when someone says "Pray for me..."

[cheddarsox]

When I was growing up, the family of my best friend let me hang out there all the time. It was a totally open door policy which was literally a life saver for me, my home was insane. My mother told me that the youngest boy in that family is dying (in his late 30's) of a rare auto immune disease. He has a wife and two children.

Though I have been out of contact with this family for 25 years, I feel strongly attached, and this has been weighing heavily on my heart. My mother has spoken to the boy (now man's ) mother, and to family friends and they are asking for prayers (not neccessarily healing, but for support, strength, etc).

They belong to the faith I was raised in, and out of respect and love I would like to offer prayers, because that is what they request. So...what is a nontheist to do? I am not one to make prayers of request. So yesterday while working I wondered if offering the traditional prayers to the spirits of HIS faith would make sense. And that felt weird to me, because I don't believe in them, but I acknowledge that in my experience, they never came through for me, but they seem to work with others.

So I wondered if I offered prayers to them, for my friend Steven, if they'd honor them, because they are HIS gods. And I tried a couple, and it felt wrong to me, as if I was honoring them by saying the words, so I set that aside and instead did some chanting, committing Steven to his gods.

So that is my current stand, I am committing Steven to his gods, that they might be true to all their promises to him, that they might provide him and his family with strength in this time, and meet him when he reaches the other side.

That feels authentic to me.

So I was wondering, what do other pantheists do when someone requests that you pray for them?

cheddar

[TygerTyger]

My response to such a question could only ever be, be true to yourself!

It isn’t a question of his gods or your gods, it is about honouring your friend, which you can’t do if you doing something that you don’t believe in.

Prayer for him in your way, just as someone of a different faith would pray for you if you were a friend too! I honestly believe that what is in your heart is far more important than how or to whom you choose to pray, and it will achieve the same results.

A prayer is a prayer no matter what language it’s spoken in!

[MonSno_LeeDra]

I personally believe that it is not the god / goddess we pray to when we release our emotions to the will of the universe. It is the intent of our "spirit" and the energy inherent in that Spirit that is called upon to ask favor or give support to those we hold close in thier moment of need.

It is that mutual bonding we possess or share with that person we care enough about to want to help. I think many times we may ask of the gods / goddess for aid in helping one we have no true connection with but a loved one or close friend is different. Those we have touched we are forever linked to unless we severe the silver cord ourselves.

It is our strength of character and spirit that is what touches upon them and lets them know they are not alone and infuses them with acceptance or hope. I think many times it is thier closeness to us (collectivley) that allows them to receive that spiritual energy and help them stand strong against the struggle or pass over with ease.

Perhaps even received threw that very silver cord that connects us. I think when we foucs upon them and try to reach them we once again charge that silver cord that may have laid formant for a bit but never severed.

Not sure if I answered your quesiton or not as I re-read this but it is what my spirit tells me is right. Perhaps though it is just a friend is a friend forever no mater what and that connection can never be broken. Shut down or ignored perhaps but never trully broken.

[Xentor]

http://www.omegajunior.net/leven/faith/28411.html

[Windsmith]

cheddar, I believe you're familiar with my views on prayer and magic, but it probably bears summing up:

I believe that the only effect of magic and prayer are on the one doing it. But by affecting yourself, you change your interactions with the people and things around you, which changes them and their interactions, and so on ad infinitum.

So pray in the way that's comfortable to you. It may not help your friend, but if it makes you more compassionate, or more aware of the suffering of others, or more likely to call up your friend or his family and offer other aid as you can, then it's done its magic admirably. If you pray to his God, and it makes you uncomfortable, then that magic works on you, as well - with far less beneficial results.

[cheddarsox]

Thanks all for the thoughtful and pertinent responses.

I don't use intercessory prayer for myself, because in my experience, it avails nothing.

I don't worship personal deities, because, in my experience, they don't respond. But others achieve results with intercessory prayer and do get responses from personal deities. For this reason, I do not say that there are no deities, and that intercessory prayer is useless.

