surrender

Life’s Purpose and Age in Dog Years

lpatangan

Hi all~

You may not know this about me, but quite recently I was the birthday girl! It wasn’t just any birthday either, I celebrated one of those fancy-pants decade birthdays that only come along…well, you know, every 10 years! If you think about it, we don’t get too many of those. 

I’m not one of those people who engage in modesty or discretion when it comes to celebrating my birthday. I’m a celebrate-all-month kind of girl. This year, God hosted a massive hurricane on my birthday. I figured that had to be a good sign – like rain on your wedding day (or maybe it means this will be a decade of doom, however I’m going with it’s a good luck sign!)

Don’t worry I’m not going to ask you for birthday presents because I’ve moved on to Halloween decor. But I do have an ask. This week’s post shares some wisdom about life. It may be the only wisdom I know but I think it’s probably enough. Anyway, if you want to share any wisdom that you’ve learned about life or purpose, I would consider your perspective a welcome gift. Maybe one that will help me shape this next chapter of my life.  Please share in the comments! ~ Love, Lara

Here’s what I know:

I recently had a decade birthday which brought up a slew of questions ranging from the existential to the inane. Specifically, these questions ranged from what’s life’s purpose to how old am I in dog years. I’m not sure why I started thinking about dog years when I’ve always been more of a cat person. Maybe it’s because cats have nine lives and factoring that in would be an extra step in the equation. Yet, it turns out figuring out my exact canine age isn’t any easier.

You see, it’s not simply a matter of multiplying human age times a set amount of dog years as I’ve always heard. It varies based on the size of the dog and the breed. Also, in its first year a dog may age as much as 15 years and in later years only seven to nine. I momentarily thought I solved the quandary when I found an online dog calculator. Only, it wouldn’t let me put in an age past 20 human years. To make matters more complicated, it also asked me to pick a dog breed. There was no way I could decide which dog I identify as –that’s a rabbit hole I’m happy to say I’m not going down.

So once again, my search for answers only led to more questions. Typically, my existential quest focuses on what I should be doing with my life. I’ve sought answers with the same tenacity as a Bluetick Coonhound on a hunt. More often than not, I ended up lost. It’s easy to focus on what we think we should do instead of what God is actually calling us to do. We spend decades acquiring material possessions, status, and prestige. We hold on to these things as if they are what define this one unique life that is ours. As if they hold the answer to our relevance in this world. Yet, no matter how much we try to complicate, examine, or define our life’s purpose, the answer remains as simple as God’s greatest commandant to love him and your neighbor above everything else. Life is about the love we give and receive. No special calculators or fancy formulas. Just love.

Read more →

Sunburns and Silver Linings

lpatangan

Hi all,

I feel like we are entering the part of summer where the mosquito warfare and oppressive heat have eclipsed the thrill of fireflies and the feel of ease that the start of summer promises.

In short, it’s hot and buggy.

Still, there’s something about summer that makes me feel like time has slowed just a bit. In our fast-paced world, that’s priceless. So, enjoy what’s left of this restful season and the extra time that I hope it gives you to spend with family and friends.

This week’s post is one of my favorites because it reminds me that life is imperfect and that hurt and loss are a natural part of our journey. Sounds peppy, huh?  But really, embracing this truth instead of resisting it somehow makes all of the difference. Hurt and loss happen to all of us. The real balm is that mercy is always available and we can be the face of mercy to others.

Here is the link to the post!

Love, me

P.S. — This picture is from the summer of 2010 when my boys were OBSESSED with the Karate Kid movies and were practicing their “Crane Kick” on the beach.

P.S.S. — The picture below is just because I miss them so much. I’m not sure how that is possible when they are both here with me but I bet you understand.

 

 

Surrender: Into the Arms of God

lpatangan

Fully embracing the mundanity of my middle-aged life, I watched a documentary about an octopus. I won’t get into the details because you too may be interested in octopi documentaries so I don’t want to spoil anything. Yet one of the most interesting things I learned is that after an octopus lays her eggs, she quits eating and wastes away. By the time the eggs hatch, she dies. It’s like a Disney movie where the mom always dies and there’s an orphan having a coming of age adventure with lots of catchy songs that get stuck in your head.

