I woke up aggravated yesterday, thinking about a Facebook post by an acquaintance. In it she claimed to be cutting ties with all businesses who support LGBTQ+ rights and stated that ‘the pride flag is a mockery of God’s promise.’ I hear this type of speech somewhat regularly, living in southeast Ohio, a hotbed for Christian nationalism. I didn’t comment. This is the type of ideal (and person) that can’t be argued with. In my experience, it’s black and white for them. It’s a deep seated, ‘doctrinal,’ issue of morality. It negates another’s experience in lieu of words on a page that can easily (and often are) taken out of context to prove them right (and those that believe differently, wrong). And yet, here are just two very clear passages that seem to say that God loves us all, regardless of race, creed, culture,…

I’ve never been one to steep myself in ideology, or to even be a devoted follower of anything. It seems that as soon as I attach myself to anything outside of myself or my experience, that thing eventually becomes stale, foreign and untrue. I often think back to the beginning of my yoga journey, wondering what specifically brought me to it. I know the inward drive had to do with seeing past the reality of what was before me, in search of something deeper. I indeed found that something deeper and taught about it for a decade and a half. But life happened and I stepped away. The deeper truths that continue to reveal themselves on the other side of teaching yoga have been inspiring. Those tools gave me a new way to see. They led me to Contemplative Christianity and eventually to what…