Because the family has asked and pleaded for prayer, I wish to do what I can, so I've asked the holy beings in Steven's faith to do what they see fit on his behalf. If my love and care for him and his family holds any weight with them, and if such "energy" can aid and assist, I offer my love, caring and energy for them to apply on his behalf, and the behalf of his family.

I feel like I am operating through a cultural barrier. Recently, on another religious forum, a person started a thread berating the funeral rites of another faith, saying how hollow, fake and bereft of meaning they were...because HE had a hard time processing his grief through them, so he assumed the rites of his faith were "better and more authentic".

I can/will deal with Steven's situation through my own faith, in my own way, for myself. My pantheistic beliefs have much to offer that helps me deal with it. But since I want to do something that assists him, I am trying to reach across our cultural/faith differences, as much as is reasonable and possible. And because I was raised in that faith, I am not a complete stranger to their belief system.

So I am trying to do what the man on the other forum could not, to participate, on some level, in the family's culture of faith.

In some ways it is akin to donating to their charity of choice when perhaps my style would be to send flowers...except on a spiritual level.

This is a learning experience for me! I find myself stepping gingerly through the process, taking note of my feelings, hang ups, boundaries, etc as I go.

On that other forum, many people stepped in to defend the rites of the other faith, to explain that those people DO find comfort in their rite, and that they DO believe what they are doing, it's not show, or vulgar, or empty, it is just different.

One of his issues is that the funeral was treated as the celebration of a life, rather than the mourning of a death, and since he knew the family was grieving mightily, it was obviously fake. What he failed to see is that a person can feel both ways at once, be grieving their loss, while still authentically celebrating the life of the one who has died. Those things are NOT mutually exclusive.

Now I am treading that same territory, participating authentically, while not quite sure I believe or feel about how they do things.

Thanks for walking through this with me, and sharing your own feelings and thoughts.

I appreciate the opportunity to get to know you better, and to benefit from your thoughts and wisdom when I'm fuzzy about my own.

cheddar

[RavenStars]

I certainly don't have a good intellectual voice on this one, but I can say that I practice candle magic when I'm asked to pray. I've even been know to have candles lit in the church of my birth religion. Somehow the process, correspondences, and focus of candle magic, is much more honest and spiritual. But I'm still a newbie, I don't have a lot of words to describe why I feel this way.

[Eleisawolf]

When I'm asked to pray for anyone, I usually pray simply this: May whatever is best for my friend in the long run come to pass, however it will. May I and those who love hir have the strength to accept it for whatever it may be. May suffering, hirs and ours, be minimized to the extent possible. May healing come to those who need it, and may peace come to those who reach for it.

In that way, I honor the request, but I also honor my belief that sometimes what we want is not always what happens, nor is it always really the decision that is most caring for the one who is suffering. It is not a request, but simply a hope. It is not directed toward gods or even the universe, but is simply an offering from the heart of what I wish for.

Even when my beliefs tend toward the more godly, I pray this way. Who am I to know what is best for someone who is suffering? I can only wish, and hope.

I am a little less like Windsmith, in that I think people who know they are being prayed for can feel stronger and more supported through that knowledge. Knowing that you offer love and hope can offer that family something to hold on to. I think our thoughts affect others if they know we are thinking them. It's community and altruism at work.

I offer wishes that your friends' hearts will be eased.

Peace

[Windsmith]

I am a little less like Windsmith, in that I think people who know they are being prayed for can feel stronger and more supported through that knowledge. Knowing that you offer love and hope can offer that family something to hold on to. I think our thoughts affect others if they know we are thinking them. It's community and altruism at work.D'oh! I actually believe that, too, Eleisawolf, I just phrased my response poorly and neglected to mention it. If someone just said, "So-and-so said they'd pray for you," I don't think that'd do me a lot of good, but if someone told me themselves that they're praying for me - even if I know that they're praying to a different force from a different religion - the fact that they care enough to take the time to send out that energy on my behalf does make me feel better (unless they're praying for me to find my way back to Jesus! But I digress). I don't believe that prayer can heal cheddar's friend, unless there's some major psychosomatic focus going on within his own mind, but if her prayers, and the prayers of others who love him, can make his pain any less, or any easier to bear, then it's worth the effort.