Thanksgiving for My Teacher: A Christian’s Guru Purnima
Many of us, perhaps most of us, can think of a few people who have had lasting, positive effects on our lives. We might have known a teacher who excited our interest in a new field of study. Someone else may have been a mentor, coaching and encouraging us to develop our expertise. A good many Christians can think of someone who was for them such an example of lively faith that we were moved to come to faith in turn. One person who had a deep and lasting impact on my own life was someone I never met in the flesh, but only through his little book, Christian Yoga. The author was Jean-Marie Déchanet O.S.B.
I can’t remember now exactly how I came to have a copy of the book, though I know I was in my early twenties. My original copy is long gone, its worn and broken spine no longer able to hold the pages together. I got a replacement copy some twenty years ago. When I first came to the book yoga may not have been as mainstream as it is today, but I was sufficiently intrigued to read it by what seemed a contradiction in the book’s title: how could Christianity and yoga possibly go together? I was still an undergraduate and hadn’t read much theology but my cast of mind was such that I needed a robust, coherent, theologically grounded account of the way yoga could support and nourish Christian living. Fr. Jean-Marie gave me just such an account.
Studying and discussing text in the hermitage building where Fr. Jean-Marie spent much time writing, French Alps, 2019
Once I’d read the book, I started to practice the asanas (yoga postures) Fr. Jean-Marie described. In fact, the book was virtually my only guide to yoga practice for years. Like many beginners, mine was an on again, off again practice for many years. But I could never stay away for too long as I had begun to notice many of the positive effects that Déchanet described.
I finally made it to my first live class around 1990. There’s no question in my mind that there are some things only a live teacher can impart. (I’d never really understood the point of savasana when I read Déchanet since it didn’t seem hard to do.) If I tried to name all the great teachers I’ve known since I’d be like the author of the letter to the Hebrews: “What more should I say? For time would fail me…” (Hebrews 11:32). I’ve always remained grateful to Fr. Jean-Marie, however, not only because he inspired me to start to practice in the first place, but also because he gave me the means to interpret and integrate what I learned into a Christian understanding.
Some personal items left in Fr. Jean-Marie’s hermitage
This past August, I was with a small group of pilgrims from Christians Practicing Yoga who made the journey to Fr. Jean-Marie’s hermitage in the French Alps. It was deeply moving to pray where he prayed, eat where he ate, do yoga where he practiced. Now I met the man, not just through his words but also through some of his personal effects and the place of prayer and retreat that he established. And I met him incarnate in others whose lives and practice have been touched and shaped by him. Thank you, Fr. Jean-Marie. Thank you for forty years of helping me live into the mystery of God among us, flesh in our flesh.
