” was. I wasn’t thinking about “felt need” or audience. I didn’t know anything about proposals or querying or agents. Sure, I had dreamy hopes that maybe someday I would publish whatever it was I was writing, but that all seemed very vague and very distant.

Mostly I wrote because both the process itself and what it revealed was intriguing to me. I wrote because through the process of writing, I discovered important things about myself, and I was curious to uncover more. I wrote because writing revealed myself to me. And because it was fun. Writing the first draft of Spiritual Misfit was a pure, undiluted pursuit of passion.

“Creative fields make crap for careers, but creative living can be an amazing vocation,” writes Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic.

This may not be true for everyone. I’m sure there are plenty of people, Gilbert herself included, who are able to successfully meld their passion and their career into one fulfilling, delightful pursuit. I have learned, though, that I am not one of these people.

Over the last ten years, writing morphed from my play and passion into my profession. It was a slow change, so slow I didn’t even recognize what was happening. I think maybe for a little while I was able to have it both ways — a passion that was also my profession. But over time, the demands of my profession — platform-building, meeting a “felt need,” mainaining social media, growing an audience, tracking sales, speaking, attending conferences, managing launch teams, writing book proposals and articles — edged out my passion bit by bit, until finally, like the moon covering the sun in a total solar eclipse, it obliterated it entirely.

Today I find myself in a different place. I have a job that I like and find fulfilling but is not my passion. The professional demands that strangled my passion for writing have fallen away. I am not building a platform or writing for a particular audience or striving to address a “felt need.” I do not feel the need to be productive with my writing. I’m not thinking about branding or messaging. I deleted my professional Facebook page, and I post on Instagram when I feel like it. I’m writing what I want to write about — and when I hear myself saying, “That’s selfish,” I tell myself, gently, “No, it’s not.”

Once again, I am remembering why I like to write. I am remembering that writing is fun and helps me feel more deeply alive. Most of all, I am remembering what I knew 12 years ago when I wrote the first draft of Spiritual Misfit in my basement, which is exactly what Noah clarified for me in the car on the way to school this morning.

I am remembering that my passion doesn’t have to be my job.

Photo credit: Curt Brinkmann, Life’s A Story Photography

Hope for Your Hard Season

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For three months straight this summer, every time I laced up my shoes and hit the trail, I felt like I was running through wet cement. When I finally managed to drag myself heaving and sweaty into my house four miles later, my husband always asked how my run went, and my answer was always the same: “Horrible. Again.”

I bought new running shoes. I tried drinking more water. I tried drinking less water. I tried stretching more. I tried stretching less. No matter what I did, the result was always the same: a demoralizing, abysmal run.

I wondered if perhaps my running days were over. Maybe I was simply getting too old. Maybe my body was wearing out. Maybe it was time for a gentler form of exercise.

Despite my frustration, I kept at it, mostly because I am both stubborn and lazy. I didn’t want to take up swimming or spinning or Zumba. I’ve been running since I was 16 years old. I like the rituals around running – the stretching, the cool-down, lying on my sunroom floor as the cool breeze from the ceiling fan wafts over me – as well as the structure and rhythm of beginning my day on the trail. I also like the endorphins, which I don’t get when I walk or bike.

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I’m heading down the home stretch of book-writing, one eye on my January deadline, the other on my word count. But I admit, I’ve been discouraged lately. While the early chapters seemed to unfurl straight from my fingertips, these later chapters have been a grind. I spend a lot of time staring out the sunroom window behind my desk, my hands in my lap (or my fingernails between my teeth), rather than on the keyboard. I delete more than I type.

There’s something wrong, I think to myself. It shouldn’t be this hard.

I find myself wondering if my writing days are coming to an end. Maybe I’m burned out, I think. Maybe it’s time for a different kind of creativity. Or maybe, a small voice deep inside wonders, maybe God doesn’t want me to write books anymore.

