xxx_faithful
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Prayer & Yoga
From the book, "Cold Tangerines" by Shauna Niequist.
Prayer, to me, is sort of like yoga, on several levels. It's good for me and helps me, and to be quite honest, I say I do it way more than I actually do. When someone asks, "Do you do yoga?" I answer, "Absolutely. I love it. It totally makes me feel better."
What I mean, in the strictest sense, is that every week I intend to go to yoga three times and I occasionally makes it to one class, and i have several pairs of yoga pants, and some yoga DVDs and flashcards, and ever once in a while, if I'm really feeling bad, i do a few sun salutations before bed. So really, i'm yoga-ish.
Prayer, in my life, is similar. If you ask me about prayer, i have the books, the journals, a few transcendent experiences to report from the last decade, lots of good reasons why every person should do it, and not a ton of extremely current experiences rushing to mind. I believe in it, conceptually. I feel better when I do it. I believe my life would be better if I did a lot, like yoga, but when it comes down to it, i'm pray-ish.
But something has to get you back to yoga, and something has to get you back to prayer, and in my experience, the surest thing in either case is desperation. I wait until my life has become so completely unlivable and the person I am has become so deeply unmoored from reality and hope and goodness, that I break down and pray.
Today I am desperate enough to pray. When i think about prayer, about what it is and what it brings to my life and what it tells me about the way life is, i realise, for the thousandth time, that the alternative is about as smart as building your house on marshmallow fluff or taking Flinstone vitamins to cure cancer.
Unfortunately, though, most of the time what i believe in instead of prayer is my own patched-together sense of how life ought to work. In my system, people who work hard end up okay. Also, people who are smart and careful and keep batteries in their smoke alarms up to date will be safe. People who order their toast dry and only smoke on very special occasions will be healthy. And so on. This personal worldview has actually functioned reasonably well. I get my oil changed, I fill out my jury duty questionnaire, and I expect life will continue to be kind to me, because I am living up to my end of the bargain.
I don't tell anyone about this worldview. I tell them, you now, God is in control, and we never know where that path leads, and a man plans his way but God knows his steps, and I lean not on my own understanding. But secretly, I do absolutely lean on my own understanding. I do it so that I don't feel so out of control and blind to the world, so that I can have a plan and manage my life and not feel like somethings coming around the corner that i can't predict and don't have insurance for. I believe in my own ability to figure out my life, and top secretly, I don't want it to be all misty and mysterious. I don't want to say that the future is in Gods hands and could go any way he chooses. That sounds terrifying to me. I want guarantees. I want the future in my hands. I want to know whats coming, know what to expect, put away money for it, buy insurance for it, and receive an email confirmation.
The problem is that the worldview I've chosen has melted like butter. I had a plan, and the plan is gone. I did it right, in my own made-up system, and it all came out wrong. All my logic and contingencies and smoke alarms and insurance didn't see this coming, and now my life has changed. I'm off the plan. And i loved the plan. I believed in the plan, secretly, way more devoutly than i believe in the mysterious work of God.
So now, out of desperation, I'm back to prayer. Im back to prayer, sheepishly, because i couldn't make my life work without it. I pray out of sheer lack of options.
When i pray, something freaked out and dazed inside me finds a place to lay down and rest. When i pray i don't feel so along in the universe. I feel like there is a web, a finely-spun net, holding it all together, keeping it spinning. I feel powerless, and prayer reminds me that i may be powerless, but there is power, and the one who holds the power is good.
I pray because i need to. Because i need to remind myself that there is something up there and that it is good. I pray to be heard, certainly, but practically speaking, what the act of prayer does in my life is profound in it's own right. The act and posture of prayer connects me back to something i lose so often, something that gets snipped like a string. Prayer ties up the string one more time. Prayer says, I know you're up there. I believe you. I can make it. I know you are good. To pray is to say that there is more than i can see, and more than i can do.
Prayer heals all the muscles that I've been clenching for a long time, while I'm holding it together, gritting my teeth, waiting for impact. Prayer, like yoga, like singing, brings soft from cold, breath from breathless. And no matter what gets you there, it is better to be there than not.
