Author: lpatangan

Baby Jesus and Barbie: the Nativity

lpatangan

I always wanted a Barbie Dream House. My best friend had one, and we spent countless hours making Barbie prance around the plastic mansion, flitting from one perfectly appointed room into the next.  Barbie’s life was glamorous and posh, and the makers at Mattel made sure she wanted for nothing. When I begged for my parents to buy me a Dream House, they lamely suggested I make my own, as if I were some sort of Christmas elf who could magically build a two-story manor with its own elevator and swimming pool. Besides, even if I had the skills and resources to do miniature carpentry with leftover cardboard boxes, I didn’t want to be a working elf. I was Barbie’s protégé. I wanted life to be petal pink and easy.

It turns out that life isn’t pink and easy for most of us. It’s messy, more like the stable in which the Savior of mankind was born. We may not be sleeping in beds of straw, yet life can be just as uncomfortable as we try to navigate a world that has become increasingly callous and desensitized to the needs of others. While not surrounded by the hot, sticky breath of farm animals, the familiarity of constant demands breathing down our necks leaves us exhausted and empty. We may not be as materially impoverished as Jesus at his birth, yet the spiritual poverty of a world that focuses on getting more, doing more, owning and achieving more has left many of us longing for a sense of peace and purpose.

During the holidays, we are surrounded by abundance. Still, it’s easy to feel a scarcity underneath all of the glitter and getting. Did we buy enough? Did we get something for everyone on our list? Will we have time to make cookies? Are the three themed Christmas trees in our home clever enough to make little Johnny’s childhood perfect so he doesn’t end up in therapy? There are countless ways to feel like we won’t have enough time, money, or sanity to get through the demands of this extravagant season. Paradoxically, the humility of the Nativity scenes displayed in our homes, yards, and churches is a reminder that the birth of Jesus gave us everything we will ever need.

Christmas is not meaningful for the lavish indulgence of materialism that retailers commercialize, but for the humility of recognizing our need for a Savior. Jesus came to live among us. God becoming man to save us from sin is a transformative and pivotal moment for humanity. In the simplicity of the Nativity, there is a great deal being said. God dwells among us. Awe and astonishment aren’t under our Christmas trees but lying peacefully on top of a bed of hay.  Even well-meaning themes of generosity, family, and tradition pale in comparison to the importance of the incarnation. The Nativity scene offers a reprieve from excess and busyness. It’s a reminder that we can experience the nearness of Jesus by creating a manger for him in our own hearts — a space of inexhaustible joy, hope that will not disappoint, and a source of consolation for the sorrows of this world. Read more →

Sandwich Generation – Must be Bologna

lpatangan

When I was little, I used to eat bologna, cheese, and mayonnaise sandwiches. So maybe that’s why I think of bologna when I hear talk about the sandwich generation – these middle-aged years where you care for children and aging parents. I suppose bologna is a good-enough metaphor considering the spectrum of variables that make up this stage of life – a little bit of meat mixed with more mystery than an Agatha Christie novel. Meaty, because raising children and honoring the parents who raised you is a chance to simultaneously pay it forward while also paying it back. The mystery varies from whether today’s jack-in-the-box will mean a pop-in visit to the ER with a parent or a pivotal conversation about college plans with a child.

The middle years involve wearing so many hats that you have no idea when the dull silvery thatches of gray hair sprouted. You only know you don’t have time to do anything about it and hope that everyone else’s vision has gone as bad as yours, so that the wiry threads will be mistaken for some hip new hair trend. There are days when I feel more like a parent to my parents and other days when I’m reminded that my children’s increasing independence was always the goal, even if it feels counterintuitive to maternal instincts that want to hold tight. There are no more trips to the zoo to ogle the long necks of the giraffe or marvel at the colorful beak of the Toucan like when they were younger. While they inevitably spread their wings, I reimagine my own nest. What do I want from these years between parenting and parental caregiving? These years that feel like a maybe, a chance to begin adulthood again – this time wiser, more merciful, and without the bulleted list of things to acquire or achieve. The middle years are another chance to ask myself what I want to be when I grow up, and hope my answer is even more fantastical than whatever I imagined as a child.

