For the Love of God (and the Fear of Yoga)

Hatha.  Bikram.  Ashtanga.  Kundalini.  Gentle.  Classical.  Family.  Mom & Tot.  These are but a few of the types of yoga classes offered locally.  Encinitas is widely considered one of the original hubs of yoga practice in the U.S., with well-known Indian teachers bringing the practice to town in the early 1970's.  It has since blossomed into a center for teaching, learning, and practicing this ancient....thing.  I say thing because there is presently a major debate about what yoga is and what it represents to our children, our schools and our local society.  Is it exercise?  Is it an art?  Is it a religion?

If you have a child in the Encinitas Unified School District, you undoubtedly know what I am angling towards.  For those of you who do not, here is a brief synopsis:  A locally based non-profit called the Jois Foundation has provided a $533,000 grant to our district of nine elementary schools to provide twice weekly 30 minute yoga sessions to our kids over the next 3 years.  This grant is in conjunction with a study being conducted by the University of San Diego and the University of Virginia on the effects (good or bad) of the kids having access to 30 minute yoga sessions.   Specifically, the mission is  "to design and implement a research study to measure the impact of system-wide implementation of yoga, health, and wellness curriculum."   The Jois Foundation is supported by Sonia Jones, the wife of hedge fund empire billionaire, Paul Tudor Jones.  An avid, ashtanga practitioner, Sonia became a benefactor for the Jois family who is widely attributed with bringing Ashtanga yoga to the states from India. 

Archaeologists have found yoga related carvings in India dating back to 3,000 years before the birth of Christ.  These carvings suggested people 5,000 years ago were utilizing systematic poses as a form of strength, discipline and honor.  Yoga was then incorporated into several different regional religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism.  Since then, these religions have grown, as has the practice of yoga.  In modern times, people of all religions have begun to reap the mental and physical health benefits of the practice.  From lowering blood pressure to cleansing the lymphatic system, few people I have spoken to have ever left a yoga class feeling worse than when they came in.  I think this is true of most forms of exercise. (http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=78815)

So this brings us to the controversy now creeping into town like the storm clouds over head this weekend.  A small group of parents feel that this grant, study and practice is actually an attempt of "religious indoctrination" of our kids.  Referencing Hinduism and its use of yoga as a major component, these parents are threatening to sue our school district to discontinue the program.  On October 10th, the North County Times quoted one father saying, "I will not allow my children to be indoctrinated by this Hindu religious program. Because of this, you're forcing me to segregate my children."  According to the newspaper, he went on to say that the children whose parents do not allow them to participate in the yoga classes are "ostracized and bullied, comparing the situation to Nazi Germany."  The parents threatening the lawsuit are reportedly Christian, being advised by a pastor and counseled by an attorney whose website describes his non-profit firm as specializing in "the protection and promotion of religious freedom" among other issues.

I am a Christian.  I do yoga at the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association).  Never upon leaving the class have I felt pressured to believe anything different from what I believed when I entered the class.  I think my Jewish friends who have done yoga would say the same thing.  (I also think my Jewish friends would take great offense to someone comparing their kids not participating in a school program to Nazi Germany.)  The great irony is that these individuals feel their civil rights are being violated and are being represented by an attorney who supposedly fights for religious freedom.  They are the small faction that misrepresents Christianity through ignorance, fear and defiance.  Every major religion has its own group of wingnuts who, through extremist views, ruins its for the whole. 

This group of parents will not have their collective view point swayed, that is something I can say with almost all certainty, without even knowing any of them.  To sit and argue with them would be to throw a rock against a stone wall...nothing is going to budge.  Religion is at the core of the most brutal, bloody conflicts throughout all of history.  What does yoga really represent to these parents?  The devil.  Fundamentally, they have connected the dots from a foreign religion, to a practice, to scripture, to a class being offered at their kids school.  At at the end the picture is of a false profit, an alternate god, an indoctrination of the anti-Christ.  So is anybody going to change their minds?  No. 

The greatest problem with this entire situation is that this small group is not content to simply have their own children not participate in the program.  They do not want the program to exist, period.  Not for their kids, not for my kids, not for anybody's kids in the EUSD.  So much like this group is throwing around the "civil liberties" card, I am going to throw my hat into the ring and suggest that they are in fact violating my son's civil rights by forcing their own beliefs on the larger community.  I do not view yoga as a religion.  Similarly, I do not view karate as a religion.  Both practices incorporate body, mind and spirit and my son does both.  But at the end of the day, we remain a Christian family.  This small group of people, who is actively preparing to plunge our already financially-strained school district into an expensive lawsuit, must not be as resolute or comfortable in its faith.  I am fairly confident that my son will not be converted to the dark side when he is in Child's Pose.  I give him more credit than that.

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/encinitas/parents-may-sue-over-yoga-lessons-in-encinitas/article_335f0003-c7d4-5c7f-b72a-25d8d3d47306.html

Are These My Only Choices?

