Sometime in my late 20s, I lamented to my boss that I was having a mid-life crisis. I think this had something to do with the Olympic games that were being held that year. I loved watching gymnastics and couldn’t help but think that it should be me on television in a leotard flipping and flopping and flying on behalf of my country. Never mind that I had yet to take a single gymnastics lesson in my life. My heart ached to do something with so much passion that it would literally propel me skyward -- while also managing to land me firmly on my feet. Plus, I liked the sequins.
At the time, I was married with no kids. With a career in fundraising for a children’s hospital, the work I did was inherently meaningful - and we have already established that I had a kind boss tolerant of premature mid-life crises. I had a house, some cats, a dog, a good husband, and a job. And yet, I had this nagging feeling that if not an Olympic gold medalist, wasn’t I meant for more?
The question of purpose arises intermittently like a bad stomach virus that leaves me longing for the merciful reprieve of a saltine cracker. Life’s epic search for meaning seems like it should take a straight path hurdling over obstacles, dismounting into some profound contribution to humanity, and landing with the specter of triumph (and yes, maybe even a gold medal around one’s neck.) Instead, it throws me off-balance like a gymnast teetering on the brink of a disastrous fall. My trajectory towards something meaningful can feel like an angsty wobble of futility leaving me more frustrated than fulfilled. The great mercy in having been through this multiple times is that I now realize our contributions to the world aren’t always noticeable -- even to ourselves. That’s the humility of it.
Recently, a friend who I often suspect is a living, breathing saint, confided that she feels as if she should be doing something “more” or “different” with her life. As much as I admire the impact she has had on myself and others, I understand the emptiness she feels. It’s the emptiness of our humanity that aches for connection to God. It’s that inherent longing to make a difference, to make our lives count, and to find meaning brilliant enough to shine through the cloud of mundanity that we perceive as life’s ordinariness.
Yet, our lives are not ordinary and our purpose has nothing to do with worldly accomplishments. It is to love and serve God and our neighbor. Nothing more. Nothing different. It is to do the next right thing. It is to surrender our expectations and be open and obedient to His. Sure, it’s important to be willing to change paths or answer a call that is tugging at our hearts. It’s just that our purpose has little to do with what we do and everything to do with how we love. It is because of my friend’s unwavering trust in God, that my own trust in him has grown. It is because of her, that I pray the rosary daily. By committing myself to her example, I am able to show love through prayer. I may never see the difference that makes in the world, but I do completely trust that the ripple of what she has taught me will spread beyond what either of us will likely ever see. When I think of that, the question of purpose doesn’t seem like it should command so much of the spotlight. It’s the answer of love that’s the real show stopper.
May we love like we have sequins on. ... See MoreSee Less
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What a joy it was to stand by this amazing young woman as she received the gift of the Holy Spirit at her Confirmation tonight 🙏.
I was a little nervous about attending because of my health issues so I actually wore 2 masks. The pros of wearing masks are that when you are moved to tears because you understand what beautiful things this young person will do with her life because of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, there is no need for tissue. The mask(s) just soaks them all up and there’s no need to wipe your face. It makes crying very discreet! The con is that multiple mask wearing can cause one to have a minor coughing attack which seems to make people kind of squirmy.
My heart is full tonight (and now I can breathe again.) Thank you Bajacan family for sharing your girl. Love her ❤️ ... See MoreSee Less
The sin of racism has a long history of division. A history filled with a kind of hatred I have not known and I cannot understand. More than anything, a history so sinister and sly that if you aren’t paying attention you easily forget that it’s not history at all. It’s here in the present haunting and hunting and hurting others in subtle and systematic ways that perpetuate cycles of poverty, violence, and oppression.
The senseless and brutal murder of George Floyd demands understanding. Through his struggling gasps, the world heard his cry that bears the tears of countless unknown and untold instances of humankind’s history of racial hatred. It reverberated in cities throughout the world, sometimes as a growl of palpable anger and destruction – sometimes as a peaceful hum of hope and shared humanity. The clanging noise of division has been heard and the costs have been high. With it, though, is the quiet promise of hope that conversations about racism are leading to an unprecedented and long overdue conversion in our country – suffocating the sin of racism and breathing new life into love and unity with our neighbor.
Every day in countless small ways we choose what kind of change to affect in this world. Those choices matter. In the mundanity of our daily routine, we may sometimes forget how much this is so. We can’t reconcile our mistakes without first recognizing them. During the mass, we recite a prayer known as the Confiteor. “I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do…” When it comes to social injustice collectively and individually, we have failed our brothers in sisters by both what we have done and what we have failed to do.
God created us to love one another. There weren’t any caveats or exclusions in his command. Somehow along the way, we messed this up. We have messed this up with people of different races, with those who have disabilities, with the elderly, the imprisoned, and the unborn. We mess up when we let our differences divide us. We mess up when we devalue life of any kind.
The great hope of our faith is offered through God’s inexhaustible mercy. It can fix any mess – even this one. Mr. Floyd’s cruel death epitomizes the world’s desperate need for compassion which is lacking in so many aspects of society. That people are angry about indifference and injustice can be a good thing when it is used constructively. It means we are ready for change. It means we want to do better for ourselves, our children, and our brothers and sisters in Christ. Loving our neighbor isn’t a sing-song platitude to paste over the defiled issue of racism. It is the way of Christ. It is what we were created to do. It is at the core of every being. Only by embracing our core and our Creator’s example of unconditional love, do we have a shot at truly making racism history. Nothing short of a complete conversion will do and there’s no time like the present to begin.
