• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • My Books
    • True You
    • Katharina and Martin Luther
    • 50 Women Every Christian Should Know
    • Spiritual Misfit
  • Blog
  • On My Bookshelves
  • Contact
  • Privacy & Disclosure Policy

Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Tuscany Writers Retreat

Be the You God Created

August 30, 2016 By Michelle

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.

Filed Under: writing Tagged With: Le Bertille Vineyard, the writing life, Tuscany Writers Retreat, vocation

When God Gives You the Clarity You Didn’t Know You Were Seeking

July 19, 2016 By Michelle

Tuscan Hills

I went to Tuscany seeking answers regarding my vocation. I looked forward to the quiet respite, the chance to think deeply about who I am as a writer and where I want to go. I anticipated experiencing much beauty, art, contemplation, prayer, community, and above all, vocational clarity there.

I found much of that amid the rolling wheat fields and ancient, cobblestone streets; among a new group of acquaintances-turned-friends; at the table laden with good wine and food; alone on hot afternoons, tucked under the wisteria vine, bees buzzing into lavender, lizards sunning emerald on the path.

accordian player

Pienza

leathersmith

La Foce garden

Farm Table

Duomo

cemetery

poppies

fountain

wisteria walk

Tuscan grotto dinner

But I also found something in Tuscany I never expected and certainly didn’t invite. I found more questions than answers, questions that had been stewing just below the surface for a long, long time.

On the very first morning, sitting at a tiny, metal table in the courtyard garden of our hotel, the questions bubbled to the surface, and along with them, a startling revelation.

“The reason I’m not clear about what to do (my calling), is because I don’t truly know who I am (my authentic self). And the reason I don’t know my authentic self is because I don’t truly know who I am in God. And the reason I don’t truly know who I am in God is because I don’t know God in a deep and intimate way.”

Well then.

Thankfully, as I told my travel companions later that week, I was still struck numb by jet lag and couldn’t quite wrap my sleepy brain around what I’d just penned into my journal. My mind was still encased in a layer of gauze, a timely protection against so stark a realization.

That morning, I simply stared at the words I’d written for a moment, and then clapped my journal shut and joined the group for a tour of Florence.

Two days later, though, the reality of that revelation hit me hard. There I was, tucked into a shady grove with my journal open on my lap, a stunning view of the Tuscan hills unfurling in bands of gold and cypress as far as my eyes could see, and I couldn’t stop crying. I also couldn’t stop repeating, “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

It was the Sabbath, and the theme of our morning reflection was rest. But the pages of my journal that morning stayed blank. I’d written only a single sentence: “I don’t have rest in my life because I don’t have rest in God.”

That’s when the revelation fully revealed itself. Everything begins with our relationship in God. We don’t have rest in our lives if we don’t have rest in God. We don’t have clarity in our calling if we don’t know who we are in God.We can’t know who we are, period, if we don’t know who we are in God.

God had given me clarity. But it wasn’t the kind of clarity I’d expected, or frankly even wanted.

“I wanted a different story,” I wrote later in my journal. “I don’t want to hear what God is telling me. I keep asking, ‘What should I do next? Where should I go?’ and he keeps giving me different questions, harder questions.”

Earlier that week, our spiritual director had told us, “God’s greatest invitation is to know God deeply and truly. And to know yourself in light of that.”

I wasn’t in Tuscany to find answers to my vocational angst. I was in Tuscany to come face-to-face with my deepest fears: that I didn’t truly know God; that I didn’t truly have a relationship with him; that I still wrestled with deep questions of doubt and even, at times, of unbelief; that I still struggled fiercely in my faith.

As it turned out, the “hope to which he had called me” had nothing to do with my calling and everything to do with knowing him.

Truth be told, there had been hints of these smoldering questions in the weeks and months preceding my trip. Sometimes, in the early evenings when I walked Josie and sat for a moment on our favorite bench, I heard unexpected questions bubble to the surface. One cool spring evening, for example, this question presented itself, seemingly, inexplicably, out of nowhere: “Why do you have trouble with intimacy?”

I didn’t know where that question came from or what in the world to do with it. And frankly, it was easy for me to ignore it, to allow the distractions and busyness of my life to sweep it away. To get on with deadlines and laundry and walking the dog.

The question makes perfect sense now. I struggle to form intimate connections with friends and loved ones because I have not found intimacy with God. Because you see, our relationship with God is the foundation, the everything. All things — relationships, community, vocation, satisfaction — are built on that. My identity as a beloved child of God is everything. Without that, I have nothing. Without that, I am nothing.

I’d love to tell you I found everything I was seeking in Tuscany. I love to be able to wrap up this story all pretty with a big, shiny bow and a sigh of relief. But that’s not quite the case.

I do believe I was invited by God to that specific place at that specific time in order to go deep, deeper, perhaps, than I’ve ever gone before. I do believe my time in Tuscany was transformative. That’s what I’ve told people who have asked about my trip. “It was life-changing,” I say. And I mean it.

I just can’t quite see exactly how yet. But to know I was invited to Tuscany and wooed by God there is enough for now.

Filed Under: doubt Tagged With: Tuscany Writers Retreat

Primary Sidebar

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.

Read Full Bio

Available Now — My New Book!

Blog Post Archives

Footer

Copyright © 2023 Michelle DeRusha · Site by The Willingham Enterprise· Log in