posted
This thread comes from a bit of the discussion on the "How does God help you" which pushed a hot button of mine. Pat told TomD that he was praying for him, and I believe he meant it in the sincerest nicest way possible. But it still touched a nerve.
I have been prayed AT way to much in my life. We talked about it a little bit this weekend when CT read my latest infamous "Grandma" letter. If you do anything she doesn't like, she "batters" you with prayer, and tells you about how much she is praying for you too.
Case in point, she claims, her prayers were directly responsible for my Uncle Bob and his long time gf of 30 years getting married. Even though they went out of the state to get married and didn't tell her about it at all til long after they returned.
Incidentally because they have gotten married, which is the end all be all of existence (in Grammy's world), now they are "right with God" even though I highly doubt my Uncle and new Aunt's core beliefs changed from when they were "living in sin" before they were married to being married. From what I gather they realized that after 9/11 there could be significant property rights issues with life partners, and having been together for the past 30 years the relationship was probably going to last and they'd run out of reasons not to get married.
I highly respect my Uncle Bob for putting up with Grandma's abuse and harrasment for as long as he did, and knowing how long he held out against her, I don't believe she had ANYTHING to do with his marriage decision. However all of her prayers were answered and now that they are married, nothing else matters.
Now, of course, it is me, I'm "living in sin" and she constantly refers in her letters to what a heartache Uncle Bob put her through (but praise God it is all over now) and what a heartache I'm putting my mother through.
/sidebar. I just realized that regardless of their religious affiliation which has been among other things at times Free Will Baptist, Grammy and my mother have no respect for any free will other than their own. /end sidebar
Anyway her quote in the letter to me was pretty much, "We pray for you TWICE as much as the rest of our grandchildren because you are sinning so you must need it more."
Gee Thanks Grandma, I'm so greatful, it makes me sick.
AJ
(please post opinions on this topic, I know I have a jaded and cynical bias)
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posted
I've seen religion used as a weapon, and it isn't pretty. It's abuse of one of the absolute worst kinds. Sorry about your grandmother.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
It seems to me that there's a big difference between praying for someone (in which case you would only tell them you were doing so if it would make them feel good -- if they were sick, or trying to find a job, etc.) and AT someone.
In any case, I pray for people to have better health, income, etc. But I believe they need to make any choices that relate to their actions. Their actions are between them and God -- assuming no harm to innocent bystanders.
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Whether right or wrong, at least she's taking a part of her day to do what she feels is right for you. It beats having grandparents that never give you the time of day and it certainly beats having no grandparents at all.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
See, I'm okay with people praying for me, but that's partly because I'm an arrogant asshole.
Why?
Because prayer can only be used as a weapon when its intent is to guilt the "prayee" into behaving the way the "pray-er" would want. (Presumably, if God GRANTS the prayer, that's a good thing for everyone concerned.)
So when someone says he or she is praying for you, that means either two things: 1) they genuinely want what's best for you and are asking the most powerful being they know for help, which will presumably only be given if it's actually the best thing for you -- something, IMO, that NO ONE can actually find offensive; or 2) trying to convince you that God's on their side, that you should feel guilty about not agreeing with them already, and that they've got a line to God.
As I am rarely moved to guilt by people who take the latter approach, I normally don't mind being "prayed for" in the least.
(In this specific case, by the way, I don't mind Pat's prayers at all. Frankly, if there IS a God, I WANT Him to get in touch -- and if Pat can talk the Big Guy into it, somehow, I'll be forever grateful. I don't get the sense that Pat's flaunting his faith when he says he's praying for me; I believe he's a good, concerned person who'd just like to lend a hand. I'm cool with that.)
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I pray for Tom because there have been a few instances where he's opened up to me and I've seen someone who could use God's help.
Tom once told me about a time in his life where he wanted to know more than anything if God really existed. My prayers are an outgrowth of that communication we had.
It's not like I'm spending 95 percent of my prayers beseeching God to not make Tom an arrogant asshole. I throw him in when when it's convenient.
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posted
For me, prayers in the context of a friendship or even acquaintanceship (if that wasn't a word, it is now) are accepted gracefully.
There's another kind that is offensive. My partner uses a wheelchair and she, like many other visibly disabled people, sometimes gets approached by total strangers who tell her they will pray for her. The assumption is that because she is in a wheelchair she is more in need of prayer than the other strangers they meet in the day. There's also an assumption that the disability is the issue in her life that she's most in need of getting prayers for.
She's developed a creative answer. She says "that's nice. I'll be sure to pray for you too."
Even if the recipient doesn't understand the message, it makes her feel good. Kinda makes me smile too.
Better response than running over the person anyway. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I wasn't referring at all to Pat's prayer for Tom.
