The Minnesota Farm Woman

I am the oldest and least flexible member of my Saturday morning yoga class. Our instructor, who happens to be my very flexible daughter, asks us to set an intention to concentrate on during each class. I usually choose something like “I will eat healthy” or “I will practice more”. Intentions help to bring you back into focus, should your mind start to wander. My mind tends to wander a lot, especially when I am intent on not falling into a twisted pile of sweaty limbs or wondering how in the HECK I’m going to do what she’s doing. I usually keep my weekly intention to four or five words, and try to follow it throughout the week. Some folks believe that yoga is somehow not a practice for Christians. I’m not here to argue theology with anybody, but find it quite the opposite for me. My intention today was “I will honor God.” This intention was to help me have less judgemental thoughts about Facebook users who can’t differentiate between there, their, and they’re, along with my snarky thoughts and comments about politicians both right and left. Besides, it sounded better than “I will shut my mouth.” So I stretched and I honored for an hour and truly plan to keep up with both the intention and the stretching throughout the week. After class, I cuddled and exchanged about a hundred kisses with my grandson, who will soon be five. The trick to getting that many kisses from a nearly five-year-old is to tell him that kisses are icky. Five-year-old boys like icky things. He also whispered in my ear that when he turns five next month, he will not be too big to kiss his grandma. Dear God: You got it mixed up. It was my intention to honor you, but instead you honored me with this moment in this day in this blessed life. I wonder if that was your intention all along? Namaste.