Public Prayer

Have you ever been forced to pray?

For instance, if you are in a group and someone says  - my mother is sick and other people say- oh, we’ll pray for you and then suddenly, everyone is holding hands and praying out loud and the person next to you is not ok with you not holding their hand while they pray. 

What do you do?

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Here’s my trick.  I translate religious speech (which makes no sense to me) into secular speech which does make sense.

For instance, regardless of the bizarre wording chosen for the prayer for a friend, the intent is: we care about you and are hoping for the best.

Since I feel the same way – I join in without guilt and without feeling like I’m compromising my non-belief.

Yes, it gets exhausting to have to translate bizarre religious speech all the time and it would be so much nicer not to have people assume you know what the hell they mean by god bless you.

But we also have to pick our battles and if you know the intent is to genuinely share and communicate love and solidarity, don’t fight it.