When I said religion used as a weapon, I mean that I had a boyfriend once tell me, when I told him that I wasn't getting the same answer to the prayer that he apparently was getting, that the reason I wasn't getting the same answer was because I was less spiritual, and that since he had the priesthood, his prayers were the ones that mattered and I should just listen.
That's religion being used as a weapon. Considering I'd bearly come to grips with the whole patriarchal system in the first place and he KNEW it, and he used it AGAINST me to try and manipulate me, I figure that's first in the "Send blank to hell" list.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
I have no trouble ignoring people who want to pray at me.
I am quiet during family grace during the holidays. I respect other's belief, and that's a pretty small price. To spite them, however, I try to think of dirty limericks! Usually I can't hear their prattle anyway, they are not much on public speaking, and cannot project their voices very well.
I do have a problem with people requiring me to say a prayer. Prayer often is not just words, but a mantra, repeated for affirmation. That just steams me, and I will walk out at the first sign of this requirement.
Words have more power than most might imagine.
[ October 13, 2003, 02:56 PM: Message edited by: Erik Slaine ]
Posts: 1843 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I'm sory I wasn't directing this at Pat or Tom specifically. I know when Pat said he would pray for Tom, Pat meant it in the sincerest kindest way possible.
The problem is I guess in my own life that I have been very biased with the other kind of "prayer". I know people on Hatrack have prayed for me at times with the problems I have had, and I appreciate it. Because it is hatrack I don't have problems with people here praying for me, because I know they are doing it selflessly and not to advance their own agenda.
As for having live Grandparents vs. having deceased grandparents. If the grandparents were good and decent people they will live on in the memory of their children and you will get to know them if indirectly. While I realize that live grandparents can be an invaluable resource, they also have the potential to be extremely psycologicaly damaging, by the inappropriate use of power on both their children and grandchildren (and this tends to be the children's direct blind spot.) If the grandparents are already dead, the only damage risk comes from the parents.
posted
I think that even though you may have found your grandothers letter to be offending I think that you should not become angry at her. She is doing what she believes is right. We shouldn't judge people by their beliefs.
Posts: 47 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
In your specific case, Anna, having been exposed to your grandmother's letters before, I am coming to believe that you should -- as a way of coping with her -- start scanning them and posting them to the Web, with annotations. Laughter is decent medicine, but encouraging OTHER people to laugh is like surgery.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Ok if you don't judge people by their beliefs do you judge them by their actions?
Because this woman even if she is my grandmother is a narcisstic, manipulative bitch to the family around her.
Should I judge her by the fact that she followed my father up and down the grocery store aisles screaming at the top of her lungs about breastfeeding?
Should I judge her by the fact she is a bigot, and still doesn't know my boyfriend is black, because everyone is afraid to tell her because she has heart trouble.
Should I judge her by the fact that not once in my life has she cared about things that I am actually interested in, even for just the sake that I was interested in them but always attempted to force me to deny those interests try to be something I'm not? Especially being female and an engineer. Didn't you know that all female engineers are whores because they have to sleep with profs to get through their classes because they aren't smart enough to do them on their own?
Do I judge her by the fact that she called me a slut (behind my back screaming at my father again), because I went to a trusted friend who just happened to be male's house to study Organic Chemistry for three hours to get away from her so that I could study for my chemistry test at all?
Where does the line between belief and action exist?
posted
Now those I would judge her by. I dont think you should judge her for wheteher or not she prays for you. But her actions are fully judgeable.
Posts: 47 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I didn't read through your note in its entirety before I posted my last message. I'm happy to say I haven't been the recipient of those kinds of prayers.
Of course, it sounds like it's not the prayers themselves, but the nasty reminders that the reason she must pray so much is that you are such a "sinner." If she was keeping her prayers to herself, I doubt you would feel harmed, since it would be between her and the god she believes in.
I'm sorry. I'd feel emotionally battered myself, or at least pretty tired of it. Maybe you could deal better if you could just adopt an emotional stance that she is someone who has "major issues," not likely to change, and that there's nothing for you to feel bad about.
Easier said than done - relative can get under your skin worse than anyone. That's one of those things family is for. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
AJ, I love you. I know you're trying to find your own path.
Please don't confuse your grandmother's perversion of her faith as God's will. This isn't about prayer at all. It's just a weapon in her arsonal of guilt.
You already know that, but I thought it might be helpful to hear someone else say it.
Even if it's an elitist, materialistic agnostic. Posts: 3956 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Thank you ever so much for your prayers. I know that you believe I am sinning and it is so wonderful for you to wash away that sin for me.
