Holy Yes and Holy No

I'm going to have to make this brief.
Jeannie called a 7am meeting this morning, which means I have to be there well in advance.

Like most people raised in dualistic Western culture, I grew up internalizing the belief that body and spirit were separate and opposed, and that "being good" (I never presumed to try for "holiness") meant "saying no" to the pleasures of the body, especially sex. I decided at a fairly young age that passion was okay, if it remained in the heart and mind.

But Holy No wasn't just about sex. It was about all the Thou Shalt Nots: all the things one wasn't supposed to do to in order to be good. The Holy Yes's were, for the most part, confined to spiritual practices: church-going, Bible reading, honoring parents, and etc.

This paradigm got turned upside down during my senior year of college when I discovered Wicca and wrote my thesis on three plays about Queen Christina of Sweeden. In The Abdication, by Ruth Wolff, my favorite of these plays, Christina is a champion of what I came to call the Holy Yes. If I remember the line correctly, her passionate speech to Cardinal Azzollino ends, "Let us give in and say Yes to all that God has given us! Say Yes to life, to love, to God, to everything!"

It was a radical departure from my childhood belief, and one that I needed as a corrective. And for many years after that, I said Yes quite a lot.

I was thinking about Holy Yes yesterday, and -- in the midst of my discussions about discipline with my inner teacher -- was reminded that No is also Holy. The two exist together.

Not every Yes is holy. And the crux of it for me yesterday was this thought: if I am going to say Yes, it is my responsibility to ensure that it is indeed Holy. If I say Yes to sex, to sweets, to spending money, I need to take a moment and check in with myself: is this a holy choice, or is it just "what I want in this moment"?

Conversely, if I say No, why am I saying it? Fear? Self indulgence? (As when I say no to exercise.) Coldness? Selfishness? Or is it holy, and consistent with my ideals and my faith?

"Holy" is a strong word to be applying to daily decisions. It's not the kind of label I've put to my decisions for a very long time. But (and I remember as I type this that we've now entered Lent), this seems a good time for it.

I Should Mention

The last month at work was so intense and exhausting that I completely abandoned my Weight Watchers point counting and my exercising. I stopped drinking enough water.

Nevertheless, when I got back on the scale early this morning, I was down two pounds since the last time I weighed myself on January 23rd.

If I'd been faithful to my program, I would have lost more. But I am delighted that I've changed my habits enough so that I after a month of stress I was still lighter at the end than the beginning. That is not the way it has worked for me in the past.

This brings my overall weight loss since mid December to 16.5 pounds.

And I did intense workouts the last three nights. I took tonight off, so I wouldn't burn myself out, and instead had fun cooking dinner with my daughter, eating at the dining room table, and then playing cards for an hour. It was a nice evening. Tomorrow I'll do my resistance workout again while the pork loin is cooking in my pressure cooker.