The Last Straw

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, you probably know about my struggles with being in a Catholic/Lutheran marriage.  I attend two churches every weekend, and I even go to Sunday school at the church that is not my own.  This has often been an uncomfortable situation, especially since I received the sacrament of Confirmation and became an “officially official” Catholic this past October.

Ever since then, I have been trying to figure out what to do about my dual church attendance (to continue or not?  and if so, how much?).  I’ve had no startlingly clear revelations, but have felt it was the right thing to simply continue on as I have been before.

As of today, I can say with great assurance that this is no longer the case.  Today was the last straw.

I almost didn’t go to Sunday school.  I had this feeling like maybe I shouldn’t.  But I decided to anyway; it’s like I was being nudged along, and I didn’t feel like arguing with myself (or with God), so I went.

What’s so funny about this is that the turning-point event doesn’t have a single thing to do with my Catholicism.  There were no anti-Catholic sentiments tossed about, nobody laughed at another religious group’s practices.

No.  What happened today in Sunday school was this:  YOGA.

Yes, my friends, you heard me right.  Today’s Sunday school lesson was, primarily, about YOGA.

Remember Chicago-Accent Lady, the one who read those awful passages from “The Lutheran Book of Concord” that one Sunday?  The one whose husband, Bill, is an ex-Catholic?

Well, today, Mr. D (the class instructor) apparently discerned that it was appropriate for her to give a 20-minute presentation on the 5-week yoga course/retreat she’d recently attended.

This presentation included an odd mixture of Hindu and Christian ideas, with quotes from the Baghada Vita as well as the Bible.  She “blessed” us by singing a song in Sanskrit, and asked the class to join her in saying an “Om” and doing one of the yoga poses.  She talked about “sutras” and meditation.  The lights had been dimmed, and she had three candles lit, “representing the Trinity.”

It was all very New Age.

Now, before you jump all over me and tell me how great yoga is, please know that I have no problem with yoga as a form of exercise.  I have done it many times myself and even own a couple of yoga exercise videos.  It’s really fun, challenging, relaxing, etc.

However.

Even putting aside the religious aspects of the type of yoga she was touting, I have to ask:  What place has a yoga demonstration in a Sunday school class???

Your answer might differ from mine, but I know I’m not the only person in the class who would say that the answer to that question is “Absolutely NONE.”  (I am happy to report that my husband, for one, was equally as dismayed as I was—I could tell just by looking at him.  He and I were, I believe, the only ones who did not participate in humming the “om” or doing the pose.  I’m not exactly sure what he was thinking, but I know what I was doing:  silently reciting “Hail Mary”s and Lord’s Prayers and bits of the Divine Mercy—like crazy.)

I seriously question the wisdom of Mr. D in allowing this presentation, and I wonder what the pastor would say if he knew about it.  (I have a feeling someone will probably fill him in, though it won’t be me—and probably not Brian, either.)

This is in no way a reflection of something “bad” about the Lutheran faith.  This could have happened at any church.  For me, this event simply made it startlingly clear that I no longer wish to be involved in this particular Sunday school class—even as an observer, sitting there, as my friend Amanda suggested, “under my husband’s protection.”  I shall just have to do without whatever useful knowledge Mr. D chooses to glibly impart to the class in the future.

If you recall, I had already come to a point where I could no longer participate in the other Sunday school class I was involved with, either.  The discussions on vocation had come to such a point where I could no longer avoid defending the traditions of the Catholic church—and I didn’t feel it was the appropriate setting to do so, so I quit attending.

So now I move on to a new course of action:  church, but not Sunday school.  From now on, I imagine I will spend that hour in a quiet place (probably my mini-van), writing.