I want you to know that I am returning the favor. As you approach your final days I am sure that there is much in your life that you hope God fogives. Oh, nothing major, just the minor bigotries and sins that every human has. Perhaps you have cast the first stone too quickly on occasion, or sought to push others instead of guide gently. I have heard the unenlightened and mean spirited use the word "nag" when they mention your name. I prey that they wil be forgiven that impropriety as you are forgiven your minor sins.
For when you have gone, we will all miss your guidance. The only source of joy that will come my way on that sad day will be the knowledge that you will be sitting on Gods right hand, yelling your prayers in his ear, pointing out all the sins he may have missed, and entreating him to aid us poor sinners still on this earth.
posted
All in all I cope pretty well. It took a several years of varying degrees of depression before I figured out how to deal with them. Every now and then (like now) still it gets under my skin. I'll bump my Letters from Grandma thread so those of you who are newer can see exactly what I'm talking about.
Putting them on Hatrack and having friends laugh over them like TomD said is extremely cathartic. I have a binder full of 7 years of this crap in letters. Part of the reasons I have kept them is because my family is controlling enough that if they ever tried to have me committed to a mental institution, I need them as proof of the mental state of my accusers. Grandma has herself insinuated my lack of sanity in letters. I will never, ever visit that branch of the family without Steve (my S.O.) coming with me.
There is a slim but real chance that without an outsider around they would try to semi-kidnap me and hold me under house arrest until I claimed to have changed my views, and they could marry me off to some guy of their approval. This is not an irrational fear but completely concievable from their frame of reference since they know they are RIGHT. I don't think most of my aunts and uncles would stand for it going that far, but I don't entirely trust them either just because we share some of the same DNA. These people are also far enough out in the Pennsylvania countryside that no one, not even the Amish, would hear my screams.
Also if Grandma did suggest such a course of action, they wouldn't say she is loony and should consider mental help but somehow it would end up being my fault. And it would be my fault if I got mad about it, because I shouldn't be upset about such insunations when they are mostly correct, and how dare I upset Grandma.
I have a question - why does she still write? Maybe I'm just thinking of my own family, but you're on your own and living away from home. I assume you don't contact her on a regular basis. The vituperation is awful, but it's almost sweet that she remembers you with very little encouragement.
If she IS getting encouragement, I'd say to start by slowing that down.
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posted
Kat I haven't sent a letter since a post card or two my freshman year of college, about 6 years ago. I may have spoken on the phone to her once in the past two years.
When I had my gall bladder surgery and figured I should tell my mother, who was visiting Grammy at the time, I made Steve call, specifically so I didn't have to talk to the woman.
quote:Whether right or wrong, at least she's taking a part of her day to do what she feels is right for you. It beats having grandparents that never give you the time of day and it certainly beats having no grandparents at all.
I would rather have no Grandma at all. No question.
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She's nuts, then. She is presuming on a relationship that you have done your very best to cut off. I'm floored. That's so odd!
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
But Banna, you are so unfair. After all, your being imperfect reflects poorly on your grandmother. How can she dare to show her face to her friends? How can she ridicule them on their heathen grandchildren, lechourous immorality, and demonic future? how can she maintain that sweet air of holier than thou superiority? How, while her own Granddaughter continues to live in sin, just to spite her. You realize that is what you are doing. You are just spiting her. Everyone is trying to spite her. The whole world is filled with sin out to get her. They are all out to get me, everyone, all the sinners and you are all sinners. Back, back, its ahwhhhhhhhhh.
(I love to patronize the patronizers. ITs fun.)
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
That's just rude. If someone doesn't believe in the same things you do, it's rude to wave it in their face. "I'm Christian and you're not???? I'll pray right now to my God to heal you of your evil ways...."
But of course, this isn't about some stranger on the street, it's about a much more familiar and worse breed... The family. I feel glad that my Grandmother's merely a cold, pretentious old codger instead of something like that... Ew...
And as for me, I don't usually tell people I'm praying for them... Mostly because most of my prayers tend to be the split-second, just before I fall asleep kind... Hm... They're mostly self-centered, too... Ack. I feel like such an egotist...
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Banna, Reading this thread, I am laughing my behind off, and on the verge of tears of anger-frustration at the same time. You should send the letter to the "Landover Baptist CHurch" site, a parody site which would seem like no parody to you at all, I would guess. I get the same feeling from Raymond's mother on "Everybody Loves Raymond." It is to the point now that I do not watch the show. It is too real, the way the character manipulates others in her family. It happens in real life too often. My advice in dealing with manipulative grandmothers is: distance. Move farther away from PA if you can!
I am so sorry. You do not want to hurt her, yet she is hurting you.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Definitely, AJ. And the other thread is hilarious and scarring all at the same time. I made up a word for that once... Scrilarious.
