“I’ll Pray For You”

November 4, 2007 on 7:13 am | In Cultural Commentary, Mind of the Minister, Theological Reflection |

I was in high school when my father died — a mystical non-Theistic Unitarian church-attending kid mourning an existentialist nominally Jewish papa. When my classmate Jessica McDonald approached me a week after he died to tell me that her church had said a mass for him, I immediately flushed red hot as anger coursed through my body. What the hell is the Catholic church doing messing with my Dad’s soul? was my first thought. You didn’t like or accept him in life, and he wouldn’t have wanted all that superstitious nonsense anyway; he hated it! was my second. And then, because Jessica was standing in front of me with an expression of such vulnerability, so obviously trying to help, a new emotion made its way through the redhot rage: appreciation. Just a tetch. Just enough to create a cramp in my chest as fondness forced its way through the anger.

“Jess, thanks,” I said, and went off to cry in the girl’s bathroom. I cried silently because I was the brave one, the star of the school play and Carl D. Weinstein’s daughter, and I would allow no one to see anything but strength and courage. My heart physically hurt as I struggled to maintain my defenses that were being quietly demolished by the news that Catholics would bother to pray to their God for the repose of my father’s spirit. We are all so crazy, I remember thinking. We are all so crazy. I wouldn’t have an opportunity to unpack or to consider what I meant by that for twenty years. I am still unpacking it now.

A few weeks ago in the Miss Conduct advice column of the Boston Globe, this letter appeared:

I’ve made it very clear to a born-again co-worker that I’m not religious, but she persists in telling me “I’m praying for you” any time she hears I’m having a problem. I’ve told her several times that I don’t believe in it, and it’s her business if she wants to do it, but I don’t need to hear about it. She said it to me today again, and I just ignored her, but it still rankles. On the list of disrespectful behaviors, I suppose it isn’t the worst thing, but I do wish she’d stop! Any advice?
M.R. in Jamaica Plain

And here is Miss Conduct’s (Robin Abraham) terrific response:

Get over it. If you don’t believe in prayer, what’s it hurting you? Saying “I’ll pray for the salvation of your hell-bound heathen soul” is one (seriously inappropriate) thing. Saying “I’ll pray for your sprained ankle to get better soon” is another. Your co-worker is showing her concern in a way that is meaningful to her and harmless to you.

Most nonreligious people reject religion because they believe it to be superstitious and intolerant. But what is more superstitious than thinking that you are somehow affected by prayers to a deity you don’t even believe in? And what is more intolerant than wanting to curb an innocuous expression of concern merely because it doesn’t cohere with your personal worldview? Be a better, more gracious advertisement for secularism. (Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are doing the cause enough damage.) Tell your co-worker that while your philosophies may differ, you appreciate that she takes the time and emotional energy to remember you in her prayers.

We are all so crazy. Listen to this: in response to her response, Robin Abrahams got herself a little pile of hate mail, and even some direct threats. Some of the more thoughtful and printable ones appear here. This from readers who, I have no doubt, consider themselves rationalists. And this is where the either-or, black-white rhetoric of the New Atheism has gotten some of us: either you are a reasonable, intelligent person who doesn’t do insane things like pray to a nonsensical, human-created Deity Concept or your are one of those credulous dingbats who believes in a Deity Concept and therefore feel inexorably compelled to foist that stupidity onto everyone else. And dammit, if you’re praying for me, you must be inflicting your dingbatted ideas onto me, and I’ll have none of it!

I’m glad that this letter made its way to an etiquette advice column; it is, in the end, a matter of pure civility and graciousness necessary for living in a pluralistic society. But let me say more about prayer from my perspective as a minister in a theologically pluralistic religious tradition.