One day a few weeks ago, when Brad asked me how my morning run had gone, I realized it had been a tiny bit better. I might not have noticed if he hadn’t asked, but when I thought back to my four miles, I realized they hadn’t been quite as horrendous. For the first time in months, I hadn’t felt like I was about to keel over and die on the trail.

Since then, my morning jogs have continued to improve bit by bit. I got my wind back. My feet stopped hurting. My legs feel steadier. I am energized when I finish, rather than spent. I haven’t done anything differently. Over time I just simply began to feel better.

This morning as I ran through the November mist, I felt strong, carefree, and light on my feet. Everything felt right in the world during those four miles on the trail. Later, after I’d showered and was seated at my desk, steeling myself for another grueling day of writing/not writing, I remembered my summer of bad running – the days and weeks when what had once come easily felt like a burden and a punishment.

I also remembered that my season of hard running, frustrating and demoralizing as it was, eventually came to an end. The difficult season passed unexpectedly, slipping out the back door as quietly and mysteriously as it had arrived.

There is a lesson here about seasons, particularly those that arrive unexpectedly and are not altogether welcome. Sometimes we find ourselves in an uncomfortable, discouraging, frustrating season – a season in which the next right step is, literally or figuratively, to simply take another step, and then another and another.

I still don’t know why I struggled so much in my running this past summer. Likewise, I don’t know why writing is so hard right now. But if my season of hard running taught me anything, it’s that this too shall eventually pass.

In the meantime, I’ll keep putting down one word after another, my eyes fixed on the finish line, until this hard season slips quietly away like a November mist, until I begin to write like I run, strong and carefree again.

The Finish Line Isn’t Always the Most Important Part of the Race

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Last week I had to cut short an interview I was doing for my new job when I realized I was going to be late to pick up my kids from school. The man I was interviewing on the phone was kind and gracious, but still, it was an awkward moment, and I felt like an unprofessional amateur.

As I sped down South Street toward the middle school, my cell phone rang, and I knew from the ring tone it was Rowan calling from the sidewalk outside his school, wondering where I was as he watched all the cars pull up to and away from the curb.

By the time I got home from the school pick-up circuit, dialed the manager I’d interrupted 20 minutes before to continue the interview, finished the conversation and hung up, I sat back in my chair, sweaty, flustered, and limp with defeat.

Cleary this new-job-work-from-home-be-a-good-mother-and-write-books-too endeavor was not going to work. Clearly I stunk as a professional, stunk as a mother, and, having struggled to string together ten creative words all week, stunk as a writer too.

No one has ever accused me of being glass-half-full.

That was Friday. On Sunday morning I ran the Lincoln Half Marathon. It was a great race, and I felt good the whole way — my breathing was easy, my body felt strong, and I finished in a respectable-for-me time. After I crossed the finish line, I went home, posted a Facebook photo of me with a medal around my neck and my number pinned to the front of my shirt, and celebrated by eating a great many delicious and unhealthy foods.

Later that afternoon, though, I remembered something important about that race, something the Facebook photo didn’t necessarily reveal, which is this:

I didn’t cross the Sunday morning finish line without days, weeks, and months of training first.

Our results-right-now culture has us programmed to expect instantaneous aptitude, but the reality is, doing a hard thing like starting a new job, becoming a new parent, walking through loss, or navigating a new season of life is a process that entails persistent work, growing pains, trial and error, and both small and large successes and failures along the way.

Case in point: My final training run for the half marathon was one of the worst training runs I’ve had in more than 30 years of running. It was so miserable, in fact, that afterward, as I lay on the sunroom floor in a heaving heap, I announced out loud to myself and the dog that I was done with half marathons forever. Two weeks later, I had one of my best races ever.

Last week was hard as I struggled to balance the new demands of work, parenting, home, and the creative life. I was hard on myself for failing to do it all perfectly, and I assumed that because I hadn’t succeeded right out of the gate, I wasn’t going to succeed at all.  Luckily, a 13-mile race, the culmination of four months of training, reminded me that’s simply not true.

