My sisters are really very kind and caring people. There is also a mean streak.
Election years are already frustrating. They have interacted with some people whom it might not be fair to call "terrible", and yet it kind of is.
Anyway, they closed two conversations with people who were combining ignorance and hatred by saying "I will pray for you."
That shouldn't be so spiteful.
Personally, I pray for people all the time. I generally do not tell them because it can come off as condescending (which clearly can be intentional). If I see you are having a hard time, there is a good chance I will say a quick prayer for you. If you ask people to pray for you I almost certainly will; I just am not likely to mention it.
(Studies have shown that prayer helps, whether people know they are being prayed for or not.)
In this case, these prayer promises (or threats?) were born of frustration, and not sincere. That did not seem right, so there was nothing to do but add these people to our family prayers.
My motivations were not exactly high-minded either. I suspected it would get some eye rolls, but it was about taking prayer seriously.
I have had a few thoughts about this.
1. I know praying for people can soften our hearts toward them.
It hasn't in this case. That may be that we have not been doing it long enough, but also hatefulness and ignorance is a really bad combination for me, increasing the challenge in this instance.
If there are some people who really mean well but are just not that bright, maybe praying for them is a good option. (Probably not specifically praying that they get smarter though.)
2. After all, people can change, including us.
I have seen some people who were initially repelled by Trump come to his side. Generally it started with developing hostility toward others that spread to everything, until they felt that they were deluded when they didn't hate everyone else.
Obviously part of that is that I need to keep my heart soft. Caring for others -- including praying for them -- can be a part of that.
Change can go in a better direction, and continuing to care leaves hope open for that.
3.That hope is for those we pray for, not just us.
I keep remembering being confronted by a woman at church after the 2008 election. I had never seen her engaging with my posts (I was quite new on Facebook then), but she had seen that I was pro-Obama.
She was upset, and I was getting what I wanted, but it wasn't even that she was angry or rude: her voice was breaking and she was scared.
There are people who take the fear-mongering seriously. I usually focus more on the hate-mongering, but when you believe you are surrounded by bad people, your perception of the world around you becomes pretty dismal. It's inaccurate, but a lot of our experience is perception.
There is a lot of uncertainty about many things right now. I hope for some additional clarity Tuesday.
For now, I will pray for us.
And I will remember that our care for the worst people can never cause us to sacrifice those most in need of help.
That's where a lot of other people with good intentions go wrong, but that's back to dominator culture; has that been made clear enough?