For days, I kept thinking of the octopus laying there protecting her clutch of eggs while succumbing to starvation. I don’t know the biological reason for this. I just know that parenting in the later years feels like a separation comparable to death. And I apologize if that feels too dramatic for either a documentary or a Disney movie, but parenting during these years of increasing independence requires me to let go of all the details I have spent almost 20 years shaping. Having the privilege of being a mother has been the great honor of my life. As any mother knows, it requires stretching in ways that at times felt impossible. My role now is not so much to stretch but to contract, to loosen the grip on one of my greatest treasures so that the lull of life’s tide can carry him in a new direction. It feels counter to every instinct in my body. Yet, I understand that this has been my job all along – to give everything I could for him not because he is mine but so that the world can someday be his. Read more →

Too Small Coffee Table; Too Little Faith

lpatangan

I am trying to center myself so I can do what I need to do and be who I need to be.  This never seems to have anything to do with my daily tasks that are so time-consuming.  Regardless of how centered I am, I still have to scoop kitty litter and make supper.  I have to do life.  Yet often, life feels more adrift than this anchoring I seek.

The need for centering pulls at me reminds me that my busyness isn’t my primary business. I sit with it sometimes and try to make sense of what is so urgent.  It’s uncomfortable and I have to fight the urge not to get in my car and drive to the store to look for a new coffee table.  I’ve decided my coffee table is too small for my living room and even though that involved a small measure of math, it makes sense to me.  This centering that I crave – not so much.  I know it’s God by its persistence and truth be told, it makes the distraction of the coffee table seem like a welcome muse.

Then, of course, I question why I can’t sit with this God I adore and listen to what I need to do and who I need to be.  Why do I resist?  Why do I let myself succumb to distraction?  God probably doesn’t think the six-inch difference in a coffee table is paramount to his plans for me.

So, I still myself.  It chafes this stillness that God commands.  I listen to the emptiness of this space and try to discern what is so relentlessly nagging at me.  Is God in the quietness?  The busyness?  The mundane?  The despair?  The spiral?  The spaces between it all?  “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.”  (Proverbs 15:3).

Read more →

Brave: Beyond Rollercoasters and Roaches

lpatangan

My son was on one of those whirling amusement park rides that circled the clouds like a frenzied dog chasing its tail.  Somewhere vertical in the sky he spun so fast that the metal contraption that contained him angled sideways – much like my stomach felt down below.  I could barely stand to watch him, and I fervently prayed he wouldn’t end up with whiplash or vertigo or otherwise be thrust into outer space.  I’ve always been the girl at the park who held the drinks, the jackets, and whatever else the “fun” people couldn’t take on the thrill rides.  I am okay being this girl. I don’t feel even the slightest pang of regret for my union with solid ground.  I hang out with squirmy toddlers in their strollers and watch pigeons as their heads bobble in search of food.

So, I don’t typically think of myself as brave.  That’s a word I associate with the kind of courage it takes to ride a rollercoaster or kill a roach without screaming and spastically throwing shoes. I am not that girl either. I yell for my husband, sons, and even the cats (who look at me in disdain as if I’ve just equated them with some kind of animal).   If no one is nearby, I resort to evacuating.  I figure shelter is overrated and the roach can have my residence.

This year, I aim to be brave.  This doesn’t have anything to do with rollercoasters or roaches, but instead, my relationship with God.  For the last several years, I have focused on surrender. Surrender is one of those words that is easily confused with defeat.  Yet in the battleground for our souls, Read more →

College Applications and Love Redeemed

lpatangan

It’s the Fall of my son’s senior year in high school.  The seeds we planted in the blind enthusiasm of grade school, protected from the ambivalence of middle school, and fertilized with a hearty mix of encouragement and extracurriculars through the high school years have culminated into a small crop of college applications, deadlines, and gut-wrenching decisions.  Our mailbox is jammed with colorful college brochures, inviting postcards, and glossy magazines that clearly explain the absurd-cost of college.  For months, we’ve binged on the propaganda.  We’ve made our list.  We’ve pared down our list.  We’ve reevaluated and we’ve changed it – sometimes all in one day.  At times, motivations and decisions seemed logical, and, just as often, the experience has felt more like a diagnosis of insanity than a direction to begin anew.

