Incredibly this post contains no real Rhymer family drama. I’m trying to avoid drama nowadays.
Anywhistle…
I grew up in a Pentecostalchurch to which the majority of my family still attends. I myself am an what I call a Christian agnostic: that is, I believe there’s merit to the moral teachings of Jesus Christ as elucidated in the Sermon on the Mount, but I don’t believe in the supernatural and will happily concede that much of the Bible is abhorrent. Nonetheless I attend services regularly: every other week at my “home” church, which is extremely liberal and where no one cares that I don’t believe in Heaven or Hell, and the other weeks at my wife’s church, because she likes me to go with her and I enjoy watching her sing in the choir. (Trust me: if you’d ever see Kim the Rhymer do a liturgical dance, you’d understand why one can be a non-believer in miracles but an aficionado of her groove.)
Anyway…one of my cousins has been appointed pastor of his own church for the first time. He’s sent out general invitations to the family to attend his installation service, which will be this Sunday. I haven’t been invited personally, but then neither has anyone else; he announced when the event would be and assumed that everybody’s coming. One of my sisters asked me if I was going and was vexed when I said no. Since I go to services anyway, she says, I might as well go to this one; it’s not as if I’d be any more hypocritical, and I’m being jerkish not to go.
My reasons for not going are twofold. One, though I don’t think all Christians are evil or all Christian churches are corrupt, I strongly dislike this denomination–not merely for their literalist and, to be frank, stupid theology, but because of what I feel is a generally corrupt administration. Second, the church elder who’ll be officiating at this service is one of my uncles, and he’s certain to end the service with an altar call aimed SPECIFICALLY at me; he’s done it before. And this uncle DOESN’T know that I’m not truly a Christian, or at least I’ve never discussed it with him; he feels that any member of a gay-friendly church whose members wear jeans to service and whose pastor is female is, by definition, deceived by the enemy and in danger of hellfire.
I’m really tight with my cousins. I do anything they want me to do, like I would for my brother. If they need/want my support, I’m there.
Remember this day is about him, not you.
If you really can’t be arsed to go, at least send him a card congratulating him on his achievement. And/or give him a call and say something like “man, you know I love you and I support you. I totally wish I could be there but, you know how I am about church. And you know how Uncle Harry is with his ‘call to the altar.’ So I figured it’d just be better if I sat this one out, you know?”
Send him a cake or flowers or something to celebrate his moment and stay home and have debaucherous sex with your wife. It would be a win/win situation!
At the end of the sermon, the preacher calls for anyone not currently saved to come to the alter and be saved from hellfire. My uncle has, more than once, aimed his specifically at me–full name and so on.
I may have more cousins than you. Off the top of my head I can name about 20 first cousins, and that’s not counting the once and twice removed; there must be 3 times that many second cousins. I have one I consider like a brother (I actually like him a lot more than one of my actual brothers), 3 or 4 I like enough to hang around with for no good reason, and the rest I am neutral about.
The cousin in question is one I’m neutral about. The issue is more that one of my sisters avers that I go out of my way to distance myself from the entire family because, among other things, I decline to go to the big family get together on what we call “Convocation Sunday”–a big convention for their church.
Mrs. Rhymer is in the hospital and isn’t going. If she weren’t in the hospital I wouldn’t want her to go, because I don’t trust my uncle not to be an (inadvertent) jackass about her illness.
I think it would be petty to refuse to attend this church on this special occassion because of things which the denomination as a whole or the adminstration are responsible.
But I don’t think it’s jerkish to choose not to attend this church on this occassion because your uncle is incapable of not making it all about you.
I do think you should contact your cousin personally to congratulate him and offer him something between an apology and an explanation before the Sunday in question. And ignore any well meant “But surely Uncle wouldn’t be a jerk on this Sunday in particular”.*
Damn - I was ready to tell you to go until I read the bit about your uncle.
IF (a BIG IF) you want to go - you should give your cousin a call and tell him that you would like to be there, but you have no desire to take a part in the ceremony - specifically your uncle’s probably actions. Tell your cousin that you don’t want to ruin his investiture by having a fight between you and your uncle. See what your cousin says.
Oh, it wouldn’t be a fight. I have enough affection for this uncle that, though the altar call would anger me, I can forgive him for it. But I don’t want to put up with it unneccessarily either.
I’d consider one of my nieces getting married,or graduating from college or high school, a family obligation. But I DON’T see why I must accept any invitation from every cousin; that seems to be surrendering control of my time to others.
I hope I don’t sound snarky. My question isn’t rhethorical; I actually want an answer and am prepared to reconsider.
For me this is where the answer lies. What does a cousin relationship involve in your family? I have two first cousins who are more like siblings to me. And three I’ve never met.
Does the cousin whose event this is also feel neutral about you, or does he look up to you and place a lot of importance on your opinion?
Since he didn’t invite you personally or separately it doesn’t seem to me that you’d be a jerk not to go. However it (your thread title) seems like a question to which my mom would answer, “If you have to ask you probably don’t want to know.”
Your cousin scheduled his ceremony on Super Bowl Sunday?
That, in and of itself, is ample reason to not attend. Yeah, I know you were not previously a football fan…but you experienced a spirtual awakening when you attended a playoff game a few weeks ago, didn’t you? Now, you absolutely must watch the Super Bowl this Sunday…or that’s what you tell them. Then you can read the thread about the game to learn the outcome in case anybody asks.
To be safe, decide which team you want to win. Your options are the Arizona Cardinals or the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Either that or call the cousin, tell him the truth…congrats on his becoming a first level cleric of Jesus, but you don’t want to deal with the uncle, so won’t be attending.
Uh, no. If family is being jerkish, there’s no reason to put yourself in the crosshairs. Just because they’re family does not give them the license to use you as a doormat. Accidents of genetics and biology does not an obligation make.
I agree with the others who say send sincere congratulations, but refrain from attending. No need to put yourself in a situation where you face the possibility of being intentionally humiliated.
That’s sort of the heart of the disagreement. To my 3 of my 5 sisters, cousins are to be treated as siblings. My baby sister disagrees, and my oldest sister I don’t know about, because I hardly know her (and thus treat her as a cousin :D).
The thing is, I sometimes feel pressured by my sisters to manufacture emotions that don’t exist. Several of my relatives I love dearly and would happily give a kidney for. Some I don’t care about one way or the other. And there’s at least one (a brother) whom I decline to murder but will be happy if I never lay eyes on.
The sister who’s giving me crap is, unfortuantely, someone I love. We’ve resolved not to fight about this, but she does often say that if I’d just get to know them I’d love them. To which I’m tempted to reply I have a good number of friends and limited emotional energy.
I’m big enough of a nerd that I thought it was Sunday after next. Isn’t it supposed to be in February?
ETA: I just looked at my desk calendar and realized to my horror that Sunday’s the first.
When in this type of situation myself, I always decide based on whether spend I’d more time feel guilty about not going or being pissed off at all the BS that has to be put up with if I go. My brother is pastor of a very Jack Chick/Sword of the Lord church, and I’m the family heathen, so I tend to get more grief if I go to family religious things than if I don’t.