There’s a sweetness to these years that is nothing like bologna. I’m privy to the spectrum of life’s stages and can see more clearly how oblivious time is to our idiosyncrasies; our fixation on the past; our big plans for the future. We can mourn it, endure it, or celebrate it.  Either way, time marches on. Its indifference is both maddening and liberating. Yet, sandwiched between two generations, I can see firsthand that I can’t afford to waste time with meaningless pursuits. Aging and death may be inevitable. Life may be full of challenges and have an unavoidable amount of suffering, but it has a miraculous quality. Forgiving, healing, and practicing mercy towards others transforms our hardships into something surprisingly beautiful. The human heart’s resilience to life’s challenges epitomizes hope and encourages compassion. This encouragement was passed to me and others in my life stage from a generation that is now struggling with life’s physical limitations. It’s the same encouragement we can offer to a younger generation by our example of care for the elderly.

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In the Middle – So Much Love

lpatangan

It was only a matter of weeks after our beloved family dog passed away at age 15 that I was researching lab rescues with the tenacity of a bloodhound on a hunt. My husband thought it was too soon and reminded me of the countless times I pledged I would never get another dog.

I didn’t want to want a dog. I didn’t want their hair that floated and coated every possible surface, or to operate as a reluctant doorman for an indecisive canine who couldn’t decide whether he wanted to be inside or out. Mostly, I wanted to avoid the crushing heartache of grief from losing a dog’s loyal and unyielding love when the inevitability of death came.

Yet the emptiness that filled my hairless house and my aching heart made these objections seem trivial. Within weeks, I adopted a three-year-old yellow lab from Labrador Retriever Rescue of Florida. He had been abandoned at a house in a rural county and was undergoing treatment for heartworms. He was mellow and acted older than his years. We called him Mack because he seemed rugged and manly like the Marlboro man, if he had been a truck driver instead of a nicotine-addicted cowboy peddling cigarettes from a horse. Besides, at 94 pounds, our new dog bore a certain likeness to a Mack truck.

During our first few months together, Mack wouldn’t go in the backyard alone, so I often sat outside with him for long stretches of time. He didn’t feel well because he was still recovering from heartworm treatment, so mostly we just sat together in that empty space of contemplation.  I often found myself looking over at where we had buried our beloved family dog and wondered if Mack was also thinking about someone he loved and lost.

It felt as if we were starting in the middle; in that tenuous space where we think we should know more than we do about ourselves and each other. His formative years were shaped by someone else. There are gaps and details of his previous life that remain a mystery.  It didn’t bother me to think that maybe he missed his other family. I miss having young children and the raucous black dog that fit so perfectly amid our pack. I didn’t need him to be the family dog or the best dog ever; life already blessed me with that. When we found out Mack needed knee surgery and has hip dysplasia, I didn’t lament his imperfections. My body had already shown me its share of its own. Read more →

Breathe Anyway — What I Know

lpatangan

A friend asked me to write a letter for her daughter’s 16th birthday sharing any wisdom I’ve cultivated since I was a teenager. Of course, I’ve learned a lot since those boy-crazy days when I plastered my bangs with toxic amounts of Aqua Net hairspray so they perched upright like a cockatoo’s fanciful plume. The hair didn’t attract many suitors but I like to think that the birds were flattered by my attempt to imitate their artful style.

Eventually, I learned not to imitate anyone. Moreso, I learned there was no reason to. People are as different as cats (or dogs if that’s your thing) and each one is worthy of love. It doesn’t matter that some people have better pedigree or grooming. Be yourself were words of wisdom worth imparting.

Yet, that advice felt overly simplistic considering that life is a constant becoming. Besides, I didn’t always know who I was to simply be that person. Like an orange when it’s taken apart, I was made up of different segments that individually didn’t always seem to fit together. It took time to unpeel the layers and see how all those different truths about who I am create the whole. Allowing time to uncover and piece together one’s true self wouldn’t be such bad advice either.

But then I remembered how impatient I was to figure life out now. I was certain that if I just knew who I was supposed to be, what I was supposed to do, or how much longer it would take to get to that place where life didn’t feel so prickly I could exhale and enjoy the ride. What I’ve learned is sometimes the ride gets bumpy, veers off track, and hits a dead end by some spooky field that you once saw in a horror movie. You don’t have to enjoy all of it. You won’t. Breathe anyway.

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Lost and Found

lpatangan

My earliest memory of Easter has nothing to do with chocolate bunnies or pastel church dresses with flowers and frills. It is about being lost. While the details are as fuzzy as a newly hatched chick, I was at an Easter egg hunt when I realized that although countless people surrounded me, I was utterly alone. I didn’t recognize anyone.