It’s been exciting, exhausting, and frustrating.  There have been hard talks and heartfelt moments of hope.  It has brought us closer in ways that feel like a cherished parting gift which right now we have the joy of opening, but will ultimately close this chapter in our lives.  Undoubtedly, the best chapter I could hope to write.  It is not lost on me that all our efforts, not just to send him off to college, but to prepare him for adulthood, inevitably mean a parting of ways.  Every act that brings him closer to his goals is taking me farther from the child I want to hold onto.  Yet I know I can’t keep him.  He needs to go and I need to let go.  It makes me think a lot about what love means.   So often, love is more of a surrender than a holding on.  Love is another’s heart that we don’t get to keep no matter how much it has imprinted our own.  It’s helping someone meet their goals knowing that getting them there will cost a piece of you.  It’s explicably worth the sacrifice, the heartache, and the cavernous emptiness that makes you wonder if your heart is imploding.  Love is the illogical dying on the cross for unworthy sinners that Jesus endured.   It’s letting go of what you want to give someone else a chance at what they want.  It’s beautiful and boundless.  Despite breaking us into a million pieces, it inevitably makes us more whole.

Read more →

Wrinkles in His Will (and some tips on boiling corn)

lpatangan

I was talking to Jesus one night before bed and told him that his will for my life appears fairly willy-nilly.  What are we really doing here, God?  This?  That?  Does it even matter?  It’s as if he thinks I can read the signs he sends.  I can’t even read a map much less fold one, so why he thinks I can discern his will is a mystery to me.  Still, I come back to that longing to know.  It’s like a kid the night before their birthday trying to figure out what their gifts will be.  It’s a sleepless mix of exhilaration and anticipation and longing for the relief of just knowing.  What a gift the knowing would be.

The next morning, my son had an appointment to have his high school senior pictures taken.  I had reminded him the night before that mama doesn’t iron and he needed to have his clothes ready.  When I saw him half-dressed in a half-ironed shirt, I was wholly annoyed.  He explained that he had ironed his shirt and the wrinkles weren’t coming out.  He said he was going to wear it a bit and that would make the wrinkles come out.  Lord Jesus, I am supposed to send this child to college in a year?  I told him to give me the shirt and I would iron it.

It’s not that I am unwilling to iron, it’s just that most things that have to do with domesticity fail me.  The day before I texted a friend to ask how long to boil corn (10 minutes).  It’s frustrating to do things that we aren’t good at.  When I was a little girl, all I wanted to be when I grew up was a stay-at-home mom.  I know in today’s world that is terribly lame but that was my wish, my will.  While I’ve been able to do that and mostly love it, I can’t say I am particularly good at it.  So, there I was ironing the already-ironed shirt wondering why the heat and the pressing and the willing weren’t working.  Since we were running short on time, I called a friend for advice.  She reminded me she was in a different time zone and still asleep.  I explained my domestic emergency and necessary disregard for her slumber.  She suggested that I spray the shirt with water.  It turns out the spray bottle under my sink is a mix of soap and water so when I sprayed the shirt it bubbled up like a wound doused in peroxide.  I just can’t imagine things like this happening to June Cleaver.

Read more →

You’ve Got Talent

lpatangan

Growing up, I was never in the talent show.  It wasn’t even a consideration.  I could barely pass math, so the notion of talent seemingly passed me by.  Life felt too narrow to think of talent as anything other than singing, dancing, or playing a musical instrument – none of which I could do.

As I grew, so did my broadening of what I consider talent.  The last several summers I attended a talent show for special needs campers as part of Catholic Charities Camp I Am Special program.  My son is one of the teenage buddies responsible for a special needs camper for a week.  It’s impossible to convey the scope of what this entails, the way these teenagers empty themselves in the compassionate care of their camper, and how this emptying fills them in ways that their social media feeds never do.

I don’t know if that’s considered a talent by the world’s standards, but Camp I Am Special culminates their week-long activities with a talent show featuring buddy and camper.  Sometimes this entails a lightsaber duel, a song, or for more limited campers the simple twitch of their foot to music.  It’s humbling to watch.  Each time I vacillate between joy and tears. The tears aren’t of pity but rather for the purity of love embodied.  Appearing limitless despite what physical or mental limits exist, this love is enveloping.  The talent show is an expansive experience that broadens how I think of differences, gifts, and abilities to give.