One of my great frustrations with my own often prayer-phobic Unitarian Universalists is that they’re too often sadly and even willfully ignorant about the vast spectrum of prayer practices and techniques in the world, insisting that prayer is always a petition that someone makes to get something out of God. No matter how many sermons they hear defining and exploring a wide variety of prayers from various traditions (and even within the Judeo-Christian tradition), they persist in believing that prayer is always of the “Gimme” variety. No matter how many times they are offered a non-theistic form of prayer in a worship service, they remain rejecting and uncomfortable with the mere idea of being invited to pray unless the prayer is titled in some more innocuous liturgical term, say, “meditation.” (That’s just a little side rant, you understand, coming from a woman who has learned over the years that a community cannot actually “meditate” in less than 60 seconds, but they can indeed pray!) For those who fuss over the word year after year I offer this: “You can sit and think loving thoughts about someone. You can sit quietly and follow your breathing in and out. You can look out the window and appreciate the beauty of the world outside. Those are all entirely legitimate forms of prayer.”

Miss Conduct is right: if someone insinuates that their prayer is toward our conversion, that’s offensive. It is, however, a tradition to pray in this way among some conservative Christians. By all means, tell those who are praying for you to “find Jesus” that you don’t appreciate those sentiments, and that you hope they will grow in faith enough to stop praying in public like the hypocrites Jesus derided in Matthew 6:5. But for those who say they are just praying for us for whatever reason (we’re sick, we’re suffering, we’re unhappy, etc.), the correct response is simply, “Thank you. I need all the good thoughts I can get right now.” It’s helpful to understand that for a certain kind of religious person, “I’m praying for you” is a reflexive response to the news of other’s troubles. It’s supposed to be comforting, friends. It’s supposed to communicate, “I care enough about you to bring your name before my God tonight, because I fervently believe there is a power in the universe beyond all this tangible mess that loves us enough to listen when we cry to Him.”

Even if the pray-er is a bit of a pious irritant, remember that in the quiet of their devotions they probably know that. And they know you don’t like them. So if you can, spare them a kind thought, too. Let’s weave the invisible filaments between us with mindfulness and love. Why not? Is the alternative working so well?

[Update: Robin’s blog has more here, including a shout-out to PeaceBang Blog.]

20 Comments »

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  1. I don’t mind if people pray for me, but I am puzzled as to why the advice columnist seems to think the non believer can and should change her behavior to be more receptive, but doesn’t seem to think the same of the believer. The advice columnist is essentially saying, “The believer can’t help herself. It’s the only way she knows how to be, and it’s so important to her, you need to be able to accept it.”

    [HS, that’s an interesting point, and I see what you’re saying. But I guess I see this differently: why is it upsetting to us if someone cares about something so much they compulsively want to share it as a way of bonding? People are religious about a lot of things and persist in sharing them even after I’ve said I just don’t care. My passion for the Red Sox, for instance, is something that my sister just doesn’t understand or tolerate. When I get really excited about a game, I just can’t keep from mentioning it to her even though I know that when it comes to baseball, she’s on the planet “I-Don’t-CARE!” It’s just on my mind so much during the season that before I even know it, a mention of a game pops out of my mouth and she has to shut me up in about ten seconds. I don’t mean to irritate her, it’s just that something that’s on my mind so much is hard to keep my mouth shut about it. Another analogy might be the vegetarian or nutrition-conscious person who spends so much of their time studying and thinking about the effects of a fatty-processed-salty diet, they just automatically bring it up when their best friends want to stop for a Big Mac. It’s like, “I know you care about my body, and thank you. But shut up while I eat my fries.” The world is full of people who are passionately devoted to causes, lifestyles, ideas. We need to learn to co-exist without being rankled whenever someone makes the blunder of bringing their passion into their social interactions. I just don’t want to live in a world where people are constantly censoring themselves; which is, by the way, a very damaging expectation within too many UU communities. “If you don’t have the most generic kind of ‘to question is the answer’ kind of spirituality, please don’t talk about it!” — PB]

    Comment by h sofia — November 4, 2007 #

  2. Hear, hear PeaceBang!

    H Sofia: The only person you can control is yourself, and the only offense that you can take is the offense you perceive. We shouldn’t hear things like “I’ll pray for you” as ignorance or offense, but take them with the loving intent in which they were given. Getting caught up on the means in which the love was delivered is counter-productive.

