Not that I’ve got a problem with it. I mean, strictly speaking, I’m a godless heathen too.
A friend of Welbywife’s was here to visit us from Moscow. He’s a very nice guy, a minister. He’s very, very religious. During the meals we shared at his house while visiting Moscow he always made a point of saying grace before every meal, even snacks.
To make him feel comfortable, Welbywife declared that we would say grace prior to dinner. No problem. I cooked a gourmet meal, set the plates on the table, and everyone sat down. My daughter, who I love more than life itself (I swear) began to eat immediately. Welbywife asked her to stop so that we could say grace.
My daughter, ever her thoughtful, wise self, plunked her fork down onto her plate and said “Jesus Christ, I can’t beliive this.”
:eek:
Valodia (Welbywife’s friend) took it in stride. Welbydaughter, bless her tainted soul, really didn’t realize what she’d said. She picked up the phrase from on of her friends, and I’ve been breaking her of the habit slowly and surely. My feeling is that she really shouldn’t say something like that until she understands that, while religion is just some abstract thing to her, like space flight and the revolution of planets, there are people who take it very seriously.
Being Russian by birth and raised there for the first half of her life didn’t really prepare her for religion. But if looks could maim and cause boils to rise my poor daughter would be a boil covered maimed thing. Welbywife has flashing eyes when she’s mad, though I’ve never heard of flashing eyes casting shadows on the ground and eyebrows to singe.
Well, the tone of voice probably had a lot to do with it. After all, usually people praying don’t sound like they have 14.86 billion better things to do with thier time than praying.
Chalkpit makes sense. I would not have compromised my feelings about something as important as religion. The whole point of being an American is that you don’t have to kowtow to other people’s beliefs. I understand that you want to make a guest comfortable, but surely this guy knows you are not religious people. I doubt fake praying would make him more comfortable. He was free to say a prayer if he felt the need. Overly PC in my opinion.
Nope, he wouldn’t have cared one way or the other I think, it was all a welbywife thing.
The other thing, though, is that my daughter wasn’t making a concious decision to not say grace, the whole “Jesus Christ” thing is something she tends to say when she’s nervous or embarrassed.
Mainly I thought it was funny, and Welbywife came to see the humor in it too, after the initial embarrassment wore off.
the young lady’s table manners aside, count your lucky stars…my wife’s a wiccan, i’m an atheist…and my two eldest boys (my stepsons) are both fundamentalist baptists (thanks, dad). they just got baptised a week ago into this televangelists’ church in Branson Missouri, home of the south’s largest collection of outlet malls and Yakhov Smirnoff.
sigh
well, there’s always our youngest. plenty of time to corrupt him w/out outside interference.
This has had me giggling for almost 2 hours now… Next weekend, I have to attend Easter dinner at my SO’s extremely Catholic parents’ house, and now there is no way I can keep a straight face through the pre-dinner prayer.
