Finally the email of widsom came...

Anxious.  I suppose that is the most accurate word for how I felt each time I would open my seminary email inbox.  I was searching, hunting, holding my breath, waiting for that email that would impart some small sense of stability and wisdom that would help me make it through my first intensives.
And then it came- but it was not alone.  No, a gaggle came.  Ones about housing in the dorms and what to bring to make life more comfortable, ones about meals and where to go at 2 am when desperate for company, coffee or even a beer to relax  after hours of frantic studying.  Others were about the schedule, about rules generally unspoken but wise to follow, written through sage experience of those who have gone before us. 
They were mixed in with my reservation confirmation and links to local necessities.  But the peace I thought would come from this wave of wisdom was a wash.  Instead I am now wired.  A little afraid, mostly excited and utterly overwhelmed with scenarios running through my inexperienced brain. 
Those little emails have more in them than I care to acknowledge at the moment.  I have 6 or 7 books to read right now for classes in preparation and both syllabus are finally in my hand. I have meals to make for my family, lists of contacts to type up, household function lists to arrange, oh my.... my stomach churns and my tummy flips over the amount of preparation and  not a whit of it will really help me when I get there. 
I cannot take it back now though. I have the wsidom of the ages, well at least the last 4 cohorts, in my hot little hands (read: laptop) and I am now charged with making it happen.  May the grace of God bless my words, thoughts, actions and experience.  Here we go....

Can a Christian practice Yoga?

Lets break this question down to basics.  Can a Christian practice Yoga?  What is Yoga?  It is a bunch of poses that place the body in positions that biologically create hormone balance, inner heat, weight loss, muscle strength, muscle toning/lengthening, etc.  I could go on and on.  It also uses meditation.  There are plenty of people out there who can uses the poses without meditation- and do- that recieve the health benefits of less pain with arthritis, fewer sore muscles, better abdominals... again, I could go on and on. Scientifically, and even spiritually, we cannot argue that these poses are actually very good for our body and are a form of caring for the temple that Christ reminds us to care for.
But we all know that the full benefits of Yoga are found when it is fully practiced using a form of meditation as well.  Here is the part that gets sticky for many Christians.  Our faith dictates that we watch for and deny the subtle ways of giving credence to other Gods- which include ourselves. 
Lets look at meditation then.  When we meditate, we basically call out to the universe and try to figure out our place in it, acknowledge that we are in it, that we have a place and to center ourselves.  No?  I do not meditate but from what I understand, that is the gist of it.
And now, lets consider prayer.  Actually, I am going to quote a passage from one of my texts this semester that I think is very interesting and quite applicable.

What do I mean by prayer?  I mean the practice of relatedness.  

On one side, prayer is our capacity to enter into that vast community of life in which self and other, human and nonhuman, visible and invisible are intricately intertwined.  While my senses discriminate and my mind dissects, my prayer acknowledges and recreates the unity of life.  In prayer, I no longer set myself apart from others and the world, manipulating them to suit my needs.  Instead, I reach for relationship allow myself to feel the tuggings of mutuality and accountability, take my place in community by knowing the transcendent center that connects it all.  

On the other side, prayer means opening myself to the fact that as I reach for that connecting center, the center is reaching for me.  As I move toward the heart of reality, reality is moving toward my heart.  As I recollect the unity of life, life is recollecting me in my original wholeness.  In prayer, I not only address the love at the core of all things; I listen as that love addresses my, calling me out of isolation and self-centerdness into community and compassion.  In prayer, I being to realize that I not only know, but am known.... 

In prayer we allow ourselves to be known by love, to receive this freeing and redeeming knowledge of ourselves. .. The mind immersed in prayer no longer thinks in order to divide and conquer, to manipulate and control.  
                   -Parker J Palmer, To Know as We are Known, Education as a Spiritual Journey

If we consider what Palmer is sharing with us, his definition of prayer, we can see how meditation and prayer are very similar.  Take his words 'love' and 'life' and replace with God and you suddenly have a very obviously Christian statement. Just a side note, he is a Christian educator.  He wrote this book for other Christian educators- so some things are assumed in that context. 
If then, meditation and prayer are so similar, why can we not pray while doing yoga?  No matter the situation, we as followers of faith, can choose to allow and invite God into our every moments- even if they are traditionally used for someone else.  We took Easter and Christmas and added our father to those- in order to bring the pagans around us to Christ.  Can we not use Yoga and other practices such as zone therapy, which are scientifically (biologically and physically) proven to have very positive health benefits, all faith aside?  I argue we can.  Why would we turn away from yet another gift and way to reach out to God? 

I made it... (passing Greek)

They say it was not a winnowing tool.  They say it will help with our studies through seminary.  They say....they say.... but none of that was comforting as I was going through it.  I questioned my call to be there.  How was God going to use me if I could not learn biblical Greek? 

But I made it!   It was definitely the most difficult class I have ever taken.  Take any other language class and squish 2-3 semesters of it into 1.  That is what we just did.  I can now read and write Koine Greek- maybe not the best but I can wing it now. 

What interested me most was the mixed feelings about it as I was struggling to survive the semester.  All while wanting to do away with this cursed language (thoughts then) I was fascinated with the tools it was already giving me in my Bible study classes.  Odd how I cannot read the New Testament now and not wonder, is that really in the imperative? .... or some such question.  Suddenly the NT came alive for me in a whole new way.

I also learned that I still stink at grammar- no matter the language- and that I still rock vocabulary- no matter the language.  That vocabulary is what made it possible to pass this class.

If all my other undergrad classes had been this hard I would still be a sophomore! This was far worse to take this one class than taking a full schedule of grad level courses!  But I did it.  And I can only say it was through the grace of God- because I still don't understand how it suddenly began to sink in.  I am just grateful.

Some days are mustard seeds

Some days, my faith seems like Mount Everest, big, strong, reaching high and far and surely a daunting vision for many.  But most days are pretty average fields of grain.  I go through with the average scripture study, the prayers, the counsel, the little things that guide and teach my children and encourage my husband.  I don't doubt, I just walk.  One foot in front of the other and repeat.  Those days are the norm.  They are even the days that my life is chaos sometimes.
Once in a while though, a day is just a mustard seed.  Not much to look at, really easy to miss, but holding potential.  Promise.  If we just nurture it.  Today is one of those.  My love cannot sleep so neither can I.  We wonder and ponder at news and the why and how of things in this life.  Decisions of others.  But we have no control and must simply stand by while they set our lives in motion.  On those days, I wonder, God, where are you in all this.  Don't get me wrong, I know he is in it.  I don't doubt that for a moment.  But I wonder at what point he is stepping in and making his presence felt.  Or is he?  Sometimes his presence is a quiet one that lets man do what man will do and then he takes and turns it into his glory. Those days I feel so doubtful too- if I cannot control this, how on earth can I lead a congregation?  How can I handle watching others make the decisions and yet be the figurehead for it?   Can my faith be enough?  And then as I build a fire at 4:30 in the morning, I realize, watching the flames grow from tiny to enormous, a mustard seed is all it takes.