    Comment by Markkur — November 4, 2007 #

  3. Amen!

    thats about all I can say. Now I have a link to send people to when we start arguing on similar topics (the latest- saying ‘God bless you’ vs. ‘gesundheit’)

    Comment by Justine Urbikas — November 4, 2007 #

  4. Actually, what I was essentially saying is, “You need to pick your battles in the workplace, and this ain’t one you should be fighting. Also, be a better advertisement for your beliefs.” I tend to give those two pieces of advice a lot.

    Comment by Miss Conduct — November 4, 2007 #

  5. @Justine - I’m a “gesundheit” person, myself - but that was the common response when/where I was raised. (Congrats on your election, btw! This isn’t totally random, I’m Maggie H.’s mom…)

    @PB - I’ve learned to just say “Thank you, I appreciate it” whenever someone offers prayers. It certainly can’t hurt, and there’s something comforting about knowing someone is thinking about me even if I disagree with their theology. If they’re praying for my immortal soul or conversion, well they can always hope…

    Comment by Earthbound Spirit — November 4, 2007 #

  6. These comments used to bug me a lot. Ironically, attending a UU church has made me become less concerned with people praying for me in any way — for my health, for my family’s health, for my conversion. I’m not so angry about “In God We Trust” being on our money or prayer in school (if it’s just a moment of silence). I have to think that the positive energy generated from prayer (brain cells used to say the prayer) goes to some use in the universe, if not for its intended purpose. =)

    Comment by Mars Girl — November 4, 2007 #

  7. I just don’t see these people around very much (the ones who get angry at anyone praying for them). It feels to me like advice directed at people who are already practicing tolerance (because they have to, they are a minority.)

    Comment by h sofia — November 4, 2007 #

  8. I think that PB has hit upon a significant aspect of the problem when she identified a general misunderstanding of the many types of prayer and the many types of prayer traditions. I am saddened when prayer is dismissed as a whiny petition to an unknown behind the green curtain that requests a specific course of action and outcome. Prayer and one’s prayer life can be so much deeper and intimate. Perphaps that is what is most frightening - the opening and initimacy between us that has to happen to share our prayer lives and love and respect each other with what we find.

    However, I also believe that Anne Lamott very effectively identified the first two prayers “Help me, help me, help me” and “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” From that we go deeper.

    Comment by BJ — November 4, 2007 #

  9. Some of the prayers I cherish most were written by UU ministers & laity; I don’t go for the “gimme” variety of prayer either but I think it’s unfortunate that some UUs are seemingly determined to ignore a treasure readily available to them. Oranges are not the only fruit :)

    As for the “i’m praying for you” issue, I agree that its harmless and not worth making into a theological debate in the workplace, but I also agree that the praying coworker should have respected her coworkers request. No, it’s not a battle worth fighting as Miss Conduct rightly points out-but if for example, a coworker of mine asked me to stop calling him Dave in lieu of David I would respect his wishes. In the end, I agree that the best course of action from the start of this incident would have been a polite “thank you” to the praying coworker and then going on with life.

    Comment by NDM — November 4, 2007 #

  10. Please be a little less harsh on the rest of us UU’s; I’m UU and I pray with and for other UU’s. I know there are many UU’s who don’t engage in prayer, but it is hurtful to see our whole movement characterized as “prayer-phobic.” [Try to read more carefully, Shelby. I said “too often prayer phobic.” Look for qualifiers. They’re always there when I speak of UUs. - PB]

    Also, I think a key point in M.R.’s complaint is that she has asked several times that her co-worker not inform her of her prayers. Perhaps M.R. should have responded more temperately the first time her co-worker said “I’m praying for you.” But now that M.R. has asked her co-worker several times not to inform her of her prayers, I think the co-worker is also being disrespectful by persisting.

