Posted by Jason on: 03.03.2008 /
I remember my first personal encounter with religion vividly. I’m not talking about attending the weddings of my cousins or family friends, saying the Lord’s Prayer at cub scouts or even the daily rote lectures that took the place of religious education at school. Religion in these contexts was easy to ignore as it was simply part of the ritual of the institution. I’m talking about my first contact outside of this protective bubble.
I was about 10 or 11 years old and in typical boyish fashion I’d been out all day on my bike. We used to ride our bikes all over the woods and hills, looking for new dens or places to hide. It was summer and very hot and I was tired. I’d cycled most of the way home but decided that I wanted a drink. I hopped off my bike, dumped it on the pavement (we were just as inconsiderate of pedestrians in my day) and popped into the nearest shop. I should point out that the newsagents of the day weren’t all 7\11 clones but small, privately owned affairs typically run by families. You had to go to the counter and ask for what you wanted and the staff would fetch it for you.*
No-one was behind the counter though, at least no-one that I could see. I had to wait. Without warning a little old lady got up off the floor from behind the counter. “Sorry,” she said, “I was just praying”. I mumbled something , bought my drink and left. I couldn’t help wonder though: Why was she praying? What good would it do? Why was she on her knees? and while she was working? To my childish mind this was an glimpse of something that I didn’t think I should see, something taboo. I’ve never quite shaken that idea and, to this day, public displays of faith make me uncomfortable.
*This makes me sound really old but it wasn’t that long ago. Only about 25 years….Oh dear, I am old.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
1This brings back memories - I grew up in small villages in England with shops like that.
The best one was the local chemist (it was very useful that we had one right in our village instead of having to drive to the nearest town). It was funny (not at the time maybe) that a significant amount of the prescription preparation time was due to the pharmacist scrupulously typing out the label for the bottle with two fingers on his typewriter.
I’m guessing that little old lady was unusual - growing up I don’t remember ever seeing any ‘old people’ praying except at specifically religious events. Definitely not while ‘at work’ like this lady.
Comment by: Jason
2Hi Helen, when you were that way inclined did you never feel the need to pray? Did you ever care that your prayer might be overheard or thought odd? Looking back does it seem that it would matter what people thought about you?
Do they not have little shops in the US like this? I’m sure we’ve still got them in England. Somewhere.
There I go with the questions again.
My assumption has always been that she had some cause to pray and a free moment (until I arrived) to do it in. It could have been a regular ritual, I don’t know but I assume not.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
3Jason, I never was an especially brave Christian. I don’t expect I would have prayed in public except at a Christian meeting, or told people who weren’t Christians that I’d been praying.
It sounded to me as if the woman had some specific reason for praying that day which caused her to pray when she didn’t have customers. I would be surprised if she generally prayed whenever there was no-one else in the shop. But who knows.
I haven’t lived anywhere in the US that’s like the villages I lived in in England so it’s hard to compare shops here and there. I live in a suburb of Chicago which calls itself a village :) (I think perhaps it was once not attached to Chicago in the same way that various areas that are now part of Greater London probably once were separate villages.) Where I live does have small independent shops as well as chain stores. The small shops most like newsagents near me belong to chains but I suppose before chains there probably were small independent shops instead.
Comment by: Eliza
4Why do people kneel to pray?
Couldn’t someone like the shopkeeper have stood quietly behind the counter, maybe eyes closed & head bowed, instead of getting down on her knees on the floor?
Is prayer more effective if the person kneels, or does it feel more effective, or does it seem more right to kneel?
Is kneeling preferred because it’s a position of humility?
Just another A with a bunch of questions!
Comment by: Jason
5Helen, are a brave almost-atheist? You don’t seem afraid to speak out. I can understand wanting to avoid ridicule but I think that if I genuinely believed that public prayer was going to have an effect then I’d want to master that fear. As I don’t then I suppose I can never put it to the test.
We’ll never know why she was praying. I suppose she had a reason or just felt secure enough to take the time to pray.
Eliza, the kneeling is an act of supplication as well as having an element of ritual. Why a deity would demand that his followers prostrate themselves I don’t know but the ritual makes sense. With ritual you remove ambiguity from an action (why are we all sitting here repeating what the man in the funny hat is saying) and increase the group cohesion (we are all doing this so it must be alright). Lots of people praying will encourage others to pray because they don’t want to stand out as different. Rituals are very important for keeping groups focused on tasks and can be very useful when not in the group in order to conjure the same emotions.
One explanation that I’ve heard for the requirement for prayer is that it isn’t a requirement at all. Instead it is a way for a group to focus on the same task and to work together. By working together they honour their God and this is pleasing to him. It makes logical sense to me that the rituals are not for God but for the group. This also explains why prayers are not answered directly and explains some of the passages where prayer is considered to have an effect. It doesn’t have a direct effect but can motivate people to act in a common cause so the effect is brought about by the group.
I suppose that my being apart from this group is part of what makes me feel uncomfortable in the rituals.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
6Jason, when I’m around Christians I don’t usually make a point of being almost-atheist. I wouldn’t lie about it if it came up, but it often doesn’t.
I think praying was too private a thing for me that I’d have wanted to do it in front of others, unless they were praying too, or they asked me to say a prayer for the group.