This year, I not only witnessed it, but I was also an unlikely participant.

Mid-way through the talent show, a young man was singing and dancing to Y.M.C.A. by The Village People.  He knew how to engage the crowd getting them to clap, sing, and spell letters with their limbs.  He bounced off the stage and jaunted down the aisle of spectators high fiving them as he passed.  On his second trip down the aisle, he whisked me out of my seat and before I even knew I was standing, he spun me under his arm.  Never letting go of my hand, he pulled me towards the stage where I joined him for the remainder of the song.

I thought about being self-conscious, or how silly I might look, or how I might mess up the timing of my letters to the lyrics (which I did).  Yet, as I stood on stage in what was my very first talent show, I realized it wasn’t about doing it perfectly or being the best or shining in the way gold sequins under the spotlight do.  It was about the gift this young man had to bring joy to others, to remind us to abandon worldly standards of beauty, value, and contributions and consider that loving one another is always going to be the show-stopper.

Read more →

Fishing: Moments to Catch

lpatangan

Summer feels thick right now – the heat, the ebb and flow of vacationers, and the realization that its end is looming like the swarm of mosquitos that emerge at dusk.  I am kind of in a funk about it.  Thinking there are only a few short weeks of summer left, I feel panic rise like the scorching mid-day heat.  For three straight weeks, my family will be scattered in different places.  The final weeks of summer stained with talk of orientation, school schedules, and college applications.  Family time is back to being carved out like the mocking triangle eyes and jagged mouth of a pumpkin. I might as well get the Halloween decorations down from the attic.

When my husband asked me to go on the boat with him one weekday evening, I reluctantly agreed.  I figured it would remind me that summer is still here, in the now.  He likes to fish and I like to read.  Off we went, him with his poles, and me with reading glasses, a stack of old newspapers, a half-read magazine, and book. (I figured if we were stranded the reading material would be a good diversion.)  Within fifteen minutes, he caught three speckled trout.  Each time, I put my newspaper down and took a picture of him with his scaly trophy.  After comparing all three pictures I couldn’t tell a difference – same man, same fish.

 

 

 

 

 

The third fish he caught was the largest.  He kept the other two so I was surprised when he threw this last one back.  He said we had enough and then immediately cast his line again.  Baffled, I didn’t understand why he bothered casting when he didn’t intend to keep any more fish.  Putting down my paper, I looked up at the ease of the summer sky which was oblivious to my end-of-summer angst.  I thought that maybe my husband is onto something.  Maybe life isn’t about what we keep but moments that we catch — or even better moments that catch our breath. Read more →

Sunburn and Silver Linings

lpatangan

The last day of vacation I woke up with a tingling feeling on my lips.  When I looked in the mirror, even through the blur of twilight I could tell they were noticeably fuller — like the fairy godmother of plastic surgery had visited in the night.  I checked different body parts to see if she had generously waved her wand in other places too.  Sadly, it was just my lips.

As lucidity set in, I realized that my pink pout was the result of a sunburn from a long day of scalloping with friends and family.  I had taken the necessary precautions to protect my skin.  I wore a sunscreen shirt, a hat, and covered my face in so much SPF that I looked like a geisha on holiday.  Although I remembered the SPF lip balm and even reapplied it along with my milky white sunscreen, it was not enough to protect me from hours of swimming and sunshine.

I cringed thinking of the resulting sun damage and started down the long twisty road of lament and regret I know so well.  Then, for the love of mercy, I had a thought that I have considered often recently.  It framed itself as a question in the highlight reel of my mind:  Why would you ever think you would get through life unscathed? 

Life is full of losses.  We lose money.  We lose jobs.  We lose time.  We lose things that are dear to us.   We lose people we love.  We lose. No one likes to lose either.  We live in a world that tells us life is all about the win.  We are encouraged to minimize cost and maximize gains.  While that makes good sense in a lot of sunny scenarios, the reality is, sunburn or not – none of us get through life without experiencing a burn.  Accepting this as part of our humanity somehow dulls the sting of it.  Perhaps, so much of our suffering is exacerbated by our resistance to it.

Read more →