I have never been a big fan of "the group".  I took my sons to Legoland today and lamented that other people had decided to do the same for their kids.  "Why are so many people here today?  I thought all the tourists had gone home by now."  After all, why would anyone else what to get their pent up kids out of the house on a beautiful, 70 degree San Diego Saturday and go do something fun?  But the lines on every ride and the moving sea of human ants detracted from my amusement.  My boys were impervious to the mayhem and moved with the masses.  But it spurred me to think about what it is that I don't like about the group mentality.

Don't get me wrong, I am not moving to a cave on the back of some unexplored mountain.  I enjoy the relative security we all enjoy by being part of this larger human body.  We have created a collective system that generally works.  We have a clock, calendar and currency we can all agree on.  Love and health, hey who doesn't want those?  There are fundamental bricks in each of our constitutions that are communal.  But what happens when one's sense of self is overridden by the group.  Be it religious, political, societal or familial, does the group actually know what is best for any one person?

In the case of manual labors of the industrial age in the second half of the 19th century, being part of a group was revolutionary in that collective bargaining protected the poor, disenfranchised men who were willing to fill their lungs with soot digging coal to fuel the factories sending this country into an unprecedented state of growth.  One for all and all for one.  You piss us off and we will drop our shovels.  You don't pay us fairly, your factory won't have fuel.  And so was formed the idea that a group is safer than going it alone in labor.  For those men, it was undoubtedly a life-saver. 

Now 150 years after the industrial revolution, unions are alive and well. In general, teachers, nurses, police officers and other professionals opt to have an organized union work for the benefit of the whole to negotiate a collective agreement, such as all union members receive a 2% raise in pay in a given year.  This is done on the union members' behalf and in exchange for the right to pursue one's own individual pay raise.  Because the people in these professions are so invaluable to our society, our children and our individual well-being, I am inclined to say whatever works best to keep them happy and taken care of is in all of our best interest.  But what about the rest of us?  Who is going to bat for me?

Through circumstances both within and out of my control, I am a small business owner.  I have one full-time employee.  I have a husband (also a small business owner), 2 small children and a mortgage.  I give approximately $.30 of every dollar I make to the state or federal government.  By worldly standards, my life is luxurious.  I have clean, plentiful water.  I have clothing to give away.  I have food that goes bad before I get to it.  My children have their own bedrooms and more toys or books than they care to play with.  My problems are small when compared to a mother who is faced with famine, homelessness or poverty.

So this brings me to the groups we are forced to be a part of on November 6, 2012.  I did not watch the debates, neither presidential nor vice-presidential.  Why?  I am sad that I have to pick one of these groups to represent me.  If you live in Amarillo, Texas and you are a bleeding heart Democrat, you are probably not wearing that sign on your back.  If you live in San Francisco, California and you are a die-hard Republican, you are probably muttering quite a few things under your breath, but not out loud.  Our individual affiliation with the group we choose defines us, whether we like it or not.  And, as I look at the choices on the menu of this upcoming election, I find myself asking "Does the chef have any other options?".  Make no mistake, both of these candidates are privileged and wealthier and than most of us will ever be.  Neither of them are an average Joe.  Private schools, Ivy League, advanced degrees and millions of dollars.  In all honesty, why would any of us want anything different from the leader of our country, regardless of which ever group we are a part of?  If this was a football team, we would want a coach who knew how to score, how to motivate, how to mobilize.  We would look at his track record, his wins vs. losses.  But somehow, when we are looking at the potential leader of the United States of America we expect to see someone who has both worked retail and also successfully negotiated an international hostage stand-off.

I received my family's health insurance renewal paperwork today.  To insure my family of 4 with a modest High Deductible Health Plan ($2,500 deductible with no benefits prior to the deductible being met), our rates are going from $720/month to $1,090/month as of January 1, 2013.  There is no change in coverage.  The only change is that the federal government is now requiring private insurance companies to insure people who previously would not have qualified for privatized coverage.  These companies are also being required to remove the cap on Maximum Lifetime Benefits historically offered through their contracts (usually in the ballpark of $6 million per contract).  Additionally, the federal government is requiring that companies allow subscribers' adult children to stay on their plans as dependants until age 26.  Remember that word dependant.

A good feature of the ACA is the 80/20 rule that mandates health insurance companies must use $4 out of every $5 for actual health care costs, with the remaining 20% going to administrative and advertising costs.  Actuarially speaking, if $872 of my $1,090/month will be going to projected expenses for statistically similar cases in  my rate category, yet I am this year paying $720 TOTAL for the same set of statistics during this current policy term, it shows you just how much this governmental decision is costing just one American family.  And in this one situation, I am clear on what group I do not want to be a part of.

We are Americans.  We are resilient and hard working and durable.  Kick us and we will get up and stare you in the eye.  I wish I had another choice on the menu that didn't apologize for success, that was gracious in its appreciation for what we have and that was invigorating in its momentum to take us to new heights.  But that dish is nowhere to be found.  So I look the clubs I have in front of me and ask, do I want to think for myself or hope that someone else has a better idea?  We do not need to be dependant upon a government to think for us.  There are more than 300,000,000 million of us!  How could 1, 2 or 100 groups define us?  But these are our only choices.  I hope we all fit in with the group that makes us feel the strongest, not just the safest.