1.01.2006

Being One-Upped by the Praying Type

I’m really sick of not having something fabulous to say when someone emails about a sick relative, a personal loss, or other intensely stressful life challenge. So many people simply pick a quip from their religious bag of tricks:

“I will be praying for you.”
“God/Goddess will provide.”
“I am sending healing energy.”

What if you’re agnostic at best and don’t have a pile of pithy sayings at hand? What if you don’t pray, don’t believe in God/s or Goddess/es, and don’t channel “energy”?

“You have my sympathies” or “I wish you well” sounds too much like “Good luck and good riddance.” And “You are in my thoughts” is a pale imitator of “You are in my prayers.”

Please, dear friends, help me with this crisis of verbiage and perspective. Send recommendations. (Do not, by contrast, send energy or pray for me.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm agnostic, so not much of a praying type. I usually say I'm thinking about you, or sending good thoughts your way.
I guess it's kind of lame, but no more so than those who say they're praying for you when they know you don't believe in prayer anyway.

Anonymous said...

Having recently had to confront such a situation because a co-worker has a brother who is dying of pnuemonia(sp?) contracted from having AIDS, I only said to her, I wish whatever is the best for him. I hope he has peace.
I have often found however, that if the you know the person well enough(and 18 years of working side by side qualifys) I only gave a good strong hug. Sometimes words are just words.

Raznor said...

I like "tell you what. I'll sacrifice a goat onto the altar of Apollo. That seems to have worked in the past". The only downside is having to have goats on hand at all times.

(By the by - I can't find your e-mail on this blog - send an e-mail to teh_raznor@hotmail.com to let me know what it is)