𝙄 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙚 𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙙𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙞𝙨𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙡𝙮 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙣𝙤𝙬, 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝 𝙤𝙛 𝙪𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙨𝙚𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙂𝙤𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙪𝙨𝙥 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙙𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙞𝙨𝙨𝙪𝙚. 𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙬𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙩 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙗𝙮 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙣𝙚𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙗𝙤𝙧, 𝙨𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙞𝙣𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙚𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙚 𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙. 𝙐𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙣, 𝙬𝙚 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝 𝙙𝙤 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩. ~ 𝙇𝙖𝙧𝙖 ... See MoreSee Less
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Way back when kids actually went to school, I won the award for perfect attendance for not missing any school days in a year. My mom always told me I was her healthiest kid. I think she appreciated that I didn’t get sick on road trips or require multiple trips to the ER to be sewn back together from running into walls. Discounting late-night runs to the border for Taco Bell’s Nacho Bell Grande and a fog of other questionable college choices, I have mostly lived a healthy lifestyle.
So after going through two ultrasounds, an MRI, a cat scan with angiogram, a needle biopsy in my neck, countless blood tests, visits with an internist, endocrinologist, neurosurgeon, vascular surgeon, rheumatologist, and a neurologist – all in the span of three weeks, I considered buying myself a pack of Marlboro Reds to puff on as I rode off into the sunset on a horse that would likely buck, leaving me concussed in some cornfield wondering what became of that little girl’s certificate of good health. (Yes, that’s a long sentence but it’s been a long few weeks friends.)
Still, I can’t help but feel immense gratitude. If I hadn’t noticed a lump in my neck that led to the thyroid biopsy and a diagnosis of a multinodular goiter then I wouldn’t have seen my doctor. I wouldn’t have told her about the chronic headaches and cluster of bizarre symptoms that prompted the MRI. She was as surprised as I was when the results showed severe stenosis in the carotid artery. And on the day that I received the official diagnosis from the cat scan of a dissected carotid artery with greater than 70 percent blockage, I was terrified. I called a nurse practitioner friend to ask for her opinion. She just happened to live across the street from a brilliant and compassionate neurosurgeon who agreed to see me that day to explain the diagnosis and treatment. At the time, none of it felt like a miracle. It was hectic, confusing, sordid, and surreal that this 3-inch space on the right side of my neck had not one but two separate and unrelated diagnoses. Each made more complicated by their proximity to each other.
Yet, now I see the miracle of it – the way it all tied together to keep me here. Most of all, I see the miracle of my life – the one that many days I took for granted. The life I sometimes felt indifferent about. The life that I sometimes lazed away. The life that I was so often impatient with for not being better, or more, or whatever other deficiency I sometimes assigned to it because it didn’t look the way I thought it should look. There were many days that I felt anxious about my situation. I felt like a ticking time bomb that could go at any time – ignoring that this is inherently the nature of life for all of us.
Every time I passed a mirror, I checked my face for signs of a stroke. I would wake up in the night and think, wow, I’m alive. I would speak kinder to others and wonder if they could possibly know how much they mean to me. I would repeat “Jesus I trust in you,” during the scans, before my appointments, and when the fear became suffocating. And with Jesus – because of him, I manage to breathe.
I still have a way to go with these issues. I still have moments of fear. Yet more and more, I realize I can’t waste my life being afraid. I have been given a tremendous gift. Maybe I didn’t always realize it or appreciate it like I should have. Maybe there aren’t any awards or certificates for realizing this now. I’m alive and that’s perfect in itself. More than ever, I don’t want to miss a single day.
(Please keep me in your prayers. I really believe they will make a difference). ... See MoreSee Less
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We all have a story and often we are afraid to tell it. It’s the part of us that doesn’t come up in our social media feeds or in casual conversation. I get that. I don’t tell all of mine. All any of us can do is share what we are comfortable with and hope whoever we trust doesn’t use it to cause pain. Most of us have already experienced enough of that.
I think I was in college when I first realized that everyone has a story that maybe is a little bit broken. It was a relief to know that other people had hurt and healed or at least hurt and found hope again. Not because I didn’t have hope, but I just always hated the thought of being alone, different, and the only one. And, yet, I think we all feel like that sometimes.
Now, instead of feeling alone, I am sometimes overwhelmed by how much suffering exists in our world. Betrayal, pain, grief, disappointment, longing, and loss are part of our human experience.
What I realize is that despite life’s mistakes and meandering hurts, the universality of pain diminishes what feels monumental from defining to just one more destination on what we hope will be a long journey. Maybe that’s why God thought it was so important for his son to live our humanity. Jesus suffered beyond the comprehensible and yet it wasn’t what defined him. From conception through infinity that was always love – not loss.
Everyone has a sad story. We just have different details, characters, and plot twists. It’s not the pain that makes it unique, it’s the way we find our way out that makes it interesting. It’s the way we forgive valiantly that is heroic. It’s the way we choose healing over hate that can inspire others to do the same. It’s the way we love through loss that we choose life. And, always, we should choose life.
I love to hear people’s stories but it isn’t their pain that makes them interesting. A friend who has recently been through a hard time said of her own hardships, “I now think, it really isn’t interesting. But I am! I’m interesting and I have so much love to give.”
𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘐 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵?
As, always, love says it all. ... See MoreSee Less
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