My Underwear is Showing: Yoga and this Pastoral Life

I fell off the yoga wagon, or should I say that I fell off the mat, over a year ago.  Once or twice I had unrolled

the mat at home and wandered through a few vinyasas (a basic pose sequence) but nothing more.   As I began to focus in on returning to my practice I discovered there are dozens and dozens of yoga videos on Youtube, everything from 10 minutes to an hour, offering a wide range of quality and styles.  These home videos are helpful; but for me the in person classes are better.  In part it is personality, my extroverted self probably spends to much time at home with reading, sewing and baseball games.  In person classes are an important part of any yoga practice.  You can do it on your own, but that is probably not the most authentic approach.

Every time I am in a yoga class I cannot help but think of all the analogies with church work and life.  What if we demanded this much sweat from Christian practice?  What if worship was this body centered?  What if we were better at letting the presider preside like a loving shepherd?  A good yoga instructor is very much like a living good shepherd parable. What if we were better at following along as best we are able, yet with a plethora of adjustments based on our bodies and where we are being led?  

Classes at the studio I frequent (when I am ‘on the mat’) are quietly social.  They are a good mix of ages and gender and styles and ethnicity.  An hour in a room together you learn things about each other; the lives of the people around you find ways into your consciousness.   A young woman is pregnant, almost due, so full to term I didn’t need to ask.  Yet she keeps up the yoga practice with patience and grace.  A man wore his underwear inside out.  I wondered, was that on purpose?  Another man who is clearly a regular could not step away from his iPhone.   I wonder if others noticed how out of practice I am, or my wretched dry skin leaving white dust all over my mat?  

Coming back for the first time in a year was very much like some of the church newcomers I have encountered over the years.  Oh yeah that is how this starts.  A what pose?  My confusion is increased because I cannot see the instructor, so I look around me to learn what are my neighbors doing, oh, ok.  And then oh my, that muscle hasn’t been used recently.  I was at times befuddled and inspired, at home and off balance.  I had to ask a few questions, however I made it through. 

The casual analogy observations are very good food for thought for this Christian life.  It is natural theological reflection.  It takes away the very personal nature of shepherding a human community I am immersed in.  It lets me be a rather observant sheep, but without my critical-church-expert voice taking away from the opportunity. I am always amazed by how suddenly and naturally prayer arises during my yoga practice.  However I still struggle deeply with the Om chant.  Heresy alarms go off deep within my being.  I tell myself they are just syllables.  But no, to far off the edge of the boat for this pro-pluralistic progressive Christian.  So I quietly hum something like Alleluia instead. 

I have returned to yoga practice for multiple reasons, however it is the search of reliving a sense of spiritual dryness that looms large.   I sense that this feeling of dryness isn’t just the meteorological drought.   Yoga wisdom says that what is going on on your mat is what is going on in your life.  Having fallen off the mat, there may be a lot of no there there.   As I move through this transition in my work and home life, I need to ‘work it out’ on the mat.  With other people, stretching and leaning and falling.   So how can we be better at nurturing congregations where folks can ‘work it out’ ‘on the mat’ so that we may seek and serve Christ in the world beyond the studio?   Now if only it would rain really hard so I could get that mat really clean.