When I was a kid, having a curiosity about everything, I read nearly every nonfiction and biography book in the children’s section of the public library. When the librarian noticed I was checking out the same ones over again, she suggested some children’s fiction books I might like.
She was right. I liked them. However, I quickly read through all of their Walt Morey, Jean Craighead George, and Little Pear books. Then, she said something absolutely beautiful to me.
“You do know you can go over to the adult section, right?”
I remember my eyes widening with wonder as I looked toward the adult stacks that filled two-thirds of the small, one-floor library!
Looking back to her, I asked, “I’m allowed to?”
She smiled and nodded. “Come on.”
I followed close at her heels as she pointed out a whole shelf of nonfiction nature books beside true-life animal stories. She seemed to be having fun taking me on the tour of what subjects to find where, emphasizing those she knew I was particularly fond of over in the children’s section. Then, I was released to the wilds of this new wonderland of reading adventures!
There, in the adult section, I found a couple books on yoga.
One of my favorites in the children’s section was a book of yoga stretches for kids. Glancing through these, though, I was turned off. There was a lot of talk about meditation and “centering.” Huh?
This was boring to me, and it wasn’t in the book for kids. So, I tried the next yoga book. It showed photos of a bearded, loin-clothed fellow stuffing a long, wet rag up his nose and it coming out his mouth. Gross!
“Okay,” I thought to myself, “Adult yoga isn’t for me.”
Just to my left there was a huge bookcase filled with Christian books as well as tomes describing the beliefs of other religions. I spent quite a bit of time over the next several years reading through many of these.
Back to yoga. I never “advanced” beyond the stretches, making them a regular part of my home fitness program. However, glancing through the weirdness and yucky ideas in the adult books spared me of other yoga practices.
When I got to college courses on grade school education, we were learning how to teach each subject. For the physical education portion, we each had to teach our fellow students a physical game or practice. I chose yoga. I told them I’d gotten the stretches from the world of yoga. I explained yoga’s origins. I described that, because I was a Christian, I wasn’t planning on teaching any of the accompanying meditation or spiritual beliefs that can go along with yoga. They seemed fine with that.
A year or so later, I asked a friend if I could “come do yoga” in her larger, more private living room.
She forcefully said, “no.”
I accepted that and did not try to persuade her to change her answer.
However, I had immediately felt unfairly condemned, so I wanted to talk to her about my thoughts on it. Knowing she was a Christian, I explained that all I did (and had ever done) were the stretches.
She angrily said, “I don’t care. I’m not having my kids exposed to it.”
“That’s fair. I don’t blame you. Again, just keep in mind that all I do are the stretches.”
I applaud her protection of her kids. Plus, even if we were best friends, she definitely had a right to say what went on in her home. At the time, though, this knee-jerk reaction and quick anger confused me. She’d been in sports in high school, and I’d watched some of her practices as well as football practices. A large number of their stretches were from yoga. So, what was the difference? Did she know she’d been doing yoga all along?
I realized, then, the problem. I’d called it, “yoga.” Had I called them “stretches,” it might have been fine.
As I thought about it, I got why she’d reacted. By this time, though, I was seeing the good in it. I was teaching the stretches to the elderly, chronically ill, and wheelchair-bound. In my experience, the slow, gentle movement and balancing poses were helping them tremendously, especially my fellow MSers (people with MS). I still wasn’t teaching beliefs held by other yoga teachers, and I’d explain it was because I was a Christian.
This is when it happened. As a term of endearment, my nickname from people became “Yogi.”
From then on, whenever fellow Christians heard or saw my nickname, they’d inevitably talk about the food-loving cartoon. Knowing the potential flip from a happy remembrance of a campground bear to angry revulsion over “yoga,” I simply affirmed I do like picnics and changed the subject. In other words, I just let them think of me as that cute cartoon!
At this point, it was already a long-standing part of my email address. [It still is, though I’m trying to get everyone moved over to one of my other ones. Why? I don’t want the nickname or my email address to lead others down a harmful path, thinking Christianity can flow righteously with Hindu or New Age beliefs.]
My full “religious journey” is a long write-up. For now, I’ll just cut to the chase and say that I eventually ran from an abusive man who claimed to be a Christian, ended up running from God in the process, and truly did get involved in New Age and shamanism.
Eventually, I started making steps back toward Jesus and the Bible I had read so avidly as a kid. What I hadn’t expected was that the Bible and New Age beliefs could be mixed so well that I could be deceived into thinking I was still serving God. One can sincerely want to follow Jesus while still being led, via superficial reading of His Word, toward all kinds of troublesome theology and extrabiblical philosophies.
Nowadays, my husband talks about Satan claiming to be Jesus someday. Is it already happening? These extrabiblical principles are subtly infiltrating the Church. It angers me that Satan is gaining this foothold! It angers me that I fell for it. I hope that, by looking at my story in this and upcoming posts, you will be inspired to take heed and be watchful.
Ephesians 6:10-20 (LEB): “Finally, become strong in the Lord and in the might of his strength. Put on the full armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil, because our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual <em>forces</em> of wickedness in the heavenly <em>places</em>. <strong><sup> </sup></strong>Because of this, take up the full armor of God, in order that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand. <strong><sup> </sup></strong>Stand therefore, girding your waist with truth, and putting on the breastplate of righteousness, and binding <em>shoes</em> under your feet with the preparation of the good news of peace, in everything taking up the shield of faith, with which you are able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and receive the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, with all prayer and supplication praying at all times in the Spirit, and to this <em>end</em> being alert with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints, and for me, that a word may be given to me at the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for the sake of which I am an ambassador in chains, that <em>in them</em> I may speak freely, as it is necessary for me to speak.”