God in Your Body
Guest contributor Barbara Carlin has been involved in CPY since she first attended the teachers retreat in 2016 and 2018. She began teaching others in 1980s, long before the fledgling Prayer of Heart & Body retreats started bringing together teachers who shared a similar background and understanding. She is now RYT 200 through New Day Yoga with a special emphasis on yoga from a Christian perspective.
How does an experience in your body have anything to do with “God in your body”?
Before I could read, pictures of Jesus compassionately loving children captured my heart and planted seeds for me to become a Jesus follower. I took Jesus’ invitation to “Let the little children come to me” seriously and visited him often with my baby prayers.
My home life, full of strife and a battleground for my parents, was not a happy situation. Church and school were my places of refuge. Learning was an early passion for me, especially when it came to learning about Jesus. I knew in my heart of hearts that I could count on my heavenly Father, to provide for me, protect me and to love me perfectly. I trusted that God was in control. He would take care of my family in ways we needed. Every little girl wants to be a princess and Jesus was indeed my Prince of Peace.
Middle school introduced me to a dear friend who was Jewish. Many Friday nights I would go to her home for Shabbat. There I fell in love with the peace I felt at their dinner table, as Proverbs 31 was recited to bless their mother. I often stayed the night. On Saturday mornings, I accompanied my friend as a guest to Hebrew school and later attended her Bat Mitzvah. Truly, it was a beautiful experience and I felt grateful for the opportunity to witness it.
Jesus was Jewish and taught in the synagogue. The exposure to Jewish traditions helped me to understand Jesus’ life. Later I would be invited to celebrate Passover which helped me understand the connection between Passover and the meaning of Holy Communion. Jesus became the perfect sacrificial lamb, paying the price of sin, a debt none of us could pay.
When in college, I purchased my first Bible at 18. I thought if I am going to be an educated woman, I better read the Bible myself from start to finish. I prayed and asked the Holy Spirit to help me understand so I could respond to the longings and questions I experienced in my mind, heart and body. God was faithful to answer.
Running and long walks became part of my regular routine. These times became prayerful and embodied spiritual practices; fertile ground to cultivate stillness and presence in everyday life. This ongoing practice produced rich communion with God, strengthening my body, imparting clarity of mind and becoming a smooth balm for my soul. More questions about the union of body and soul began to tug at my heart. Yoga became something I was curious about and wondered if Christ would shed some light to experience Him more. Spiritual practices are just that, a way to obtain closer proximity to God and to experience Him more. When I began to practice yoga, not as a thing I do, but to draw closer to God, it became life-giving. I learned that yoga as an embodied spiritual practice opens the portal to a deep knowing, and that we are His temple. The incarnate Christ dwells within, further emphasizing the importance of our own bodies. Amazing!
In the Lenten series, together we’ll explore how the breath and the body are vehicles to experience an awareness of our current reality. We as believers in Christ can invite God into whatever is going on in the present moment. Because the body and breath are always present here and now, they are the best vehicles for doing so.
Scripture tells us Jesus is the creator of all things. Psalm 139 reminds us:
We are fearfully and wonderfully made and that he knew about us before even one day came to be.
The Psalmist goes on to say, He formed us in our mother’s womb, inferring he was intimately involved and present with the design of our bodies. God cares about our bodies.
In my years of working with this practice, I have seen and experienced that embodied spiritual practice simply works when we just accept the invitation to show up. We do not need to strive, force or make it complicated. Furthermore, the Bible reminds us we can treat the body as a sacred site for contemplative practice, loving the Lord with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength. Our yoga mat thus becomes holy ground. Yoga means union. Christians practicing yoga do well to remember this unity, and not favor one part of the self over another part of the self. The practice aims to join the body, heart, mind and soul together, to experience life fully, richly and deeply in Christ. We do that individually and in community with other believers.
I invite others to join me as we contemplate the salvation that came to us through the literal body of Christ. By His stripes we are healed. The price Jesus paid is no small thing. Throughout the seven weeks of lent, we will take time to interrupt the insistent momentum of contemporary life. We are embodied beings defined by a God who loves us and created us. We will sit at the foot of the cross, in order to make room for God and renew life in Him.
Join Barbara for a seven week series during Lent. Sign up here!
Featured image by @areksan via Unsplash.
