I don't feel articulate in this matter at all.
I know I have my bias.
That's not where I want to write from...
I want to discover what to say that is well spoken, and universal enough. I don't want to castrate yoga to make it appealing to Christians but I still (regardless of thought out there) have Christ as the corner stone of my life. Personally and this is just a personal (while acknowledging that I'm making it public) stance.. I don't think putting the word "holy" or "christian" before something makes it any more holy and any more christian.
What it does is this.......
It makes it more marketable for a population.
But I have seen that industry destroy too many lives to go down that path. The marketable "christian" label.. aka man or woman of the hour, that isn't really cared about just the fact that they can sell products, books, grow a church, be an amazing orator even when their personal life is falling to shit and nobody cares about the person behind the pulpit, sometimes even sadder not even the person behind the pulpit, what was once said? You can gain the whole world but what?????
I get off on a rabbit trail.
I refuse to castrate Christ and put a "christian" label on yoga just so you all will stop telling me I'm going to hell, or leading the faithful astray.
Remember in the last post when I said I was behaving myself... Uhm... This post not so much. Remember when I wrote about self-editing... This post .... not so much.
I'm a reader... yet sadly there is much lacking to even be read in this area...
BUT...
On that last point I realized that that is part of this new journey of mine. There's isn't much to read in the Yoga/Christian conversation. There is a lot if you want to believe Christians don't do yoga. There is even places where what is written is how to make yoga Christian. I don't fit in either of those categories. I can feel in the depth of me that there is a conversation missing. Where it ceases to be about yoga and it ceases to be about Christian and it becomes about what is life giving and true and real and abounding in the spirit if we will just let our bias and our preferences that separate us fall to the ground. So even when I have found the few sources that are out there, I couldn't quote them, nor really share them without putting a disclaimer. There were things written that for me didn't feel right. I didn't want to go toe to toe. I didn't want to give excuses for, there is no excuse needed. There is no defense needed.
There is lack of understanding that, as is written in Hebrew text, causes the people to perish. I want to find an intelligible conversation that is full of spirit and truth and life and bridges the gap. I know there is one. Those before me have found the way. I am no pioneer. Just read the likes of Thomas Merton and others like him. (I wish I knew the names from other traditions to point to as well.. the likes of Thomas Merton who could see the cross cultural and inter faith dialogue and with brilliance and incredible articulation bring to life that which I feel in my bones but can't fully find the expression yet.)
I want to share this point.... Because I think for many of us, Christians... and yes, I say us... That has been a hard path too.... Because as much as many of you would disown me from the expression of my faith tradition, this Summer I questioned in ways I rarely, if ever had. What kept me in? (Oh behave yourself, Mims Driscoll. Behave yourself. So much I want to say here... More in regards to what wouldn't have kept me in... but I honestly believe the conversation is more important then my personal ranting.) I wish I had stayed with what kept me in all my faith journey BUT I didn't and that IS on me.
What kept me in was that I couldn't disown my experience. When I was 19 and not knowing anything spiritual, but only knowing death and destruction,I went to a window and prayed and what transpired did change everything. No person, well... no human being living at the time led me into faith. What happened in that room is for another post but important here because of what I didn't do... I didn't stay true to those initial moments. I veered into religious expression more than spiritual truth for a long time. I stopped listening to essence and allowed others to dictate beliefs and behaviors.
The larger picture became this, I believed the form of Christianity that the Vineyard Christian Fellowship believed for eleven years. They said this was the way to interpret scripture, live the "Christian" life, etc I was on board hook, line and sinker... ( Sunk) I was on the fringe of some of their limits with the reality of understanding how mystical and spiritual things work, but we walked together. Pastored, helped to church plant, led ministries within... I had what they called their DNA. When the reality of differences of philosophy became a breach, there was already another affiliation to take their place and again for another decade (some overlap.. I was a mixed breed even back then.) I stood in company line of Streams Ministries and allowed myself again to hook line and sinker buy company line after line after line. (No tattoos.. even no yoga.. no this.. no that......and that list kept growing except when I look back the incongruities of what was and wasn't allowed startle me.What is said? Having eyes they do not see. Having ears they do not hear. Wow! What the irony.) But I bought and drank all the kool aid without enacting discernment on my own... That.. hear me.. that is on me. I take responsibility for not enacting my own self. I didn't show up. A version of me did... a politically correct for the situation, wanting to fit in, needing to fit in, wanting to belong version of me showed up. But I made those choices. I saw all the crap at times and stayed anyway. The things we didn't do as good christians but the things we would allow. The jealousy and envy that I watched crush a whole organization but dammed are you if you get a tattoo. Really? And even if we weren't buying the totality of the shit, we bought enough that we stayed. We viewed the organism as a means to self progress into spiritual understanding or personal benefit. Do I exaggerate? Not as much as you want to think I am.... We want to see white wash because it brings comfort to think its all white and there's an all black. There is an all good and there is an all bad. BUT nothing is ever black and white. NOTHING.
But again I digress... This is the continuing of the beginning of me finding what I want to express for the Yoga/Christian conversation
It is about yoga but It ceases to be about yoga
It is about christian but It ceases to be about christian
I am finding my way. For the first time planning out a series of blogs! I want an articulate, intelligent, spiritual, beautiful expression for this conversation. I know it exists. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. I can listen to Snatum Kaur and Misty Edwards and worship my heart out to both. Same spirit. SAME SPIRIT!!!!!
There is an expression where it ceases to be about what would divide us, that which is of the proverbial Paul and Apollos doesn't matter.
When I was a child in my faith I thought and acted as a child, but it is time to put childish things aside and grow up into a maturity and sight that sees. When I think of the me back when I was wearing label after label of Christendom, I think... Wow, if that self could see this self... that's how I get it when certain segments of the population want to remind me of such things... you see I'm not a stranger to such ways. The list of taking up "company line" went on and on until it stopped...
What happened? What's happening?
Yoga taught me that when I step on the mat, it's MY practice. It is my expression. On the mat yoga taught me to listen to myself, to listen to my body and to hear my heart and take care of my breath. Yoga taught me that I didn't need a label or another person's vision or belief. I learned that what I could do in the moment was what I could do even if yesterday I did more. I learned in the practice of yoga, in the scientifically proven basis for bringing breath and body together to calm the mind and that I was an I. To listen to that more and to follow the breath, the spirit, (Not new age here.. think creation people.. garden. Breath brings life. That hasn't ever changed!) and to follow that was what would lead me into all life.
The lessons I learned on the yoga mat propelled me to a life I would have never dreamed of and the Spirit of the living God was always there, because the Spirit is everywhere...
In the beginning I was a tad disconcerted that I was being engaged by God more at the yoga studio then in church. I would come to my mat before a class and as presence would engulf me I began to cry. OFTEN. Why? Why here? I had been going to church for months and months and not feeling anything liken to that and while not confused I was sad. I was.....
I will tell you what I know to be true of Spirit's response to me in those moments. He is the I am. He will meet us where He meets us and He is in all places. Where the Spirit leads He will ask us to follow but we don't have to... It is an invitation. We will always have choice. I didn't enact my choice time after time in other places and in other times..... But I do now.. I will choose to follow the Spirit even when I am led away from all that was familiar into the unknown....
learning to live as label free as it gets..... and that will be part of my next post..... stay tuned... I am finding the articulation for this step by step.. There is a path where Spirit and truth kiss and life erupts in the most beautiful fashion..
There is a convergence .. It is just bigger than ever thought....
Beautiful, and I commend you for being genuine.
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