Yogis in the mist
Today was a classic case of turning lemons into lemonade. What had at first seemed like a potential inconvenience became a blessing. (more…)
Bring a little balance to your new year and your life
Body. Mind. Spirit. They’re all connected. If you think that diet you’re on has nothing to do with the prayers you’re saying — or not saying — think again and read on. I’m offering lots of goodies on this topic in this week’s issue of OSV Newsweekly.
The main story in the In Focus section includes a feature on the mind-body-spirit connection with practical tips from experts and a list of resources. The related essay talks about this connection from a personal perspective — mine. I also wrote this week’s “Openers” column, but that one is open only to OSV subscribers. (more…)
Watching and waiting for God
Here’s my latest Life Lines column from the new issue of Catholic New York. (Disclaimer: I have since rejoined the YMCA. Still no resolutions though…P.S. Noah took that cool sunrise photo above):
What new routines have you vowed to start and keep this year? A healthy eating plan? Exercise regimen? House re-organization effort? The new year offers the promise of a clean slate, a chance to begin again or try for the first time something that will improve our health, our home, our world.
I tend not to make typical resolutions, but I know plenty of people do. I remember when I was still a member of our local YMCA. When that first week of January hit, you couldn’t find a free treadmill or weight machine no matter what hour of the day you showed up. I asked a trainer, “How long will this go on?” He said, “Hang in there until the end of February and they’ll all be gone.”
We spend a lifetime—or at least a lot of years—acquiring the bad habits or out-of-shape bodies or lukewarm prayer lives that compel us to make resolutions, and yet we expect dramatic results in two months or less. We forget that undoing our habits is a one-day-at-time effort. One day at a time, one year at a time, one decade at a time.
Unfortunately, our society has brainwashed us into thinking we can find a quick-fix for everything. Pop a pill, drink a potion, buy a gadget, and you, too, will look like the plastic perfection staring out from a magazine cover. Of course, body and beauty resolutions are an easy target. They bear the brunt of the new year promises (both fulfilled and broken), because physical appearance is so important in our culture. But I know from experience that spiritual exercise routines and daily doses of prayer are no easier to stick to than that weekly abs class or low-fat diet. Spiritual renewal requires hard work. Continue reading HERE…
Where the Amen meets the Om
Today, over at patheos.com, I tackle the subject of yoga — something I love — and how it benefits my Catholic prayer life — something some people find impossible or frightening. I’ll start the post here and take you to the full post at that site. Please leave a comment (and, if you have the time, come back and post the same comment here for NSS readers).
When I took my first yoga class more than twenty years ago, I was in a bit of a crisis in terms of the Catholic faith of my birth. My mother had recently died and I had moved out of my family home and across the country. I was searching in so many ways and came upon yoga through a friend who knew a teacher who held classes in her home. There, on a mat in an empty living room, I learned how to stretch and settle my body in new ways, ways that allowed me to more easily enter a spiritual realm that has always beckoned to me.
So began my odyssey into an Eastern world that some would have us believe is not only incompatible with Roman Catholic faith but dangerous to it. Of all the posts I put on Facebook, anything having to do with yoga is sure to stir up ominous warnings. I have been told, on more than one occasion, that it is the work of the devil. And yes, I have read what the Vatican has warned about “New Age” religions (FYI: Yoga isn’t even remotely new). Quite frankly, someone who is inclined to make an idol of yoga, turning it into an obstacle rather than a pathway to God, is probably just as likely to turn certain devotions within the church into idols or superstitions—from obsessing over the trappings of the faith, to burying a statue to sell a house, to leaving slips of papers in pews as a guarantee that a prayer will be answered. Idolatry comes in all forms; it doesn’t take yoga to make that happen.
Permit me, then, to take you into my world of yoga, a world where Amen and Om happily coexist…Continue reading HERE.
