Everywhere Holy by Kara LawlerSample

A friend once invited me to a spiritual yoga class, and on a Sunday evening in midwinter, I met her there. 

Toward the end of the yoga class, the yoga instructor had us stand and balance on one leg, holding our arms out to our sides, balancing with our palms straight to our sides, palms pointed up, there to catch another woman if needed. It was a balancing I found hard to do, faltering a bit, swaying from side to side. As I struggled to find my balance on my own, my palm touched the palm of my friend and I was secured, standing upright, unwavering because of the strength I found in her palm. When I swayed, her palm was there to catch me, and when she swayed, my palm and the palm of her other friend beside her caught her. I watched the rows of women—one in front of me, and one behind—and each woman was strength for the woman beside her. The strength in the room was palpable to me, each of us made strong by one other, in a chain of sorts, palm to palm.

We might hear from another of their own suffering—even small trials—and we will look up from staring downward, downtrodden, and reach out for them, too, until it’s a chain of so many women, palm to palm, just like the yoga studio, just like the passage from Exodus. The palms will steady us and we won’t let go and it’ll be our own prayer: here, let me steady you. Let me hold you. Breathe with me, in and out, in and out. It’s hard but I will hold you and you will hold me and we will hold fast to this life, for it is enough. And it will be enough. For really, what’s holier than breathing in and out? The action, the dare to take one breath after another and continue on in the life God laid for us? Truly, what’s holier than living? Together, we breathe, in and out. We steady one another, making life less difficult. We become like the people who held Moses. We are everywhere holy, together, palm to palm.

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