My Morning of Zen

Tuesday morning I participated in my first ever yoga class. Apparently I was obvious about it. I set my mat down twice before settling on a spot near the door, and I peeled off my socks while inspecting the foux wood floor for visible signs of wart fungi. It was then that Kathy, the instructor, asked, "Is there anyone here who has never taken a yoga class before?" Everyone in the class seemed to know each other, so they all turned to me.

"This is my first class," I said, "unless you count the DVD Yoga for Dummies." The class responded with a chattering of amusement that blended with the sushi restaurant music playing in the background. Then we began.

As I crossed my ankles and rested the back of my hands on my knees, Kathy reminded us of the intentions of Yoga, and encouraged us to determine our own intentions that morning. "When you are holding a pose and finding difficulty in balance, what do you want to call to yourself? Later in your day, you might need that very same thing, and this is your preparation." I decided to call "grace" unto myself, thinking it a very multi-purpose word since it is used in both ballet and theology. I questioned whether it was too Judeo-Christian for 6:00 am yoga, but since we weren't sharing our words out loud, and since I was in the East Studio at the YMCA, I stuck to it.

I thought I was doing really well, but then the warm-up stretches concluded and I immediately screwed up the first pose: Downward Facing Dog. Kathy quickly came to my rescue. "Move your hands out further. Further. Further. Your legs are quite long. Further. Beautiful." I pictured a Pekingese forming a triangle with its hip alignment, balancing on all four paws. Then I called grace unto myself.

My mornings have always been a battle, and typically I emerge barely on-time, barely ready, never triumphant. I just haven't figured out how to successfully wake up. Occasionally I determine to read my Bible and pray first thing in the morning, but I'm so incoherent that I once opened my Bible only to realize that I was studying Merriam-Webster's dictionary. I can't read. I can't remember whether I've already shampooed my hair. But apparently I CAN imitate a disjointed Pekingese. And after pressing my ankle on its opposite knee and gradually bending that knee to a ninety degree angle, I could even pray. The last time Jesus and I had a good conversation in the morning was after I fell asleep at the wheel and woke up very grateful to be alive.

"Think about the things you are grateful for," Kathy said as we lay flat on our backs. Suddenly she was unfolding a blanket and stretching it over me. "You look cool," she said, and even though I didn't feel cool, the blanket felt nice. Under the blanket, with my palms turned up and my toes extended, I realized that I had just replaced my snooze-alarm routine with yoga. I had found my morning stride. I had found grace for the morning.

That is, I had found grace for Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 6:00 - 7:00. As far as the rest of the week is concerned, I suppose I could try dunking my head in cold water or popping in Yoga for Dummies.

Even though we ain't got money...

Six months ago Pete and I would often say to ourselves, "We may have a tight budget, but at least we're not in debt!" It was a mantra, and like most mantras, it helped.

Then we borrowed money from parents to buy a car. I took a closer look at the loan that I had taken out for one semester of school. Pete had dental surgery sans dental insurance. Then he fell over playing frisbee, and after receiving the hospital bill, doctor's bill and radiologist's bill, we took a gander at our deductible. High.

Yesterday Pete found out that it's going to cost over four hundred dollars to register our car in Michigan. He came home and said, "I need you to say something nice. I'm discouraged about money." I thought about it a moment and then said, "At least only half of our debt is stuff that we're paying interest on." This mantra didn't end with an exclamation point like our last one did, so I don't think we'll be repeating it frequently or with the same level of snobbery.

I tried again. "Hey, listen. Either we'll pay off our debts, or we'll die first and it won't matter." I felt immediately depressed by this, but Pete seemed oddly consoled. "I never thought about it that way," he said.

"OR!" I said, "How about this: we don't have money, but I love you."

He smiled. "How about we just stop worrying about money and become hobos."

"How do you become a hobo?"

"Well," he sid, "You put some of your things in a sack, tie it to a stick, and then walk around."

"That sounds easy enough," I said. "Can we have a baby and strap it to our backs?"

"No, just us."

"Okay. Just us."

So Deep I Love You

Two minutes out of getting out of bed this morning, I clicked through my facebook notifications and saw a video from my brother's trip to Madagascar. So Deep I Love You is a terrific title to a video, so I clicked play and watched about twenty African teenagers swaying back and forth, singing and harmonizing to my brother's group.

So deep I love you
So deep I do
Because Jesus died and
He loves me and loves you
So deep I love you
So deep I do
Because you are so precious
In the eyes of the Lord

No matter what weakness has led you astray
No matter what sins you have made on the way
Jesus Christ the Lord
Died for the whole world
And rose again to give you the power to win

You are a winner!

Just like this: click, I'm watching my brothers and sisters in Africa singing songs of love to family from another continent. Even though I haven't met them, so deep I love them this morning. And even though they can be tools for lesser purposes, so much I appreciate airplanes and video cameras and internet this morning.

I cried instantaneously after starting this video; I slept so little last night that I had probably been doomed to cry over my cereal bowl. I'm grateful that I got to cry over this instead:

No matter what weakness has led you astray, no matter what sins you have made on the way... Jesus Christ the Lord died for the whole world, and rose again to give you the power to win. You are a winner!

Locked Out

If my month were a book and last week was a chapter, I would title it Locked Out.

It all started when my dear friend and boss stuffed my keys into her purse before heading to the U.P. for the weekend. I discovered their absence at 11:00 p.m. After a call to my husband (who had gone to bed 3 hours prior) and a call to the cab company, my evening ended at 12:15 when a friend picked me up from work.

The following day I lost the key to the house where I was staying for the week.

The next day I went to see a few apartments and three of the landlords had key problems. One had to call the previous tenant to ask them to come with their key; one broke into the top apartment to unlock the main floor. The third landlord said, "Huh. My key isn't working." I said, "I could have told you that hours ago."