Not yet a master of catastrophizing, I wasn’t worried about being stolen or living on the streets with other vagrant preschoolers. Instead, I felt completely paralyzed – frozen in a moment of desolation that knew no spring.

While that was my earliest memory of feeling lost, there have been many others. Each time, I remember feeling as rotten as that one egg that no one at an egg hunt can find until its stench is so strong that you begin wondering if maybe there’s a dead body lying somewhere behind the azaleas.  Only, I’m the dead body. Or, in this case, the smelly egg.

Of course, we all want to focus on our great dye jobs or the flawless shell that hides these moments of desolation. But eventually, most of us encounter seasons or circumstances that can make life feel like a daily penance. The atonement of broken promises, strained relationships, disease, and death can feel both unfair and unbearable. Without faith, and sometimes even with it, it’s easy to feel lost.

The world moves fast, often without regard to who or what gets destroyed on its tornado-like path. Despite constant digital communications, meaningful relationships feel rare, and although we see an infinite number of images daily, most of us still feel unseen.  It seems like even the savviest navigator could get lost in a world such as this. Read more →

Love: More Transformative than Wrinkle Cream

lpatangan

A few years ago, my husband and I started volunteering for Meals on Wheels. He chauffeurs me along the route and completes the minimally required paperwork while I pop in and out of the car, giving away meals that I didn’t have to cook to people in need. I enjoy talking with the clients and petting random cats that loiter around doorsteps.  It’s an easy breezy way to serve.

Recently, our route changed and I had new people to deliver to. While my husband waited in the car, I made my way through the maze of residences at a retirement home and hesitantly knocked on the first client’s door. I was exuberantly welcomed by an elderly lady who invited me inside. Almost instantly, she told me she loved me. I figured maybe she was confused and thought I was someone else.  But she insisted she loved me.

I saw a picture of a cat on her wall and commented on it. Seeing how much I liked cats, she introduced me to hers with a grandmotherly warmth. We talked for a few minutes about how she was feeling. She asked me for a hug, and I left. Afterwards, I ran back to the car and excitedly told my husband how she loved me. “She was just like Jesus,” I said. “I didn’t even have to do anything. She just loved me.”

What struck me most about this wasn’t how rare it is to meet someone who exudes such love. Nor was it the reminder that invariably, when we help others, we get back more than we give. It wasn’t even that she’s a kindred cat lover, validating my theories that cat (and dog) people are the nicest people. While all of those things were in and of themselves significant, it was how much her kindness underscored the simplicity of our purpose — to love others as we wished to be loved, that most struck me.

The day before I met her, I was feeling angsty and existential about life. I questioned what I should be doing and lamented all I had not done. I longed for significance, thinking it would come from some new endeavor or challenge. Yet this elderly woman showed me the impact that we can have on others through the generosity of love.  And, while intellectually I already knew this, it’s a different thing altogether to encounter it. She made me feel closer to God by reminding me of his extravagant and unconditional love. I went to offer physical sustenance to someone in need and was fed spiritually by the experience. God uses all of us to comfort, console, and share his compassion if we let him. She reminded me how much these mercies can transform lives – not necessarily because our circumstances change but because love changes us.

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Losing Time is the Best Way to Bloom

lpatangan

I love to work in the yard. It makes me feel like the actor Edward Norton in the 1996 legal thriller, Primal Fear, even though that had nothing to do with gardening. Norton’s character, “Aaron/Roy” appears to have multiple personality disorder. As such, his attorney, actor Richard Gere, uses this diagnosis as Aaron/Roy’s defense in his murder trial.

You see, Aaron/Roy would “lose time,” and not remember important things such as whether or not he killed someone. I’m leaving a lot out because who can really remember 1996? The movie had a shocking and brilliant ending that fooled both Richard Gere and me.

Anyway, working in the yard doesn’t make me feel like a manipulative, sociopathic murderer with extra personalities but it is a way that I lose time. What’s remarkable about the lost time is that by forgetting so much of the outside world I somehow regain a truer sense of self.

In fact, over the years my viewpoint on plants has diverged into that of a whole new person.  I used to think plants were boring. My mom was always buying them and I couldn’t understand why if she wanted something colorful and pretty, she didn’t just purchase new lipstick. After all, why buy a flower when you can be the flower, so to speak?

