I come from a family where we said grace every night and had large family gatherings where grace was said. WE NEVER HELD HANDS. EVER. I don’t get the whole hand-holding thing. What is the point? I mean, you’re just about to eat and you’re being forced to touch other peoples hands, and who knows how clean their hands are. I would be annoyed (but would comply) if I was compelled to hold hands by a family member who insisted.
As for respecting other people’s beliefs, if the family isn’t religious, I don’t expect a grace to be said. We always keep grace fairly short anyway because I am thankful for hot food.
Plus, when she asks you if you want seconds, you know there’s already a shell in the chamber.
As for the prayer thing, when everyone closes their eyes, that’s your chance to look around the room and see who else is peeking and try to get them to laugh out loud. It’s just tradition.
Heck, not even all Christians will want to hold hands. So that’s no big deal. Heck, in my family, some people just wouldn’t come into the kitchen until after the prayer was finished. They would turn off the TV, though.
I come from a big German-Catholic family, and my Aunt hosts Thanksgiving every year. For many years my father (who is the most “religious”) would say a prayer before meal. Fine, I can put up with a couple minutes of psychobabble. But then about ten years someone got the idea that we should hold hands during the prayer. I hate, hate, ***hate ***the “holding hands” thing. So now I’ve figured out a way to get out of it: I make myself very busy before the meal starts (helping in the kitchen, taking food to the table, etc.). When the prayer starts, I am standing half-way between the dining room and kitchen. Yes, *that’s *how much I hate the hand-holding crap.
I don’t think it’s rude to expect your guests to go through the motions of saying grace, at least. It’s rude to expect your hosts (and other guests) to do so when you are the guest. (Yes, I’m thinking of a certain relative of mine.)
I’m not religious at all, but like most people have said, I’ll stand there quietly and respect their thing.
I have absolutely zero issue with them going ahead and doing it, but I’ll admit there are a few things that bother me about being forced to join in (bothered to a “mention-it-during-a-relevant-conversation-online” degree, not to a state of frothy rage or anything).
The fact is, it makes some people uncomfortable, so why? Why do they want non-religious people to do their religious thing? Do they truly not realize that not everyone shares their religion? Do they think their God is going to think they are less grateful for their dinner if their non-religious guests don’t ritualistically thank him? Is it just purely “this is how it’s done in our house so dammit, conform” thing? I can’t think of any other reason, and all of these ones kind of bug me. It’s just sort of presumptuous, really. I can’t imagine any rule I would enforce in my house at the cost of my guests’ comfort, no matter how minimally uncomfortable it may make them (short of expecting them to not hurt anything or anyone).
And, I try not to but have trouble avoiding the unfair generalization mentioned in this thread… every single one of the people who have expected me to join in on a grace would be extremely offended if they were asked to even witness (let alone join in on!) a ritual from another religion, and I can’t help but find that annoying.
So, yes I do it when I’m put in the situation, but I do think it’s a lot nicer if they just say their thing and invite anyone who wishes to to join in.
This is 99% of why it bothers me. It’s not that I can’t deal with standing still holding hands for a couple of minutes. That’s trivial (though slightly annoying). It’s the fact that I KNOW they wouldn’t respect a different religion’s beliefs the same way–they’d be offended if they were asked to join in some other religion’s ritual. It’s the double standard/hipocracy of it that gets under my skin, and is why I started the thread.
My husband’s parents have always had a few little Catholic knickknacks around, but never were overtly religious. In the last five years or so they seem to be returning to the traditions, notably the hand-holding “Grace” and the crossing themselves before meals. I’ll go along with the hand-holding, but I don’t do the cross, though I’m nominally Catholic. I’ve noticed my nieces doing it, and they definitely aren’t Catholic – they probably don’t want to get on Grandma’s shit list.
It’s their house, so it’s their rules. I have every expectation that if they came to my house for dinner, they would do the same, and I really don’t know what I would do about that. I know it would piss me off. I don’t object to them praying, but grabbing my hands and coercing me to pray in my own home is going to start something they don’t want to start.
Another vote for rude, but some people just put up with it anyway. I refuse to bow my head or close my eyes on general principle, but I won’t say anything or be disruptive or disrespectful. If one of the believing Christians peeks and notes that my head isn’t bowed and my eyes aren’t closed, hey, that’s on the Christian. I’m not the one who broke my own rule.
But I do silently make fun of the prayer in my head. I pretend to be god and answer. This generally keeps me fairly entertained for the duration of the prayer.
I don’t think it is rude to say grace, or to ask guests to hold hands and be silent for a brief prayer. It happens to me at my GF’s family dinners and I’ve experienced it for decades elsewhere. As long as I’m not asked to give the grace or speak, I’m fine with it. I don’t consider it an imposition to my (Jewish/agnostic) beliefs.
Exactly. This question has come up before on this board, and invariably the standard “Don’t make waves-Be reasonable-Just go along, what’s it going to hurt?” answers pop up…but only in the one direction.
I attend dinner for the various Jewish holidays at a friend’s house. I read my passage as it passes around the table, and I follow the rituals of the meal. I have no issue following their beliefs.
Now, I did not boy to Mecca at my Muslim friend’s home during his prayer time - I figured that was not expected. I simply sat quietly while he followed his devotions. Then we turned the game back on.
When I am over to dinner with people who do not say grace or prayers, I don’t jump in with mine - I respect their rules in their house. I would consider it rude to force a prayer on someone in their own home if they do not pray.
It’s bad manners to make your invited guests feel awkward, if it’s really simple to avoid doing so (I mean, if they feel awkard about wearing clothes at the table, or feel awkward about using a spoon to eat their soup and prefer to use their bare hands, that’s out of scope and tough titty).
I’m curious what the rest of you think of this situation. Many years ago I was visiting my dad. First off, you have to understand, my dad is with his third wife, and the two of them have had 5 kids since they got married (when I was 21) in addition to the one kid she brought into the marriage from a previous relationship. So I have a pile of brothers and sisters all clustered in age around my own son’s age. So my dad and his family and I were out and we stopped to eat at a Taco Bell. Four adults (my dad, his wife, me, my husband) and 7 kids (my son, my step brother, and my 5 half brothers/sisters). My dad insists that we all bow our head and hold hands and proceeds to pray out loud before we ate. At Taco Bell.
I found it very uncomfortable and embarrassing, personally. I went along with it because I didn’t want to make waves, but I was so glad to get out of there after we ate. I felt like we were a freak show.
What I mean is that the non-Christian will be asked to be respectful of Christian traditions(bow the head, hold hands, be silent…), but I can’t recall seeing any posts calling for Christians to put aside their personal beliefs to participate in non-Christian rituals that might conflict with those selfsame beliefs.
Starting when I was about 13, whenever anyone announced a prayer at a family function, I would bow my head but keep my eyes open. I found out who the other closet-non-Christian family members were by darting my gaze from person to person. The ones who also kept their eyes open were, coincidentally, always my favorite people
All I ask for is simple respect for me - not necessarily for my faith. I offer the same to my friends (little choice given the nature of the community that I live in). I am not sure what sort of a pre-meal activity I might run into that would be in violation of my beliefs.
The only constant violation that I engage in is NOT proselytizing. My faith tells me that I should be constantly bringing people to Christ, but I don’t do that. So in an sense I DO violate a key tenet of my faith (sin of omission vs. commission) when I go somewhere and keep silent I guess. I also want to be invited back.
So - can you give me an equivalent scenario that I might run into as a Christian that violate my beliefs?