    Comment by Shelby Meyerhoff — November 5, 2007 #

  11. I wouldn’t characterize the whole UU community as across-the-board prayer-phobic, but in my UU congregation, we do experience a great deal of tension around any sort of terminology associated with orthodoxy. I have been accused by another member of “scaring off newcomers” because as a lay leader, I use terms like prayer, church, salvation, and (God forbid) God.

    I felt quite validated by our District Exec, a fabulous minister herself, when she opined that people who are still angry about and afraid of other people’s terminology are not at a spiritually mature place. I thought this myself, but it seemed self-important to say so.

    While I am not a Christian and am more Deist than Theist, I cannot object to having a friend or acquaintance pray on my behalf, employing whatever practice is meaningful to him or her. I’m simply grateful to have someone care enough about my wellbeing to go to the trouble.

    Comment by Frog Princess — November 5, 2007 #

  12. As a card-carrying, science loving, ape-descended atheist, I used to get flustered when people told me I was the object of their prayers. This hit really hard when we lost my Dad when I was a young adult. People announced that they were praying for me and my family left and right. But something my Dad always said stuck with me: “People are usually doing the best they can.” That idea transformed my reaction to prayer. The people who were offering prayers for me were giving me their very best…the most valuable, most caring thing they had to offer. Just because I don’t happen to value that practice the same way they do doesn’t change their intention. When someone says they’re praying for me, I don’t just tolerate it. I’m grateful for it.

    Comment by Chris — November 5, 2007 #

  13. Most of the time I can interpret people praying for me as a way of keeping me in their thoughts, hoping for the best, or sending out “positive energy,” hokey New-Age as that sounds. I was taught to do this by my dear atheist mother, who believes very much in doing such things, and in the decency of other people who do them.

    I also really like the description of “legitimate forms of prayer” offered by PeaceBang. And it came right on the heels of the RE Director of our new church explaining to the kids that putting the church garden “to bed” for the winter was a way of “praying with your hands.” My husband, avowed atheist and equally avowed gardener, was pleased that the kids got to hear about “prayer” in a very different context than at their mother’s fundamentalist church. She’s the exception to my benign feelings about people praying for us, because her prayer is done deliberately a) to reassure herself of her superiority to us and b) to demonstrate, under the guise of well-meaning love, to the children that there’s something wrong with us and our beliefs. I can handle prayer as means of self-comfort, but prayer as weapon I won’t ever be able to stomach–and don’t think I should.

    Comment by martinet — November 5, 2007 #

  14. I believe that what most are saying here is absolutely true…the “pray-er” should have politely ceased and desisted out of common courtesy when requested to do so by the person who was prayed for…but really, as Miss Conduct says, we need to pick our battles. For all of the truly offensive behaviors occurring in office space these days (i.e., loud, inappropriate phone conversations heard clearly in the next cubicle, leaving common areas like pigstys, pilfering food from the office refrigerator clearly labeled as private property, etc.), this is truly minor!

    Comment by tom — November 6, 2007 #

  15. I was sifting through my Google Reader today and realized I’d “lost” you…your old blog was still on my reader, not this one. But of course, it comes in a timely manner. I needed to read this today. We indeed are all crazy. Thanks.

    Comment by Ei — November 7, 2007 #

  16. I’ve been getting a lot of “I’ll pray for you[s]” lately, since my fiancé is about to have surgery. Though we are both atheists, I always say thank you, we can use all the help we can get. I know these people are just telling me they care.
    What does rankle, a wee bit, about those types of comments, in general, is the assumption (I think inherent) that I subscribe to religion. Same for Merry Christmas, and many other commonplace phrases. Not that the offerer of any such greetings means anything uninclusive, but that society as a whole hasn’t really gotten to the point of not assuming everyone has a religion.

    Comment by Ceinwyn — November 19, 2007 #

  17. Prayer and religion are deeply private matters that are inappropriate to discuss in the workplace. I would no more expect a co-worker to tell me she is praying for me than to describe what she and her husband did in bed the night before. To bring up either in the workplace is both vulgar and inconsiderate.

