Sometimes I live in the shallow end of life…and faith.
More often than I'd care to admit I'm afraid.
It is a real sadness in my life that I have allowed other people's prejudices and opinions dictate my outerlife – my actions.
Even now…as a curmudgeon who has flung myself into the wooing pull of a God I cannot see, I tiptoe over some realities to avoid riling people in their dogma and opinions.
Take yoga for example; many evangelical Christians (my faith peeps) are troubled by yoga practice, its meditative roots, and Sanskrit names for poses. It's "new" to the West, foreign, and evokes concerns over New Age dilutions of a righteous and holy faith. So, despite a real interest in yoga practice and plenty of good reasons to try it (hellooo wrecked IT band), I avoided it because I was worried about what folks might think.
I can be such an idiot.
After wrecking my IT band and a few other body parts while running a triathlon without shoes (long story) and living a carefree life of shenanigans, I had doctors and physical therapists recommend yoga as a stretching practice to ease me back into running races. It has taken me too long to come to grips with the fact that yoga is just intentional stretching and isometric exercises with hard to remember (and pronounce) labels.
If my body is a temple and I have been bought with too high a price (1 Cor 6: 19 – 20), then I have a responsibility to do my best to live well, with a pure life, and take care of this thing. After a month of yoga practice, I feel physically better than I have in years and I'm learning a few words in an ancient language (and lots of humility.)
I have no angst about foreign languages or practices. I do have a problem with sin.
*A few folks know that I have developed a crusty vocabulary over the past ten years. I now have employed the use of a "cuss jar" where the proceeds go to a colleague at Adventures in Missions. These words are just that – words – but they are also evidence of a verbal and spiritual laziness that I've fallen into. After drinking bottled water in the Dominican Republic for nearly two weeks, I have a new appreciation for James 3:11 that says, "Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh and bitter water?" (NLV)
I only want to offer potable water to people, not the stuff that is murked with the flotsam and jetsam of a broken life. Some people don't get worried about an occasional verbal "air biscuit." Generally, I don't either. Life is messy. Lately, however, I've been wondering if this area of my life (and liberty) can be redeemed and bring honor to a God who designed a lexicon too rich for wasted words.
So back to yoga and the squeamishness some folks get with this practice of stretching and intention:
God is so beautiful, so mysterious, so much bigger than our ability to conceptualize him and wrap our feeble arms around him. I have no right to judge you according to my experience, interpretation of Truth and the Bible; nor what my pastor has said on Sunday morning.
I have a responsibility to seek Truth and pursue it. To test everything and keep that which is Truth. To speak Truth in love with gentleness and respect. To love you sincerely.
Truth is sometimes very hard to swallow, but it is never bombastic, accusing, judgmental, or salacious.
Truth brings freedom – liberty. We bastardize this liberty into license (see above reference to "cuss jar").
Truth engages mercy and mercy triumphs over judgment.
Truth brings glory to God – not grandiose opinions of self-importance.
Truth heals and sometimes the healing process is excrutiating…but love and life are always a part of it.
Truth…Love…never demands its way.*
Truth makes a way for life.
I don't have all the answers, but in this atelier of life in the hands of a loving God, I have a lot of wonder…and questions…and need for redemption…and reasons for rejoicing.
A final word picture I got while contorted in a stretchy pose yesterday at yoga
Yoga has improved my prayer life…(comedic pause). Like King David, I get distracted and don't always make tip top decisions. He meditated (Psalm 19:14) – most likely on the presence of a Holy God and not the big nothing, nirvana, nada. I maintain a running conversation with this same God that is punctuated by quiet, life, diving into my Bible, and moments of grace.
During Saturday morning yoga with the amazing Amy leading and Ann beside me, I began to reflect…to pray about my friend Lisa. We've been praying for her foot to be healed up. She's done her due diligence and Friday, I felt that I needed to offer to pray for her. So I did. And it was awkward, because I sensed to boldly go where I would not ordinarily go publicly.
Who am I to offer these things? People with greater faith have prayed for Lisa. Lisa has big faith and an earnest heart of clarity mixed with humility…me pray…out loud…for a physical healing…at work? Geez.
Anyhoo, I felt like I needed to pray some more yesterday while my pretzled self was in twisty-triangle-warrior pose. And I felt so sad for a moment and apologized to God for my weak faith. I asked him to forgive me and to fill me with faith – the stuff of life that he could use. And then I felt nudged to pray about my foot and hip and heart healing-the full-meal deal of prayer.
"I don't have enough gratitude to pray that, Lord. I'd probably blow off that sort of kindness and forget all about your having stepped into my eternity to fix my foot. And there is so much else that needs prayer and redemption and rescue…Sudan? Prisons. Sex tourism. Abused kids. (long silence) Will you fill me with gratitude anyway?"
Amy moved us into another pose where my balance was precarious and my muscles screamed…yet my heart was still and silent and peaceful.
And this thought, this word picture came to mind; I imagined me with a bucket by the ocean. The ocean was worship and prayer…gratitude. As I scooped up a bucketful of ocean (gratitude) and tossed it into the wind (spirit) as an offering of thanks, all of the water sprayed back onto me and the sand and I was drenched by the offering of grace.
God inhabits the praises and prayers of his people and we are changed by the practice of worship.
All this from prayers prayed during a stretchy, bendy, wobbly, practice of intentional flexibility – yoga.
Lord, let me not call clean which is unclean. Let me not abandon who and what you call clean because my peeps and culture squeamishly call it…them "unclean."
In your ocean, I'm ankle deep…Something Beautiful by NeedtoBreathe
Allie this is thoughtful and reminds me of why I so value our friendship. Just recently (about three weeks ago) I severed a connection with someone who engaged in fear mongering with this and was totally unwilling to engage in conversation over it. Since it was a woman I’ve never met but seems to be a very solid follower of Christ we’d connected electronically but came to an impasse over this issue. I was so surprised but refused (still do) to allow what others deem fearful to cloud the freedom I have in Christ. I think we can and should claim all the ground God gives us. This person (very unfit and significantly overweight) was subtly judging me despite my being clear in saying I am not at all swayed by anything but my Lord Jesus and do not even engage in the spiritual aspect of Yoga practice. Her argument seemed to be that isn’t possible to which I responded, Jesus is LORD and that includes over Yoga. Call nothing unclean for which so great a sacrifice was made. I’m willing to give up anything that causes someone to stumble and in this case it seemed best to not argue…but pray and and step away. 🙂