Yoga, Harry Potter, and D & D

Yes, Yoga, Harry Potter and Dungeons and Dragons, gasp! Things that were taboo to me for a very long time have been recently introduced into my life and I am finding that they are not near as unclean as I was made to believe. Call it a spiritual-mid-life-crisis, but I've been examining, questioning,  and investigating and I've gotta say I've been pleasantly delighted.

Yoga, I recently joined the Y since I live within walking distance and my work now reimburses me for some fitness costs. The first class I tried was Zumba, I tried to nonchalantly hang in the back row, but my lack of coordination with dance moves had me feeling a little self-conscious. It was fun and I enjoyed it until later when I realized I had hurt myself with all that dancing and swinging the hand weights around! I figured yoga might be a better choice for me, but I had been warned against yoga for it's eastern influences and philosophy. I had a fondness for my yoga teacher from the get-go. She is an older hippie-looking gal with gray hair and an affinity for the Beatles and Pink Floyd music which she plays during the class. I loved her quirkiness and her calm, soothing, relaxing voice. It felt good to stretch and to focus on relaxing and breathing deep breathes. I'm an anxious person by nature so learning to breathe deep goes against my grain. I love her class and find I really enjoy yoga. She does says some things about emptying your mind and the likes of that, but there is no chanting or weirdness. Unless you think doing the child's pose to a Beatles song is weird.

Next up, Harry Potter movies. Big no-no as I was told it's bad magic that involves witchcraft. We've only seen the first two so far, but I have to say they are delightful and the magic isn't dark and not majorly different from my favorite Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Narnia series. They are family friendly movies which are getting harder to come by these days when you want great acting and all the things a big budget can afford. We plan to continue to watch them to see what adventures in Hogwarts School await them. We've enjoyed having a good series we can watch together. We laughed quite a bit in the first two and thoroughly enjoyed them.

Now on to Dungeons and Dragons. When my son came home and told me he played D & D at a friends house he was wise to add-on an addendum that it was not anything evil or satanic, but that it was a role-playing game that involves a lot of creativity, adventure and improvisation. I quickly took to researching it and found that there was quite a bit of negative publicity about it that was controversial. It made me leery, but I trust the family that owns the game and know they would not play it in a way that would make it dangerous on any level. I also know my son is discerning, but as a parent it is my job to be wise and look into things. He's played the game only a handful of times, and has communicated clearly to me exactly what is involved in playing the game and they play by their own rules which involves creativity and fun entertainment. It does represent the battle between good and evil, but in the end no more than a personal adventure in a Lord of the Rings-like universe.

I don't want to be a legalistic Christian. I think it can be a tendency in any Christian's life, it's something we need to be on guard for and it's honestly something I've been examining in my own life. Legalism can put the focus on the external to the neglect of the internal. Jesus had more conflicts with legalists than any other group. It also seemed to look like Jesus did things to purposely provoke the legalists of His day. Was it a coincidence that Jesus often healed people on the Sabbath? He was pretty obvious about violating many of the Pharisee's man-made rules whereas he could've been a little more subtle about it. There is freedom in Christ, yet we are called to be discerning and avoid evil. Yoga, Harry Potter and Dungeons and Dragons were things I was told were evil. To some people they are evil. To me they are a way to stretch and relax, a good movie series and a game my sons says will make family nights a lot more fun.