From the book, "Cold Tangerines" by Shauna Niequist.
Prayer, to me, is sort of like yoga, on several levels. It's good for me and helps me, and to be quite honest, I say I do it way more than I actually do. When someone asks, "Do you do yoga?" I answer, "Absolutely. I love it. It totally makes me feel better."
What I mean, in the strictest sense, is that every week I intend to go to yoga three times and I occasionally makes it to one class, and i have several pairs of yoga pants, and some yoga DVDs and flashcards, and ever once in a while, if I'm really feeling bad, i do a few sun salutations before bed. So really, i'm yoga-ish.
Prayer, in my life, is similar. If you ask me about prayer, i have the books, the journals, a few transcendent experiences to report from the last decade, lots of good reasons why every person should do it, and not a ton of extremely current experiences rushing to mind. I believe in it, conceptually. I feel better when I do it. I believe my life would be better if I did a lot, like yoga, but when it comes down to it, i'm pray-ish.
But something has to get you back to yoga, and something has to get you back to prayer, and in my experience, the surest thing in either case is desperation. I wait until my life has become so completely unlivable and the person I am has become so deeply unmoored from reality and hope and goodness, that I break down and pray.
Today I am desperate enough to pray. When i think about prayer, about what it is and what it brings to my life and what it tells me about the way life is, i realise, for the thousandth time, that the alternative is about as smart as building your house on marshmallow fluff or taking Flinstone vitamins to cure cancer.
Unfortunately, though, most of the time what i believe in instead of prayer is my own patched-together sense of how life ought to work. In my system, people who work hard end up okay. Also, people who are smart and careful and keep batteries in their smoke alarms up to date will be safe. People who order their toast dry and only smoke on very special occasions will be healthy. And so on. This personal worldview has actually functioned reasonably well. I get my oil changed, I fill out my jury duty questionnaire, and I expect life will continue to be kind to me, because I am living up to my end of the bargain.
I don't tell anyone about this worldview. I tell them, you now, God is in control, and we never know where that path leads, and a man plans his way but God knows his steps, and I lean not on my own understanding. But secretly, I do absolutely lean on my own understanding. I do it so that I don't feel so out of control and blind to the world, so that I can have a plan and manage my life and not feel like somethings coming around the corner that i can't predict and don't have insurance for. I believe in my own ability to figure out my life, and top secretly, I don't want it to be all misty and mysterious. I don't want to say that the future is in Gods hands and could go any way he chooses. That sounds terrifying to me. I want guarantees. I want the future in my hands. I want to know whats coming, know what to expect, put away money for it, buy insurance for it, and receive an email confirmation.
The problem is that the worldview I've chosen has melted like butter. I had a plan, and the plan is gone. I did it right, in my own made-up system, and it all came out wrong. All my logic and contingencies and smoke alarms and insurance didn't see this coming, and now my life has changed. I'm off the plan. And i loved the plan. I believed in the plan, secretly, way more devoutly than i believe in the mysterious work of God.
So now, out of desperation, I'm back to prayer. Im back to prayer, sheepishly, because i couldn't make my life work without it. I pray out of sheer lack of options.
When i pray, something freaked out and dazed inside me finds a place to lay down and rest. When i pray i don't feel so along in the universe. I feel like there is a web, a finely-spun net, holding it all together, keeping it spinning. I feel powerless, and prayer reminds me that i may be powerless, but there is power, and the one who holds the power is good.
I pray because i need to. Because i need to remind myself that there is something up there and that it is good. I pray to be heard, certainly, but practically speaking, what the act of prayer does in my life is profound in it's own right. The act and posture of prayer connects me back to something i lose so often, something that gets snipped like a string. Prayer ties up the string one more time. Prayer says, I know you're up there. I believe you. I can make it. I know you are good. To pray is to say that there is more than i can see, and more than i can do.
Prayer heals all the muscles that I've been clenching for a long time, while I'm holding it together, gritting my teeth, waiting for impact. Prayer, like yoga, like singing, brings soft from cold, breath from breathless. And no matter what gets you there, it is better to be there than not.
it helps to calm the body and mind.One can try pranayam as well for mental health.