I actually have a friend whose mother is going to be JUST like this when she gets older. What makes matters worse is that she's homosexual. Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I'd hate to think that heterosexuals are the only ones who have a right to be intolerant, self-righteous and insufferable. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Kat didn't you know that ho-mo-sex-u-ality is a sin worse than living together or death? See if you are just living with a member of the opposite sex you can get married and make it all hunky dory with God, but those ho-mo-sex-uals (haven't you ever heard someone drag it out like that because the word alone is aparently so disasteful) are going straight to H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEY-STICKS (because apparently actually saying the word will send you there)
posted
LOL. Yeah, katharina/sndrake, I phrased it wrong. I meant my friend is homosexual, not her mother.
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I can see how that could be an assumption - that those who have met persecution are more sympathetic and therefore less likely to dish it out - but incidents and evidence from childhood abusers grow up to abuse to the Albanians returned the horror on the Serbs once they got power belie that theory. Kind of like the theory that abuse in prisons would make gentler citizens of those who get out - it would be nice if it worked, but it doesn't.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I had read the other thread. Sorry, I was thinking of it as one long thread. The letters are hysterical(and frightening) but the way you add the comments in makes it purely funny.
My grandmother is extremely racist. She married a "Spanish" man, and I never knew, until I was in my twenties, that he was born in Puerto Rico. Once, when I was really annoyed with her, I pointed out that I had African blood, through my grandfather. She was SO mad I had said that. I had to point out the 1000 year occupation of the Moors. I don't think she spoke to me for the rest of the day.
What is amazing, though, is how people like your grandmother, and mine, can take any bit of fact and turn it to fit their agenda. It is remarkable. They simply do not see the inconsistency. I love both of my grandmothers, but we have pretty much come to a place where we never discuss politics, religion, social life, or much of anything at all on television. This leaves sports, which can be a scary topic, with all those "foreigners" playing, but we usually do OK. Since my kids are little, we can also talk about them.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
If I don't laugh I cry, Laughing is the better option.
I don't know at this point if I would want to talk to Grandma or not, because I don't think she would respect my boundaries and be content with non-controversial topics like the weather etc. I'm glad yours at least does that.
As Yozhik said in the Letter thread, your grandmother might be borderline. It is a very, very difficult thing. Ask Mack about this, or one of the other psychologists. My grandmothers are ultra conservative, and one is openly racist, but they are sanely so, if that makes any sense. They are loving, have supported me my whole life, and have a strong grip on reality. We just disagree on many, many things, and are strong enough in our love to know it.(not that is it easy, believe me)
It might actually be a lot easier for you to let go of the guilt, hurt, and anger if you can realize her actions are out of her control. It might give you a different strategy in approaching her, or it might make you able to cut the tie completely.
As funny as the letters are, it is obvious that you love your grandmother, or want to, and, no matter how whacky she is, you want her to love you for who you are.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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You know, as a believer I think my worst fear is that people will think of me as prime evidence in favor of the opposite position. <laughs> That's why I'm always extremely reluctant to do any proselytizing.
Certainly I can't imagine having such a grandma and being able to bring myself to believe in anything approaching her view of life.
I think my own conversion was probably delayed a couple of decades by ill-considered attempts to convert me to fundamentalist protestantism in high school. Earlier than that in first and second grades, Sisters Celestine, Emily, and Jeanne Marie probably prevented me from ever becoming Catholic.
Posts: 968 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Yeah, if it were I, I think I'd have to be whatever was the opposite of granny. <laughs> Or whatever would horrify her the worst, just possibly, though it seems sad to base one's thought processes on something so whacked out as anything at all to do with her and her ideas. I really wonder how much we can get away from those sorts of influences in our lifetimes. Were it not for Sister Celestine would I be a Catholic today? <laughs> One hates to think such a thing could be true and yet there's no WAY I'd ever be Catholic. I mean just no WAY! <laughs>
I never can get over how odd it was that my mother, who was perfectly okay with me being an atheist for all those years, was truly shocked and horrified at my conversion to LDS. She said she had decided I'd just left my brain behind. I never would have thought she would have been that way. She'd always believed in freedom of religion, I thought. But it was just beyond what she could fathom. She's a lot better with it now. I think she understands that it's not a cultish thing, that lots of good sane reasonable and intelligent people are LDS. <laughs> My aunt who lived in California for most of her life helped on that account. She'd known lots of Mormons and had a good impression of them. (Thank you unknown brothers and sisters!)
I think the thing that frightens me the most about my grandparent who was equally intransigent (though perhaps not quite as nutty or persistent as your granny) is how much am I like him? When my descendants grow up am I going to drive them away from being so hard nosed like that and refusing to see their point of view and never giving up? <shudders> It's sort of scary to contemplate.
[ October 14, 2003, 10:23 PM: Message edited by: ana kata ]
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