It was a small kalanchoe from the grocery store that changed everything for me. It was a darling little plant with deep glossy scalloped leaves and clusters of tiny yellow flowers that were so perky I couldn’t help but want to protect it. Weeks turned into months and months into years and almost two decades later I still have that pretty plant. I have rooted it and multiplied it the way Jesus did when he miraculously multiplied the fishes and loaves, only I had to use dirt for my miracle. I potted clippings and gifted them to friends. Along the way, I became so knowledgeable about plants that I walk around Ace Hardware reciting the names of each flower I pass. I include fast facts about them that I have memorized over years of perusing those rectangular plastic inserts that list plant care instructions. Of course, I don’t do this out loud because that seems like something Edward Norton’s character would do and I hope to never need a lawyer, even one as handsome as Richard Gere.

Still, there’s something primal about gardening. It strips away all of the striving and securing; achieving and acquiring; materialism and mattering; that consumes so many of us. Those pursuits grow feelings of unworthiness, doubt, and insecurity. Even the lowly and despised weed has no time for such foolishness. There’s no pretension in the dirt — only promise. Everything is stripped down to necessity and what’s left is remarkably beautiful.

Perhaps it’s the deciduous plants, which after the long winter months sit like undressed skeletons waiting to be covered in the glory of new life that most inspire me.  To someone such as my former rather-buy-a-lipstick-self, it’s easy to see these plants for what they lack – the ways in which they too aren’t good enough. Yet watching the slow sprout of these perennials unlikely reemergence reminds me that even after seasons of desolation, loneliness, betrayal, and neglect which are a primal part of our human experience, we too can bloom again.

We don’t need to feel shamed by our vulnerability during these seasons of austerity. If we allow it, our emptiness exposes a different kind of beauty. It makes others want to care for us — not because we are incapable or weak but because God’s mercy is primal too. It motivates us to do the hard work of love so someone else can grow in its light.

In gardening and in life, this growth doesn’t happen on our timeline. While the world has taught us to want instant and now, meaningful change is often subtle and slow. The truly beautiful things in life aren’t manufactured. They exist in their own time defying expectations, demands, and worldly limitations, which are both too finicky and finite. Watching this transformation in nature is like witnessing the miracle that’s waiting to unfold in all of us. Only, we need less dirt and sunshine and more love and compassion to obtain our new life.

Gardening allows us to get to the root of what matters most. It reminds us of what we need to keep and what we need to shed. It shows us the places that need to die in order for something better to grow in its place. The miracle of so much clarity coming out of the dirt is perhaps its own kind of twisty Hollywood ending.  Only in this version, you get to bloom.

Hi all~ Happy Spring! Whether you like to garden or not, most of us can relate to what it’s like to experience seasons of desolation. With God, these times make us stronger and more beautiful. I try to remember that when I feel like an exposed stick poking up from the earth with no idea how I can possibly become anything else. Have faith. The becoming is the best part. ~ Love, Lara

P.S. — These are my hydrangeas from last summer. I have a serious addiction and last time I counted I had over 40 hydrangeas! (Not counting the one I bought last week!) 

P.S.S. — I would love to see your garden pics!

 

Give the Hope of Unrelenting Love

lpatangan

Growing up in Florida I never had occasion to ice skate, but like many kids in my genre of coolness, I often went to the skating rink. I couldn’t skate backward or couples skate (well, maybe I could have but no one asked me to). Still, I loved skating under the disco lights to the music of bands like Queen, The Bee Gees, and Gloria Gaynor.  It made me feel as if I was going places even if it was only in an endless circle.

Decades later, I sometimes still feel like I’m going in an endless circle. Only it doesn’t feel as cool anymore.

This feels especially true in parenting. Loops and loops around the carpool lane; circular conversations that make my head spin; and the ongoing dream-killing of telling my precious children no.

No, and no, and H-E-double hockey sticks no. Circle and repeat. Sometimes I would go to bed feeling dizzy and drained and very much unlike Gloria Gaynor whose anthem “I Will Survive” obviously doesn’t apply to parents of teenagers. It was about as much fun as tripping on my roller skate shoelaces and falling on the seat of my Gloria Vanderbilt jeans knowing that I would be sitting out the couple’s slow skate yet again.