If, like me, you’ve been hard on yourself as you struggle through something big, hard or new,  I want to gently remind you that big things, hard things, and new things don’t magically become small, easy, and routine overnight.

The Sunday morning finish line is wonderfully gratifying and a lot of fun, but the days, weeks, and months of  two-steps-forward-one-step-back are what get us there. It’s the “pressing on” part, as Paul reminds us, that ultimately brings us to the prize.

Turns out, those hard beginnings and demoralizing middles might actually be the most important part of the race.

Be the You God Created

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It’s good to be back, and thanks so much to all of you who emailed and left warm wishes for healing in the comment box. I couldn’t respond (one-handed typing is for the birds!), but know that I appreciated every word! The cast is off, my arm is out of the sling, and the elbow is coming along. I’m done with vigorous pruning forever and ever amen. Thanks for sticking with me, friends! To get us back in the swing of things, here’s a column I wrote last week for my local newspaper. And yeah, it mentions Italy in the first sentence…{hangs head}.

 

vineyard

I toured a vineyard in Italy this summer. There, under the Tuscan sun, amid row after row of grapevines unfurling toward the horizon, I expected to learn about the art, science, and craft of winemaking. What I didn’t anticipate was that the experience would offer me valuable insights into my own vocation and who I am as a person uniquely created by God.

A few years after the vineyard had been established, owner Olimpia Roberti hired a world-famous consultant, who suggested how to improve the flavor of her red wines. But when she tasted the supposed new and improved vintage, Olimpia couldn’t tell the difference between her wine and that of the other producers in the area.

“They all tasted the same,” she told our tour group, as we stood facing dozens of oak barrels in the fermentation room.  “Nothing distinguished our wine from the all the others.”

The consultant’s goal was for Olimpia’s vineyard to produce wines that would appeal to the mass market. It makes sense, especially from a business perspective: the wider the appeal, the more bottles sold, the more successful the vineyard.

But Olimpia refused to sacrifice the personality of her wine. She fired the world-renowned consultant and reverted, with a few new tweaks, to her original formula.

“I wanted to keep our wines’ personality,” she explained. “I decided I was willing to sell fewer bottles in order to maintain the unique character of my wine.”

Olimpia

vine2

wine2

Too often, I compare myself with other writers, particularly those who have more readers and sell more books than I do. Sometimes when I measure another writer’s accomplishments and success against mine, I’m tempted to alter my own writing style and voice to be more like theirs, in the hope that I might attract more readers. I wonder if perhaps I were funnier like him, or more encouraging like her, or more controversial or more contemplative, I might appeal to a broader audience.

In short, I’m tempted to sacrifice what makes my writing my own in order to attract more readers and sell more books.

I know I’m not alone in this struggle. Think about the mild-mannered salesman who adopts an aggressive negotiation style in the hopes of landing bigger contracts.

Or the church that revamps its worship service to try to attract a larger membership.

Or the contemplative teenager who pretends she’s gregarious and extroverted to appeal to a particularly popular group of peers.

We sell out. We sacrifice what makes us special; we abandon our true, authentic selves, the uniquely beautiful people God created us to be. We try to become like others, especially those we consider more successful than we are, in order to broaden our influence and appeal.

But in doing so, we don’t honor who God created us to be.

After our tour of the vineyard, I sat at a long table in the tasting room and lifted a glass of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano to my lips. As I sipped the smooth, subtle wine, I thought about what Olimpia had said and how relevant her words were to my own career and calling and even to who I am as a person.

The fact is, Olimpia Roberti may not become the most successful vintner Italy has ever seen. Her vineyard might not sell the most bottles or earn the highest sales. But her wine, with its own uniquely beautiful taste, will be hers, and it will attract the people who appreciate and enjoy it.