    Comment by Lynn — December 9, 2007 #

  18. The way I see it is this: if it’s a random person who doesn’t know any better, its probably best to cut them a break. But if its someone who knows you, and knows what you think, then their sentiments ought to be delivered in the most comforting way for you, not for them.

    This is a different situation than your red sox/big mac examples, because those are not emotionally vulnerable times, and the sentiments are not supposed to be an opportunity for the person to demonstrate how pious and in-touch with god they are, but rather to demonstrate how in touch they are with your feelings.

    Comment by Citizen — January 26, 2008 #

  19. Dear M.R. in Jamaica Plain,

    Jesus can relate to you because he not religious either. If you want your co-worker to stop, just tell him. Jesus love you so much that he never want you to feel uncomfortable.

    Comment by Arlene — June 17, 2008 #

  20. Okay, this comment comes very late, but this whole affair bothered me in a way which is hard to repress….

    I have to admit, I felt a little “eek!” when I read Miss Conduct’s “Get over it.” Partially because I usually find her advice to be excellent and wonderful. But it’s always the “Get over its” that I cringe at. To me it’s the same as saying “Your problems aren’t real, and I don’t acknowledge them.” I realize that it is probably a necessary shorthand in a limited column space, but I feel that the phrase “Get over it” minimizes complex and sometimes difficult-to-control human emotion and experience.

    I think what also bothered me was…well…it seemed as though the question itself wasn’t really addressed. There was this whole examination of “well, why would somebody praying for you bother you so much? Huh? I thought you didn’t even *believe* in that stuff?” and completely ignores the fact that the coworker is persisting in a behavior in which they were asked–politely, I presume–to stop. There was nothing in the letter saying that religious people were all stupid or deluded, and the person seemed to bear no real ill-will towards the coworker. It seemed as though Miss Conduct was projecting a lot of issues which weren’t actually brought up–something that she doesn’t usually do.

    I’m trying to think of an analogy that would make sense. Let’s say I have a coworker who, nearly every day, gazes into my eyes and tells me, “Wow, you have such gorgeous eyes.” This might make me a bit uncomfortable, for whatever reason–maybe I feel it’s unprofessional, or maybe I get a creepy vibe, or maybe I can’t even fully explain it. I ask him, politely, several times, to stop, and he doesn’t. So I write Miss Conduct, whom I respect and admire, asking if she has any advice for the situation. If Miss Conduct’s answer to me in this situation is the equivalent to the one she gave to the non-theist, I feel it would go like: “Get over it! Why are you so bothered by the fact that he thinks you have pretty eyes? You should take it as a compliment that he takes the time to tell you so. You feminists are always so uptight when it comes to men admiring you physically.”

    The fact is, I am not bothered by the mere fact that someone thinks my eyes are pretty, or that someone thinks that praying for me is a way to help me out. In a certain context, both could be flattering. What I would be bothered by is someone–whatever the situation–continuing a behavior which I’ve let them know bothers me. It shouldn’t matter WHY I find the behavior bothersome, the fact is the person is persisting when they KNOW it makes me uncomfortable. I felt that that issue was completely ignored in exchange for blanket assertions about “New Atheists” and questioning of the writer’s beliefs and validity.

    And although I cannot condone some of the hateful, ridiculous letters she received (proof that idiots come in all religious–or non-religious–flavors), I can to a certain extent empathize with the anger and frustration that in our society, religion gets a free pass to get away with behaviors which would be unacceptable otherwise (such as the male coworker’s obsession with my eyes). Complaints are dismissed, atheists are marginalized, and we are all told “Why does this even bother you? It’s not like you BELIEVE in it anyways.” It’s a hurtful, offensive, and dismissive answer which ignores the real issues.

    BTW, I am a UU in Savannah. ;) I discovered it several months ago and I think it’s a wonderful community to be a part of. Yes, even mean old grumpy atheist that I am. ;)

    [Thanks for weighing in, Aggie! I think you raise valid points and make an excellent argument. Come back to PeaceBang any time. - PB]

    Comment by EntoAggie — June 26, 2008 #

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