I had not skated in decades until one Christmas several years ago. We took our kids overseas for their first time; landing in London early Christmas day. We attended a beautiful mass that morning at Westminster Cathedral and roamed the city’s cold and quiet streets all afternoon. That evening we went to an open-air Christmas Market in Hyde Park. They had giant paper mâché art, games, rides, roasted chestnuts, yummy-smelling confections, and vendors who sold fake Burberry scarves. It was magical.

They also had ice skating.

I was surprised when my son agreed to ice skate with me. My son, who so often seemed distant, so annoyed with my attempts to cajole conversation, and so frustratingly far away from the easy carefree boy I once knew so well, said he would skate. I could end the story here because I feel certain his willingness to skate with his mama was a Christmas miracle. Read more →

Gratitude for it All

lpatangan

With images of glossy bronze turkeys, fine china, and smiley, happy kinfolk who like each other, Thanksgiving can appear an unchanging stalwart of tradition — if not a bit impossible to replicate. It’s the one holiday that refuses to change more than a slight wobble in the menu. With imagery that perfect, why ask it to? Yet my own memories of Thanksgiving have weathered as much change as a barnyard pen exposed to the seasons of life.

My earliest memories of Thanksgiving have nothing to do with food or fancy cutlery but of me repeatedly singing the nursery rhyme “Ten Little Indians” to my Granny. The crinkles around her corn-flower blue eyes outlined a mysterious mix of tears and joy as she laughed and asked me to sing it yet again. I didn’t quite understand the teary-eyed laughter but I knew it to be good and I sang with gusto.

While it’s been almost 30 years since her passing, I still hear the rhythmic beat of that song drumming in my head bringing me a contended peace that reminds me that the world needs our unique song and listening to others is an act of love that speaks volumes.

I remember the enchanting thrill of sliding down a hill of dead grass on castoff cardboard boxes with my cousins and siblings. The Florida hill was hardy high but we were on top of the world inherently knowing that happiness isn’t determined by what we have but who we have by our side through life’s ups and downs.

Thanksgivings weren’t all downhill on cardboard boxes and songs about numbers and Native Americans, there was also the Thanksgiving after my parents separated when we ate a not so traditional dinner in a dark restaurant which felt sober and sad. I learned that life doesn’t always look the way it’s supposed to or turn out to plan, but practicing mercy towards ourselves and others during difficult times can be a comforting expression of hope that is its own kind of gratitude.

I recall one Thanksgiving when I was pregnant with not only my first son but also all of the hopes and fears that accompany motherhood. Being so close to delivery underscored how the very nature of life teeters on the precipice of change. This Thanksgiving Day we will celebrate that baby’s 23rd birthday; another reminder not only of life’s passing but of the bounty of blessings that fill our years making ordinary, everyday moments some of our most cherished memories. Read more →

Spooky: Challenging Perception

lpatangan

Every October the word spooky rises like a ghost to the forefront of my vocabulary. Its a month-long torment to my family that brings me uncanny delight. I draw the word out like the two vowels are careening around a hairpin turn until they crash into each other with a high-pitched yelp. It’s about as much fun as my middle-aged self can muster without inducing a medical event.

In reality, I’m a fraidy cat. Roller coasters terrify me. I dread flying. Driving in heavy rain is panic-inducing. And, always, I think someone is going to steal me at the gas station. So, I don’t favor the word spooky because it’s frightening. To me, the word is fanciful like bats fluttering wild and reckless under the veil of the moon’s glow.

It makes me realize how much perspective can change our point of view.

No one changed perspectives more than Jesus. It was unprecedented. Although a king, he was born humbly in a stable. He didn’t seek the finest things but the most broken people.  He knew not only that sinners could be redeemed but how glorious their redemption would be. Jesus didn’t come to rule; he came to weed. He came to pick through the detritus of jealousy, greed, judgment, and selfishness so that we could fully bloom. His gentleness, his mercy, and his unconditional love for every single person are still radical all these eons since his own death and resurrection. His teachings and his example remind us to challenge our perspectives.

With even a small shift in perspective, we can better understand other points of view. We can be more tolerant, patient, and gentle. We can be less skeptical giving ourselves and our neighbor infinite mercies. We can believe in the power we have to affect change in this world through even the smallest acts of kindness. We can look through a different lens and ask ourselves where our perception is clouding our vision. We can either see through eyes of condemnation or compassion and whatever we choose is exactly what we will find.

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