By the way, it's not a miracle

[ritaxis]

One of my co-workers announced a couple of weeks ago that she was going to say novenas for me -- that's a prayer nine Fridays in a row meant to achieve a particular goal, and I think -- unless I have hoeplessly conflated these conversations -- she likes to aim these at the Infant of Prague (which is a creepy statue of a baby, while I have not seen it in particular I have seen a bronze and a stone statue each in Prague which are modeled after it for some hideous reason), and she says that I am to expect a miracle on the 17th of August.

I have been smiling politely. But it actually annoys the feathers off me, and here is why. When she finds out that I am getting my job back (more or less, and mostly less), she gets to claim that it is a miracle and that she did it with her prayers. Which sort of denies the facts -- that my boss plotted and watched and waited for an opportunity to scrape me out some kind of job that I could accept before I got another one because I am that good and because I am that loyal, and that I hung around and worked on almost a volunteer basis for three months and accepted a much diminished position in order to keep doing the thing I want to do.

In where is the miracle, there? Is it a miracle that my other coworker decided that it was a good and necessary career move to go to a school where she could get the title she wants? Why? Am I supposed to believe that some higher power whispered these thoughts into her ear in order to clear the decks for me? Why would they do that, if they can't be bothered to end the wars in Africa, or put a stop to the murderous shenanigans of the IMF and World Bank, or to close the torture sites, or straighten out poor long-suffering Afghanistan, or make people stop poisoning the ocean and the air?

I cannot believe that my immediate employment is of more importance than the starvation and mutilation of my counterparts in Somalia and the Sudan. And you can't convince me that I'm the focus of this benevolence because those women are Muslims -- I'm an atheist, which has to be worse if we're only giving out goodies to the faithful. Supposedly it's the same god, according to religious scholars.

And how does this one person telling her understanding of my troubles to her god over and over for nine weeks rank in all the world's demands on this god personage? Is she really important enough that her priorities trump all that I just referenced, and more? I don't believe it. I believe, of course, that each of us is important, but if we're all important, thensurely th8ose others are important too?

But what really annoys me featherless is this shifting of the credit for my job from me (and my boss) to her (and her god). How dare she take credit for my efforts and my value to our program?


I think this cut worked.

Comments

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Yep, the cut worked.

I think I'd look at her without smiling and say "how nice." Arguing with her about it won't make her change her mind or action, so just brush her off politely.

[redbird]

The question is whether you want to call her on some version of "Are you saying I haven't earned this opportunity?" or "I'm getting this job because I'm qualified for it, not because of your help." (I gather it's too late to tell her something more politely deflecting, like "If you really want to pray, use it on something important, like curing AIDS.")

[erikagillian.livejournal.com]

Someone even telling me they're praying for me has always annoyed me, I've never thought it out to this extent but yeah, this!

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I would have trouble with that too. And would probably not handle it as gracefully as you seem to have, either.

I work in a house of crazy people

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

which also has a large xian bias. I haven't had anyone say they're praying for me, but I'd likely just nod politely and go on with my business. The person who sits closest to me, and who I like a lot, is, thankfully, Baha'i. I'm gratful.

I am NOT grateful for the sort of nice old lady who sits on the other side (other parallel unit) and sings along/shouts out to her recordings of the previous Sunday's gospel service.

I'm pagan, a solo-practicing wiccan with atheist/skeptic tendencies.. I used to be a Christian, when I was a teen I was even baptised. But I lost my faith because of a myriad of questions that were answered with 'take it on faith." Urm, no, I can't. they were questions of why certain things were rejected, etc.

I pretty much keep my faith to myself.

I'm sorry this person tried to pick you. It kind of sounds like a little bitt of bullying, but she thinks 'it's okay because I'm a Good Christian and am Taking Care of her." ARRRRRRRRRRGH

[julesjones]

And this is why I do not ever tell someone that I have prayed for them unless I have good reason[*] to think that they will receive it in the spirit in which it was intended -- "I have set aside a fragment of time to think about you, even if there is nothing else I can do to help right now". I'm a Christian, but I can't stand the sort of "praying for you" that you describe, for exactly the same reasons you describe.

[* This generally requires them to have explicitly asked for same.]

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I had a coupon for Ruby Tuesday's that I figured I wouldn't be able to use because I don't usually get up early enough to go before it gets to 90F. But today, I was up very early and the weather sites said it wouldn't be 90 until noon (I think they may have been wrong), so I went.

As I pulled into the parking lot, pulling in from the other direction were two extended vans with the name of a non-local church on the sides. It looked like teens. I figured they'd eat at ChickFila -- I've seen other religious groups do that -- but then two of the leaders came in and one had a t-shirt that said "I PRAY." Then he asked the manager if there was room for all the kids in one area, and the manager told him that not for a while (too many people in each different area) and those two stayed and I don't know where the kids went. I'm glad they didn't come -- they probably would have prayed or sang.

But a t-shirt that says "I PRAY" is like shoving it in your face.

[julesjones]

And that sort of shoving it in your face is strongly associated with being the sort of person who loves to hate for Jesus.

I work in the centre of a large city, which means that I often get to walk past evangelists busy hating for Jesus when I go to the bus station in the evening. I'd like to shout a few choice Biblical quotes back at them{*}, but I'd only be rewarding their attention-seeking and martyrdom complexes. :-(

(*The bits in Leviticus about mixed fibres and shaving would be a start, given one of their favourite topics, but I suspect that they're also too ignorant to understand my point.)

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Sympathies. It is frustrating, isn't it, to be used as a justification for someone else's beliefs?

[pameladean]

Wow, I find even a single remark about praying for me very annoying, but this is so creepy and controlling that it seems almost stalker-like. Perhaps she just hasn't thought it through.

P.