Yoga class this evening. This makes my Christian people nervous.
No, I don’t believe that some crazed Hindu god owns the lotus pose, any more than I believe Darwin owns the bones of the brachiosaur. In the end, most Christians in the pew are actually among those who, had they lived in Corinth, would have been sure that meat consecrated to idols actually was imbedded with demons.
On the contrary: Jesus is lord of all. Because He is lord, there are no others, and so there is only one Owner of it all: down-dog and crane and warrior, then, to the end. Calling the yoga poses by their sanskrit names is no problem for the Lord of, also, sanskrit. This moment is just to pause for the next significant event, which, if I’m remembering correctly, will be the trumpet of God, when the Owner serves a search warrant on the world.
Because Jesus is lord over down-dog and knows how many breaths I have left, I can sit. Listen to the silence of the night sky, silence creeping into my muscles. Hold, says the instructor. Hold. Hold. I say to myself, just hold, watch the in and out of your breath, know that the thread of your breath is stretched inside the long angel inhalation before reveille. Gabriel’s inhalation, now 20 centuries long, is the pause in which I sit.
September 2010