Praying before meals

teejay

My JW wife is teaching my nearly-3yr old to pray before meals. I'm cool with that... doesn't bother me at all. The problem is, I'd like to accept my role as father but I don't know how to lead in this area.

With my strong agnostic leanings, I don't observe the practice, personally. While this might sound arrogant to some, as far as I'm concerned, *I* had as much (or more) to do with providing the meal as did a possibly-observant but totally indifferent Deity. Praying a single word of "thanks" to such a one would be silly to me, if not downright hypocritical.

Still, I'm not real comfortable telling my little one that there is no God watching over her. I'm not the least bit interested in telling her that she doesn't need to pray to someone who may very well not even exist, or if they do, are not particularly interested in her personally.

I guess you can see... I still haven't got a lot of this agnostic stuff figured out.

LB

I think the way you take the lead is to not do anything you don't want to do. You don't want to pray, don't pray. Don't sweat it one way or the other.

Never Squat With Yer Spurs On

Nathan Natas

When your daughter asks about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, you'll probably have not much relutance in telling her that SC and EB are imaginary creatures and don't really exist.

Why does the Jehovah sock-puppet deserve your hesitation?

When your daughter comes home from school with stories about Zeus, Apollo and Diana, or Baal and Ormuzd you won't hesitate to tell her these are just stories made up by people long ago who didn't know how the world really worked, but NEEDED an "explanation".

Same with the angry argicultural god of the Hebrews. Or am I mistaken?

Simon

"rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub"

"dear lord, we payed for all this stuff ourselves to thanks for nothing"

"for what we are about to eat, may someone be severely punished"

Make the kid smile, that's what us dad's are here for.

freeman

Hi Teejay,
At times I feel a bit funny in this area too. I’m not fully to the agnostic side, less then you I suspect, but my experience with the Watch Tower has given me reason to reconsider everything I once believed in. My real problem is not with the prayer itself, but with the ritualism of it all. Why is it a rule that one has to pray before one eats?

I kind of feel a bit funny when my wife has a witness couple over for dinner and I’m expected to pray for all of us. What I often do is say something like; “Jim (or what ever his name may be) would you like to represent us in prayer”? Most of the time they feel honored that I, the so-called “head” bestowed this privilege on them. If it’s an Elder, even better, as they seem to think they already are the ones that should be leading everyone else in prayer. And if necessary, I do the prayer, but it often feels weird. I know I’ve offered you no solution to your situation, but I just posted this so you know you are not alone in feeling strange at those times.

Wishing you luck in your journey,

Freeman

Skeptic

Even when I was deeply religious, saying grace before meals made no sense to me...the following is something I wrote on my web site.

Saying Grace Before Meals
Don't get me wrong. I say Grace when asked to. I do it out of politeness and respect for others beliefs. I'll pray to God or Jehovah and thank him for providing the food, etc. It is inconsistent with my beliefs, but it is relatively harmless. We have to live with the social customs of our time.

I always thought the "Thank you Lord for providing this meal" - commonly known as "Saying Grace" - prayer didn't make sense.

People grew the food. People prepared the food. Thank the people. They did the work, not God.

Also, what about countries where there is a famine? Should the prayer there be "Thank you Lord for providing this meal. We know leaves are the best you can do. Too bad my baby and my husband died of starvation - we understand that your powers are unlimited and that you are a cruel bastard. So thank you for taking a few moments to indulge us with these leaves. Some rain would be nice so we could grow crops, but we understand you are busy saving some Watchtower magazines from the East German police. Amen."

DB

You could pull a Homer Simpson (or a Bart, as quoted by Simon in his reply): 'Dear God, we know you are omnivorous'.

Though a jw, I pretty much gave up prayer quite a while ago, including pre-meal prayers. About two years ago, I asked my family to just pray silently on their own when we ate (we mostly eat on tray tables while watching TV).

OUTLAW

Hey teejay,I`m a dad too.Besides raising my kids I also raised the brothers and sisters of my ex-wifes family.Her family was a typical disfuntional dub family(like the one I came from wasn`t.LOL),and who raises them,me an x-dub.If your not comfortable with something don`t do it.It`s best for you and the kids,and it shows them a different way without making either of you feel uncomfortable...OUTLAW

RunningMan

I've always been partial to Archie Bunker's prayer:

"Bless the meat,
Damn the skin,
Open the Kisser,
and shove it in."

Further to one of the comments above, if it is customary to
thank God for the food on your table, shouldn't people who
have no food take time to curse him at meal time?

After all, if he is responsible for food provision, then he is also
responsible for withholding it.

If he is not responsible for food provision, why thank him?

Billygoat

Hiya Teejay,

My beliefs are quite a bit different from yours as I'm a Christian, but I think that in small children (even if you don't want to teach her about God yet) that giving thanks before a meal can create in a child a spirit of gratefulness. If you don't want to look at it as teaching her to communicate with God, just use this time as a simple lesson in appreciation. I do believe that is one thing you don't see much in youngsters nowadays - gratefulness. Having a prayer of thanks isn't necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps you could also teach her to tell Mommy thank you for fixing the dinner after she says her prayer.

Just a thought...

Andi

Praying before meals

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