B.Y.O.G.

This week our Learning and Technology class was given a “hall pass” of sorts by our incredibly progressive-minded professor, Jeff Heil. All he asked was that we allocate the time we would have usually spent on school work to something driven by passion. I’ll admit--at risk of being called a wanker by my (Australian) husband-- I spent the week cultivating my fledgling relationship with God.

Like many of my acquaintances and even my next-door neighbor, God and I met on the yoga mat. I started yoga a few years ago, not in search of trendy, new age enlightenment but because I had heard about a thing called Bikram which was all the rage for torching calories (literally, it’s 108 degrees in there). My introduction to God came as an added bonus.

From time to time, usually after a particularly intense yoga sessions, I lie in Savasana and we chat. Mostly God will listen to my fears and insecurities then surrounds them with a space so immense that they seem to disappear.  Both me and my problems become so reassuringly small that we fit neatly into the palm of God’s hand.

My God is not your average intimidating man-with-a-long-white-beard apparition. She is surprisingly approachable. Before this week I would be abashed to admit that she is, in fact, just an older version of myself--only cooler, calmer, and infinitely more secure. She knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that everything is going to be alright.

I’ve always harbored an unspoken guilt about my mind’s incredibly narcissistic incantation of the divine spirit. What would God think if I admitted my megalomania? This week I decided it was time to come clean, let God have at me for this gross act of vanity. Wednesday evening, as I settled into a deep Savasana, I waited for God to come to me like she usually does (she says she’s always there, it’s just that this is the only time it is quiet enough to hear her above the noisy din of my mind and ego). As I began my awkward confession, she chuckled and raised an eyebrow playfully. I lay in panic as her chuckles escalated to a roar. “Dear child”, she managed between her guffaws, “wouldn’t it be you that was created in my likeness and not vice versa?” Oh. Riiiight. She’s a sharp one, my God, I like that about her.

And so I come to share what I learned this week; in this life maybe it’s ok to B.Y.O.G (be your own God).