I’m in awe of Justin Green’s beautiful, emotionally resonant essay about how reading my book, The Little Way Of Ruthie Leming, helped him learn to love the tiny Nebraska town where he comes from. Excerpts:

Rod Dreher’s new book, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, on the life and death of his sister, made me cry. Not watery-eyed man-tears, but unashamed weeping. It will do the same to you, because it’s an honest book about family, home, loss, and the pain none of us can avoid forever.

More:

In almost every other way, St. Francisville is a carbon copy of Sutton and thousands of other small towns across rural America.

I fondly tell people I meet about the corn, farms, small town life, the sneaking around to drink beer, enjoying the occasional dip of chewing tobacco, and other fine things that come with being a teenage boy. But, if I’m honest with myself, that’s not the truth.

I hated growing up in my small town in south-central Nebraska.

I hated the small talk, the old ladies asking about my great-uncles who I didn’t even know very well, the odd town traditions I didn’t fully understand, and the general lack of cosmopolitanism.

I hated the oppressive social climate, the ostracism, the lack of privacy, the way bookish kids like me were gently laughed at and considered weird, and I hated the corn.

Yes, I hated that damn corn, and what it represented to our town.

I hated that as an able-bodied male, I was expected to go out for football, basketball, and track. I hated that the expectation was for me to explain why Ididn’t want to participate in an activity, rather than why I should be allowed entry into a club or team.

I hated that people were quick to ask “what’s wrong?” when I just wanted to be left alone. I hated that the town response to tragedy and suffering was to suffocate the afflicted family with attention. And I hated the idea that my business was everyone’s business, and everyone’s business my business.

I was a nerdy, fiendishly independent teenager, and I wanted to be left to my own devices so I could build a life of my own. (Sound familiar, Rod?)

Oh yeah, Justin. Oh yeah. But then Justin read Little Way, and he saw his own hometown with fresh eyes. His epiphany will bring a tear to your eye. Well, it brought one, and more than one, to mine. He concludes:

And I’m not quite sure I fully recognized that until I read The Little Way of Ruthie Leming. So thank you, Ruthie. Thank you. And God bless you.

Thank you, Justin. People have been asking me on this book tour what sense I make of the fact that my sister died a horrible death at a young age, leaving behind a husband and three kids. I tell them that I don’t know what it means, and neither did she. I believe what Ruthie believed: that God allows suffering for a reason, and our place is to find ways to redeem suffering through love, and through healing hearts and minds. Your essay, Justin, is part of the redemption that Ruthie hoped for and believed in. I know she would be happy. Is happy.