Southern Musings

Whether it should be or not, religion and politics are two topics that generally can be counted on to stir up discussion. Sometimes that discussion should have been avoided. Sometimes it causes a relationship to be broken past the point of repair. Today, I’m going off on a tangent and sharing a personal experience with  you. One that I probably should just shut up and let the urge to share pass me by.

Personally, religion and politics are two topics that I frequently try to avoid. I live in the Bible Belt. People here take their religion very seriously. Some go to church every time the door is open. Churches have family and fun nights. Members go out into the community and try to invite others to come visit the church. Sometimes friendships are even based upon what church a person goes to. There are some people that would rather try to avoid the topic in conversation. Today, I was looking over a few articles I have written and came across an article written after a particularly bad discussion with a family member.

This article was written during a time of great pain. I had been going through a rather tough time personally. I had been dealing with a family member that turned abusive. I ended up being stupid enough to think that I could talk to another family member about it. This family member had never been overly religious, so I did not expect the discussion to turn to religion. Even though my beliefs were firmly in place, hearing someone just say that they would pray for me was not what I needed.

True, I needed the prayer. I was even thankful for the prayer. My strong religous beliefs and my tendency to avoid discussion of religion to keep down disagreements kept me from being overly verbous in my appreciation. Honestly, I may not have even said anything but a courtesy “thank you.” In no way was I prepared for the reaction that my lack of overwhelming appreciation brought about.

In the resulting email discussions, I was unable to communicate to this family member that I do have very strong religious beliefs and that I do believe in the power of prayer. I have seen several family members healed when very little hope for their recovery was given. I pray over some of the silliest things and some of the more serious things. To have this person make statements naming my name and publically announcing that they feel sorry for me and my lack of beliefs, that was too much.

Not only does she have an erronous view of me, but she is also someone that I no longer communicate with at all. All because of a conversation about religion. Even living in the south where caring for your neighbor and being there for them in their time of need could not put a damper on the results of a discussion once religion was brought into the mix.

As for me, I will continue to believe in God. I will continue to believe in prayer. I will also continue to do everything in my power to avoid discussions of religion. When the fabric of a family can be torn into and damaged this drastically over someone simply not showing enough appreciation over the simple statement “I’ll pray for you”, then I think it is time that I take another look at the article I linked above. Indeed, it is necessary to stop and think before we say “I’ll pray for you.” Not only between people that we do not personally know well, but even those that we have know our entire lives. Instead, maybe we should just say a quiet prayer without trying to make ourselves look good by telling them what we are going to do. I suppose we could ask for their approval first, but is that totally necessary? If we simply say a quiet prayer, the important part will remain the same. The prayer will still be heard whether those that we pray for ever know we pray for them or not.

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