That same day I called Matt to tell him that the church office key wasn't in it's usual spot. He said, "Yes it is, I saw it last night." I said, "I took everything out, and it's really really not." He said, "Well it's in there! Okay! Bye!" and hung up. (But he was the friend that picked me up from work at midnight, so we're not even a little irritated with him.)

I waited on my car for my friend to get home with the car opener (since I lost her only house key).

I waited on my car for my husband's boss to arrive with my house key (since mine was in my friend's purse).

I waited, I waited, I waited.

In frustrating moments like these, I like to comfort myself by weaving meaning into what seems pointless. I'm usually pretty good at it, too, so I was surprised to come up nearly blank. Oh, I dug up a few little analogies about doors and keys and knocking and opening and master keys and loose keys, etc., though nothing worth mentioning. Then I thought to myself,

"Self? Dearest. Perhaps you need to spend a little less time weaving meaning into your daily life, and a little more brain power remembering to put your KEYS in your PURSE when you get to work, rather than leaving them strewn about the office." Which turned out to be the mundane moral to last week's story.

If You are Bored

My mother is a woman of signs and labels. My childhood was mostly coordinated by postings throughout our house: labels on the foods we were allowed to eat, charts of our rotating chores and responsibilities, directions on how to sort laundry loads on the washing machine, sign-up sheets for household projects, and so on.

This week I was happy to see a new sign on the Towers refrigerator.



The goal of a Christian is not to be entertained, but to be busy at work for the Lord. Because God has blessed me with time this summer, here is a list of things I am going to do:

1. Read a list of books recommended by friends
2. Keep a journal
3. Plan a late fall vacation
4. Go camping with Pete
5. Get a head start on my fall classes by reading recommended books
6. Study the Word
7. Cook
8. Go berry picking; can preserves
9. Spend time developing friendships
10. Play guitar
11. Finish my little book about my first year of marriage
12. Memorize my list of Bible verses for the family competition

And perhaps:

13. Learn Hebrew, a la Rosetta Stone. I haven't committed to it yet, but I'm almost there.

Good Friday

7:00 pm on Good Friday found me in the church kitchen helping Glenda prepare communion. "We're only supposed to cut these pitas in half?" she asked. "Not smaller?"

"That's what Matt said," I shrugged. Matt walked appeared in the doorway, so I clarified his instructions. "You said in half, right?"

"Yes. Half."

Glenda: "Only half?"

"Half."

"Maybe people are getting in groups and breaking from the same piece," I said to Glenda, who was halving whole-wheat pitas with one eyebrow raised, still dubious. But then I noticed the juice. Individual servings of juice in plastic, barrel-shaped containers were being carried in baskets to the auditorium.

The baskets were spread out under the cross on the stage, and the congregation was released to receive the elements. I selected a piece of whole-wheat Jesus, a barrel of his blood, and sat on the floor against the back wall.

When I was eight years old my mother explained the Eucharist. "We think of communion like a symbol," she said. "Catholics believe that the bread really turns into Jesus's body, and the juice really turns into his blood."

I noticed a potential concern. "Like, after you swallow it?" I asked. "Or while it's still in your mouth?" Jesus digesting in my stomach--perhaps. My childlike faith had accepted far greater mysteries. But Jesus stuck between my teeth? Jesus in my toothbrush that night? Mom said she was pretty sure that Catholics chewed the bread and digested the Jesus. But the next time I took communion I swallowed the juice-soaked bread whole, just in case.

Confession: I have ever since.

I'm pretty sure that the bread remains bread and the juice remains juice, not because I can't swallow the miraculous, but because Jesus is the Metaphor's biggest fan. "This is my body" and "this is my blood," he said. Your body is a temple, I am the vine, my sheep know my voice. I swallow the bread whole because purple, soggy bread isn't something I savor; I swallow it whole because it's difficult for me to metaphorically chow on my savior's flesh. The substantial carnivorous snack before me, however, was not going to go down in one gulp.

I broke off a piece of pita (his body, broken by me) and sipped the juice (his blood for my sins). I heard the tops of juice containers popping all around me and saw bread lifted to lips (his life in ours). When do the carbohydrates absorb into my blood stream? I wondered. And as always when I think about digestion or any other body function, I marveled at the complexity of it. Then I ate another bite, drank another drink, and marveled at the simplicity of it: Eat food. Live. This is my body, he said. This is my blood. I'm doing this. I'm remembering him.

“I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”

I rarely eat breakfast on Sunday mornings before church, and when the small purple morsel hits my stomach, I'm reminded how hungry I am. I finished my pita and juice on Friday feeling full, my spirit satisfied with the bread of life.

Hurricane hits Detroit

In an interview with Wood TV news on Tuesday, March 31st, Jennifer Granholm compared the Detroit auto crisis to a natural disaster. She did not use an appropriate simile: This crisis, like a tornado, formed under a specific set of conditions and then struck suddenly. Nor did she employ an corny metaphor: The tectonic plates of Michigan's economy have been shaken.

Granholm said that she is pushing for support of the auto companies and families, because "this is our Hurricane Katrina... so we need a response that is like that."

Katrina victims could empathize with Detroit families who have lost their jobs and homes. But in the interest of everyone involved, the governor shouldn't be drawing comparisons between foreclosed homeowners and rooftop survivors, between an unemployment rate and a death toll. And perhaps the government's response with helicopters, food and shelter (reportedly inadequate as it was) should look different than the government's response to a failing business and its employees.

This is the American automobile industry and these are struggling families; I hope the government can assist both where it should. But there are about 600 miles between Michigan and the ocean, which is roughly the same metaphoric distance between Michigan's economy at the tragedy of Katrina.

http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/Gov_auto_troubles_Michigans_Katrina