I always assumed kneeling was to show humility. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with kneeling. When I was a Christian I went to churches where most people prayed sitting down rather than kneeling. When I prayed at home I sat rather than kneeled because I wanted to be in a position where I was comfortable and relaxed enough physically that I could concentrate (lying down is tooo relaxed - it’s too easy to fall asleep :))
I think it’s easier to concentrate if you have a habitual way you pray - so I can understand why a person who generally kneels to pray would pray that way in her shop - it would feel right.
As for the purpose of prayer - I think group prayer definitely has a group effect - I expect Christians might well agree - but they also believe they are talking to God; otherwise why not just talk to each other in a meeting rather than addressing God? When Christians ask God to do something they really are asking him to do something. It’s not just a method of helping Christians in a group agree with each other.
Comment by: Karen
7I just finished a book set mostly in Tibet. Part of it describes a group of pilgrims walking hundreds of miles to a Buddhist shrine. They took one step, and then lay down and prostrated themselves fully on the ground, then stood up, took another step, prostrated themselves again, etc. They had to lie down between every footstep. The author estimated that it would take them years to reach their destination.
We don’t often see this kind of thing in the U.S., but there are rituals in Islam and Catholicism (and apparently Buddhism) where people crawl on their hands and knees for miles to shrines and churches and holy sites.
I realize that they feel they are getting some special blessing for being obedient and humble, but the debasement and pain that must be involved just strikes me almost with horror. Not only the unnecessary nature of it, but also a god that would be pleased by such rituals.
Comment by: Jason
8Helen, I want to make a joke about getting you an atheist badge but can’t think of anything funny. I am proud of my beliefs and opinions. Like you I don’t force them on people but I don’t think anyone who knows me doubts my opinion on religion. Forgive my presumptuousness but does not the hiding of your beliefs tend to indicate that you think that they are shameful in some way?
Going back to the old lady’s prayer it may have been the reaction to my presence that turned me off the idea of prayer. Why leap to her feet (as far as the elderly can) if her behaviour is normal? Why offer the “I was just praying” excuse if the act was acceptable?
Embarrassment occurs in socially awkward situations. These may be caused by misunderstandings but more often they result from a realisation on the part of the embarrassed person that their behaviour is not normal. If you are caught talking to yourself you feel embarrassed. That embarrassment signifies the behaviour as abnormal within the social situation.
This is why I think people pray in groups and why the instruction in the bible (Matthew 6:5) to pray alone is significant. It signifies that you should avoid shame in your actions, whether prayer or not. If you can justify to yourself that your actions are right then you do not need to feel shame.
The ritualization of prayer, if ritual and prayer are different things, must help people to overcome that embarrassment. The sincere belief in talking to God must be secondary to the social situation. It must be or churches would not be so prevalent. I wonder then, how much of prayer is directed towards a deity rather than towards a group effort?
To clarify, if a congregation pray to spare little Jimmy from terminal cancer, then the group support towards the effort is what unites the group. Not the effectiveness of the prayer. If little Jimmy dies it is “God’s Will” and the group is blameless but if he survives then it is as a result of the group action. In that regard it is a method for getting Christians to agree with one another. Whether they accept that or not is a different matter.
Comment by: Jason
9Karen, as with most aspects of human behaviour the participant must believe that the result is worth the price paid. While you and I may believe that they are deluded into acting in a self destructive manner, they obviously believe that the effort is worth it.
I don’t know if this is social conditioning or a mental aberration but the logic escapes me. Not that we humans always act logically but I’d hope that we’d at least try. I also wonder as to the nature of a deity that would be concerned with humans willingly torturing themselves.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
10Jason wrote:
I’m not ashamed of my beliefs (maybe I should say, lack of) - it’s rather that I don’t necessarily want to discuss them or have them affect the conversation in ways I can’t control because people have knee-jerk reactions to them.
When you said people you know know your beliefs, the same is true of me. It’s more in ‘casual acquaintance’ situations that I don’t necessarily want to talk about my lack of beliefs.
It’s the same with my mental health diagnosis, I don’t say “Hi I’m Helen and I’m diagnosed Bipolar”. That’s TOO much focus on something that many people don’t understand. It weirds them out unnecessarily and make conversation unnecessarily awkward. But I don’t hide it. And I’m not ‘ashamed’ of it.
I think maybe she jumped to her feet because she suddenly realized she had a customer and she should have been ready for customers to come in.
But I could be wrong.
Comment by: Jason
11Helen, I’m probably just reading too much into what you’ve said. Sorry if I offended you. You’re quite correct as well, not every conversation has to be about faith (or lack thereof). How repetitive would that be. :)
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
12Jason, no need to apologize: I wasn’t offended - I was just trying to explain.
Your questions were entirely reasonable :)
It’s like having to explain my accent and then hear how much the other person loves the UK and all about their trip to the UK back in 1962 *sigh* yes I’m sure it was wonderful but I’d rather not have to wade through that in every conversation with an American I haven’t met before.
Often I want to jump to things we BOTH find interesting and not have anything derail us along the way - whether it’s my accent, my health history, my lack of faith…whatever could do that.
Comment by: Jason
13Good point. People do tend to zoom in on identifying characteristics. For me it’s my height (and the four arms), for you the accent and birthplace. It does make thing awkward when you want to blend in but aren’t these unique characteristics of ours useful when you want to stand out.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
14Yes, I expect you get very sick of people commenting on your four arms.