A few months ago, I had a brief lack of oxygen to the brain and began attending a Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) group. MOPS is a place for moms with really young children to gather and support one another. The children go to a care group while the moms socialize and meet. I started going because I need more mom friends (my childless friends can only tolerate me to a certain point). I was initially reluctant to attend one of these groups because they are held in churches and sometimes churches make me break out in a rash.
Initially, things went pretty well. There is a brunch at every meeting and some darned good coffee. The meeting is about 3 hours so that’s 3 hours of exclusively adult time every other week. I thought this might help me feel less like a hermit.
After a couple of meetings, I did begin to notice that this was not, perhaps, the right crowd for me. Many of the mothers were very young. I sat at a table with a woman who told me she wanted more children but felt she was getting too old. She was 26. I didn’t have my first child until I was 34 so our perspectives were a bit different.
The religion was subtle at first. Every meeting started and ended with a prayer. Then, a woman would do a devotional. She would tell a story about some challenge or another and how she coped with it through Jesus. Afterward, we spent time at table groups socializing before the meeting activity. After a few meetings, I started getting lots of initiations. None of them were for happy hour or dinner, or even barbecues. I got invitations to lots and lots church events.
Every meeting has a theme. The first one I went to was on conserving energy. I learned how to make a kick ass floor cleaner that is non-toxic and smells great. The next meeting theme was a spa theme. We learned to make our own salt scrubs. A lot of the women, like me, are stretched a bit thin income-wise, so I appreciated tips on how to do spa treatments at home. They also sell a pretty good cookbook with simple, low cost recipes.
Holy Yoga was the day I snapped.
The MOPS group leader announced that meeting’s activity would be yoga. A real, live yoga teacher was going to be teaching us some simple moves. I like yoga so I was all for it. We all put out our mats and sat down, ready to “OM” our hearts out. Then the instructor came to the front of the room to tell us a bit about our background and that’s when the alarm bells went off.
The instructor told us that she was practicing discipleship through teaching yoga. She served God by getting the ladies to stretch. She explained that Christians can not only practice yoga as exercise; they can count it as worship. She explained that Christians are generally wary of yoga because they don’t want to worship Buddha or a random Hindu deity by accident. The good news, however, is that God is a-okay with yoga as long as you make it about God, meaning, of course, the Christian God, not one of the other brands of God(s). She referred to this practice as “Holy Yoga.” If Christians focus on prayer during yoga, they are pretty much killing two birds with one stone. It sounds very efficient.
According to some websites, Holy Yoga is a form of experiential worship which helps deepen the person’s connection to Christ. Holy Yoga looks a lot like regular yoga at first, but there are some differences. Christian yoga practitioners simply must be careful not to chant to Hindu gods or Buddha or any other non-Christian deity.
The instructor started the class with a prayer. She played Christian music throughout the class (that’s the first time I’ve heard music in a yoga class). She encouraged us to keep our hands open (as opposed to clenched fists) so that we could receive God. Every time we got into a new pose, she had a bible verse that she linked with the pose. She frequently referred to the “Your body is a temple” verse. She encouraged us to sense God’s presence during the practice. Linking bible verses and poses seemed to be the primary way to make yoga more Christian. Later, we were asked to consider other ways we could introduce Jesus into yoga.
There are some critics of Christian yoga. Some pastors feel that it is a pagan ritual. Pat Robertson, America’s most open-minded pastor, thinks the chanting is “spooky.” Other pastors think it is demonic or a false religion. Some critics have said that yoga isn’t merely exercise and that people who do yoga are inviting demons into their lives. Christian yoga practitioners obviously disagree and feel they’ve found a way to incorporate religion into their exercise routine.
I had a wildly difficult time keeping a straight face throughout this Jesus yoga event (Joga?) All the other moms seemed completely fine with it. I thought about what would happen if I brought one of my real friends to Holy Yoga. Giggles would be stifled and I’m positive we would have a great debriefing over margaritas afterward. Even though I get lonely occasionally, I realized that MOPS was not the answer for me. That was my last meeting. I miss the coffee and brunch but that’s really about it.
