Can Anything Good Come from Nazareth?

Well, yes! On gym politics, belonging, and finding the right things in the wrong places

The YMCA, many know it as the 180-year-old nonprofit organization, or the catchy tune with unforgettable dance moves, or maybe as your local gym.

For me, it's a combination of all 3, but mostly the latter. Just one town over from mine, The Y is a suburban hub for families with young kids, senior citizens looking to stay limber and social, teen boys playing pickup basketball, middle-aged moms getting steps in on the treadmill, late-night bro-ish powerlifters, and the very occasional me—the 20-something-stair climber stepping-body weight squatting-yoga class taking, girl. The crowd at the YMCA is a mixed bag, to say the least. 

The other day I was at my Wednesday yoga class. The dim-lit studio overlooks and is sandwiched by the ground-level pool and basketball court. The shrieks of young kids from the pool, squeaks of sneakers skidding across the court, basketballs bouncing off the wood floors and plexi backboards, and voices impassioned by the game are drowned out by the ambient music and voice of the yoga instructor. The zen environment created during yoga and the focus that goes into each meticulous movement usually steal from the chaos of the studio’s surroundings, but for a moment in the middle of a downward dog, I became keenly aware of the plethora of stimuli around me. Every bounce of a ball, every voice high and low, every step that passed by the door, every splash of pool water, and in that moment as the blood rushed to my upper half I thought, what in the world am I doing in downward dog at the Young Men's Christian Association?

The YMCA was formerly the “Young Men’s Christian Association”, founded in 1844 by George Williams in London. Williams alongside friends founded the now worldwide organization in hopes of creating a place where young men in the city could gather and bond over more wholesome, God-centered activities rather than spend time in the taverns and brothels which were some of the only available options. The founding mission was to support,"...the improving of the spiritual condition of young men engaged in the drapery, embroidery, and other trades."

By 1851 The YMCA had spread across Europe and the United States, and by 1858 women’s auxiliaries were started to be established at branches(not officially inclusive to women until 1964). Today, The Y engages nine million youth and 12 million adults in 10,000 communities across the U.S. and serves more than 45 million people in 124 countries worldwide.

I first visited my local YMCA branch around age eight or nine. My mom enrolled my sister and me in swim lessons and my Grandma, who raised us, in Silver Sneakers, a senior fitness program. My mother would drop the three of us off, my sister and I would go swim, play in the fountains, and rush down the spiral slides while my Grandmother did her water aerobics class on the lap side of the pool. We were likely the only or one of few Black families that attended our local YMCA at that time, and the other members quickly took notice of us. The ladies in my Grandma's class immediately took a liking to and interest in my grandmother for her wide smile, jovial disposition, dark skin, and foreign accent. Without making a spectacle of her, they welcomed her warmly, eager to learn more about her and where she came from, forming beautiful friendships and bonds over the years she spent attending classes. When we come in to swim or exercise without my Grandmas, herds of people would affectionately question us asking, ‘Where is Bernadette today?’

We stopped going to the Y a few years later, as we no longer used the pool and my Grandma no longer lived in the States, opting for memberships at Planet Fitness. The self-proclaimed “judgment-free zone” brought in a much different audience than that at the YMCA. The large open space was lined with workout equipment of all types, occupied by mostly younger, very fit people sporting GymShark and other big exercise brands. Signs in the locker rooms asked patrons not to wear jeans, sandals, boots, string tank tops, durags, skull caps, or bandanas supposedly in support of their “no gymtimidation” policy. An even larger sign lived in the weight section reading “LUNK ALARM” a loud siren that, ironically, blares a loud ringing noise to signal toward anyone who “grunts, drops weights, or judges”. The equipment at Planet Fitness was new and glossy, unlike the worn ones at the Y, and although I was never much of a strength trainer, I felt I needed to join the other people around my age on the weights side which took up more than half of the gym and sport the correct uniform to fit the part. 

In the early 2010s athleisure became wildly popular. Straying from the bright colors, tracksuits, and leotards of the 80s, the new trend was black leggings, sports bras, bomber jackets, and running shoes. The vibe was ‘always on the way to, or on the way back from the gym’, and being fit was equally about the shape you were in as how you looked doing it. There’s a certain pressure to look the role of being in or striving to be in shape. Like any new skill or hobby, the gym is flooded with lingo, best practices, and uniforms. In my opinion, the gym culture at Planet Fitness strived to make sure members were able to seamlessly assimilate into their standards, to avoid intimidation or embarrassment disguised by the cover of “non-judgment”. In reality, the machines you chose signaled what kind of gym goer you were, and the outfit you wore spoke almost louder than your fitness practice. As it does in all things, politics snakes its way into the gym, and suddenly, I was conscious of how my socks looked with my sneakers and what impression I’d give off if I got on the elliptical instead of the treadmill. I quickly took note of the cliques that formed at Planet Fitness, the patrons whom trainers would befriend—they all fit a certain image, one that I felt I did not fit enough to be welcomed into.

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I went to The Y mid-day one summer and sat down at the Hip Adductor Machine. An older gentleman came to the machine next to mine and immediately engaged me in conversation. He asked me if I usually came to the gym at this time, because he’d never seen me before and was familiar with most people who came around noon on Wednesdays, a lot of them were nurses he told me. His commitment to getting to know all the people who attend the gym at the same time as him, whether or not they seemed similar to him, warmed my heart.

It's in our nature to try and make sense of the spaces we’re in. We like to group things into frames of portraits we’ve already seen before, placing them proudly on the wall where the nail hangs lonely. It makes us feel safe to know what and who we’re dealing with, drawing near to what feels familiar and away from what doesn’t fit nicely into our preconceived assumptions. We carry so many limiting beliefs and prejudgments that stop us from learning or having our perspectives shifted. At any given time at The YMCA, there could be a children's karate class, a Zumba lesson, powerlifting teens, a squash match between middle-aged men, small kids running around the track alongside a senior strolling in slacks, and so much more all in the same building. The fact that so much can coexist in one place and still find a way to connect amazes me. 

There can be such joy in discovering something where you would have never expected to find it—like a 5 dollar bill in the dryer, a piece of candy in the bottom of the cup holder, a sweatsuit styled with high heels, or yourself, in downward dog at the Youth Men's Christian Association.

John 1:43–51 shows Jesus recruiting Philip and Nathanael. Philip seems eager to follow Jesus. Nathanael is skeptical, especially because Jesus is from a back-water town like Nazareth, he asks “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”. Once Jesus demonstrates His supernatural wisdom, it’s clear that yes, spectacular things can come from the least suspecting places.