Rushing. Constant noise in my ear. My breath can’t keep up with the next breath. Thoughts run together until I can’t remember why I walked downstairs in the first place. TV. Radio. Noise Machines. Iphones. Internet. All keeping me at the pace of a racehorse trying to win the Kentucky Derby. But this body is tired of racing all the time. When my body finally caught up with the endless amount of chasing kids, running errands, and taking photographs, I was beat – not just physically but also spiritually. Yet I live in the 21st century where racing is essential to survival.
Thankfully, there is an hour that exists outside of this insanity. My 8:30am Yoga class is a place where I find refuge and rest. For one hour the racing stops. When I am in shavasana, the intrusive noises of my day are quieted and I can actually hear the voice of God. He tells me that I’m strong because He is my strength. He tells me that I can have peace because He has overcome the world. He tells me that my body is beautiful because His hands formed me in my mother’s womb. He tells me it’s good to be still because that’s when I truly know He is God. And He tells me that my breath is sacred because it comes from Him alone.
The word Yoga means “to join, unite or to attach.” If God is truly Wholly Other, then I can’t imagine a better place for God to reside than in a room full of people uniting their bodies together in quiet harmony. There is no other communal bodily experience (outside of worship itself) that I have found to be more beautiful. Our bodies were made for more than just beating against the wind. Lying on my mat, I can hear the kickboxing class below – the thudding of feet just trying to keep up with the music that drowns out their own fear of not succeeding. It begins to sounds like my every day life. Yet when I am quiet I am reminded that God made us for stillness, meditation and to be in tune with our bodies.
In Romans, we are told that God commands us to “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, for this is your spiritual act of worship.” Is beating our bodies ragged in this fast-paced society a living sacrifice? I think of a sacrifice as someone that is fully aware of how alive they are in their body: counting every breath, feeling every rise and fall of the chest, knowing that the body is the armor of life. Dead sacrifices are no longer aware of what they feel or think. And Most of the time I feel like a dead sacrifice running around trying to catch my next breath. Yet I long to be a living sacrifice - fully aware that both my breath and my soul are sacred. Understanding that life – my very soul – is a gift.
In his article, “Christian Yoga: It's a Stretch,” Mark Driscoll describes the practice of Yoga as “demonic.” He uses the same passage above from Romans to explain, “everything we do with our physical bodies also involves our immortal souls.” While I completely agree with his statement, I disagree that yoga cannot be a means for binding the two. Body and soul are inextricably linked, and breath can become prayer – the physical and spiritual working together in perfect harmony Susanna Herring, owner of Hot Yoga of Nashville, so wonderfully explains this harmony of body and spirit, “We bow to the divine in each one of us. As a Christian, I consider bowing to the divine by acknowledging the Holy Spirit inside of us and acknowledging we humans are made in the image of God.” This acknowledgement Susanna is describing – saying “Namaste” at the end of the practice – frightens many Christians. Yet “Namaste” means to give notice to another person, to recognize their presence. It means seeing the divine that resides in each person who is made in the very image of God Himself. When do we take time to actually recognize someone else’s presence and to give such a beautiful form of acknowledgement? By saying this, we are not worshipping a human form of a false god. We are admiring the beauty of the greatest of God’s creations: the human body & Spirit. And ultimately we are worshipping God Himself when we place our hands together, our fingers pointed to something beyond ourselves, and say Namaste – I see you.
In my experience, there are three components to yoga: exercise, breathing and meditation. All three are essential in understanding how yoga and Christianity are not at war with each other. While most Christians believe that exercise is a God-honoring activity, having a fit body is not going to get you into heaven. In fact, I dare to say that sometimes it may keep you from having true communion with Jesus. Our body worshipping culture tries to convince us that if only ______ were flatter, more toned, straighter, etc. – then we could be loved. But Jesus tells us something different – ; He says that He loves us just as we are. And what I love about yoga is that it reiterates exactly what Jesus teaches: be who you are, where you are. My teacher, Marlaine, always reminds us to listen to our bodies and to not compare ourselves with anyone in the class. The practice is for you alone. As regular exercise, yoga is so freeing to me because, unlike every other exercise class I have attended, I feel no pressure to compete or compare myself with those around me.
Breathing comes second nature to the exercise in the practice of yoga. My yoga friend, Elisabeth, reminded me yesterday that the Hebrew name for God, “Yahweh,” literally sounds like an inhale/exhale when spoken in Hebrew. God’s name is breath. And He breathed our very existence into place. We inhale our very first breath into this world and exhale our very last as we enter eternity. Breath is essential to our life with God, and yet it is something we take into consideration very little. We, as Christians, think it to be too mystical or self-centering to focus on the body’s response to life. Yet it is our very breath that God intended to remind us of Him every time we say His name. And as I breathe in and out on my mat, His very name is spoken all around, whether the lips know it or not.
This can only bring me to meditation. Though its history is steeped in Christianity, the term often frightens away many Christians for sounding too “New Age.” People wonder if it’s possible to meditate on Jesus during yoga practice while someone lying on the mat next to them is meditating on something (or someone) else? This brings me to another question: how do we define meditation? Webster defines it as “engaging in mental exercise for the purpose of reaching a heightened spiritual awareness.” It is something that is internal, personal, and between you and God alone. No one else can enter into that space. If I can’t be brought into a place with God in a room full of people from all different backgrounds, then how will I ever learn to find Him in the world around me? In his book, Blue Like Jazz, Don Miller says something that is really beautiful to me. He was on a college campus in Portland that was very well known for its liberalism and hatred for Christians. One night after leaving a wild, worldly event on campus, Don looked back “at the kids laughing, dancing, and throwing up.” And he “felt very strongly that Jesus was relevant in this place, that if He was not relevant here then He was not relevant anywhere.” That’s exactly how I feel about my place in yoga. If Jesus cannot be found in that room, then He cannot be found anywhere.
I am not discounting the fact that the origins of yoga come from the Hindu tradition. But the Hindu's took the above gifts from the true God and turned them into a way to worship a false god. I could argue this point in many ways in the fact there are many things we love in America that has it origins in other religious traditions. One example of this is the Olympic games - originating in the worship of Greek gods. When someone participates in the Olympic games, we do not accuse them of dancing with the devil or worshipping another god. We understand that the meaning of the games have changed and evolved over the centuries. Can someone still participate in the games for the intention of worshipping a Greek god? Of course. But a Christian can also run with the purpose of living out his life verse of Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
This is what it comes down to: If I really believe that God is Yahweh, who commands that every breath out of our mouths gives glory to His name, then I must be able to find Him everywhere. And an unlikely place that I have found Him is in a little room at the YMCA, a place I never expected to find Him. Ever. I did not go there seeking to find Him. But He was there waiting for me. Waiting to make my breath part of His. Waiting to give me quiet in the midst of chaos. Waiting to embrace me for who I am today, not for who I will be tomorrow. Waiting to sing over me with His presence. Yes, it’s an unlikely place to find God. But the more I come to know Him, the more I realize that’s how He works – meeting unlikely people in unlikely places. So to all you who believe yoga is not for Christians, I say please find a place to be with God in the quiet, in the stillness. Find a place to listen to God’s name come out in your breath. Find a place to hear Him find delight in you. It doesn’t have to be yoga. It doesn’t even have to be in church. But please don’t jump to judgment for your fellow brothers and sisters who do find God in a dimly lit room as they move their bodies to the flow of the very name of God. Namaste.
*these are pictures of one of my good friends and her sister who are both instructors at Hot Yoga Nashville
