Someone offered to pray for DS!

Excellent post, Cold.

I can't help but wonder how many of the people who've written 'why be upset', 'why not be grateful' etc. actually know what it feels like to be visibly disabled, or deformed? Or if they've even bothered to think about it?

Empathy and common decency. They're not really difficult concepts.

The woman probably meant well and may be mentally ill. I'm sure she doesn't realize she's adding insult to injury. But I can't help thinking 'God help the people she tries to help!'

I was brought up to believe that the essence of Christianity, Judaism, many other religions, and just being a decent person is to do as you would be done by ... think about what others feel ... honestly imagine yourself in others' skins.

We all blunder sometimes, usually out of awkwardness, but this bizarre form of 'prayer' hurts people who are already going through enough.

If pride, or lack of charity in thought, were visible infirmities, some of the people who've written so glibly might feel a bit different. Being accosted by boors who publicly and vocally single you out as being in need of divine aid while passers-by watch and listen. A lovely risk to run every time you go out.

Empathy and humility ... you can take religion and prayer completely out of the picture. Empathy and humility are just good things.

Kitty, you're a much bigger woman than I am for understanding what some people have written. My thoughts are with you and your DS as the struggle must be tremendous for both of you. I hope he doesn't have to go through that again. I shall very quietly and privately pray and hope that one day people will stop treating others as Others.

Cold
Great post!!

The O/P claims the woman asked not told

"She is the sort of woman who lives for others. You can tell the others by their hunted expression."

C S Lewis The Screwtape Letters

That's a brilliant book even for an unbeliever!

Asking or telling - irrelevant. Good post hapo - the very idea that she can be excused because she meant well whilst making someone else cross is ridiculous. And others may have been upset rather than cross. But neither is ok. Living with a disability is a daily challenge - the physical built environment is enough to have to negotiate, using public transport, selfish idiots using the blue badge spaces, having to plan every time you make a trip to a new place. All this and then being accosted by a woman like this - sometimes I do fantasies about my walking stick having a concealed, retractable poisoned tip. ???

Asking and telling is not irrelevant.

Big difference between - may I help you with that bag and I will carry that bag. The former requires either a reply, yes or no thank you , or ignoring the question.

With the prayer,asking and telling both send the same message to the person with a disability - and it’s a negative one.

Anyway, prayer is your personal chat to God (for those who believe in it) and you don't need permission to talk to him about anything you want to.

I would think that may have been true in our repressed and repressive culture but, thankfully, sweeping even your prayers under the carpet or shaded behind a hand is one cultural feature that is dying out. We now have a choice to do this solo or share with others and no one, but no one can tell us what is right or wrong.

C S Lewis The Screwtape Letters

That sparks lovely memories of being read these in my teens Eglantine21. Designed to make you think.

"the very idea that she can be excused because she meant well whilst making someone else cross is ridiculous."

Who has actually said that maryeliza54? She might be understood though as might those who stand in judgement over her on here - if we try hard enough.

I think the view was implicit in some posts GG. I don’t care about her motives whatever they were, She was wrong. Full stop.

No maryeliza. You really cannot rewrite posts just to suit your point of view. I do not believe - as one of the people seeking to understand how both sides may have felt about this - that anyone said she might be "excused because she meant well".

She obviously offended both the OP and her husband but that still does not mean she set out to do that intentionally. It appears she no more understands their cultural influences than they - or you - do hers.

I think the view was implicit in some posts GG. I don’t care about her motives whatever they were, She was wrong. Full stop.

Which leaves me wondering how you came to be quite so judgemental maryeliza - and why you think you have the right to be about a situation you were not involved in and people you have never met. While you, no doubt, are left wondering why I would want to try and understand. Different culture's maryeliza, they are everywhere.

What a patronising post GG do you mean she was black from an evangelical church? Different cultures everywhere - who knew? I have a perfect right to make a judgement about what this woman did - an absolute perfect right just as I do and we all do about a range of behaviours. When we post in response on GN of course we haven’t usually met the people involved or were present at the situation. I responded to what the OP said and believed her as did everyone else on here I guess. Some posters said that maybe the request was kindly meant - well that was a judgement as well. Try and understand away - I really don’t care at all but I do care that people like her think they can behave like this. No more to say except she wouldn’t want to meet me. Oh a PS I was once in a situation where I was party to a decision that was met with utter joy by the recipient - she was black and belonged to an Evangelical church. As we decision makers left the room she stood up, threw her hands in the air and thanked us and asked god to bless us and keep us. We all fully understood why she had spoken as she had and why she felt so thankful. We had no problems with what was admittedly very unusual behaviour in that context. It was all rather moving tbh as she had been through hell.

It is the right of some to give the opinion this offer was wrong, and the right of others to give the opinion it was not wrong.

Well exactly ab. I really don’t know why GG has singled me out as I’m hardly in a minority - this is a forum wher3 views and opinions are shared . I wonder how she feels about people in the street who laugh at and mock people with disabilities? Or steal their blue badge spaces? Should we all just try and understand this behaviour or call it out - if we have the guts and courage. There are many ways of being disabilist.

GracesGran, how is being thoughtful about the disabled part of a 'repressed' culture or time? Were you present when this incident took place? Did I miss something in the OP about this having something to do with a particular culture? Did you read Cold's excellent post? I can't tell if you actually read Maryeliza's post enough to comprehend it, you've taken such odd & twisted liberties with it. Groups like these are about discussions, different points of view. There's a big difference between discussion & manipulative finger-pointing with some sort of attempt at shaming. Here on GN we do the former. We were discussing the feelings of a disabled gentleman. Some people feel that he should have been happy to accept the prayer, or that it was no big deal. Others (myself included) feel that it is inconsiderate to publicly single out the disabled in this way and make them feel that they are being made a spectacle of regarding conditions they cannot help. Inconsiderate, please note, not repressed. We were mainly concerned with the feelings of the man who had the stroke, though many of us also took into account the fact that the woman may have conditions of her own. And while we are fully aware that she has rights, so does everyone else. That includes the right to have and air opinions. I happen to believe that the rights and feelings of the disabled should be expressly considered. Perhaps you view people from other cultures as being more important than the disabled. You have every right to that opinion, but I happen to believe it's deeply wrong.

Eglantine, I've been meaning to re-read 'S.L.' for ages; that brilliantly apt quotation was a perfect reminder!

Anniebach, I completely agree about opinions, & asking re. help with parcels. Prayer is a bit more personal, though, and to me that makes a difference. Asking if you might pray is certainly preferable to just launching into it, but I think it might make a disabled person feel very awkward and put on the spot. In my opinion God will hear & listen to a private, silent prayer just as much as one that's spoken aloud.

GracesGran, how is being thoughtful about the disabled part of a 'repressed' culture or time?

How did you make that jump HPR? I had actually quoted maryeliza post about prayer being a private thing so there is a good chance that this was what I was writing about. Or doesn't it work that way in your world?

No I wasn't present when the incident took place. None of us were which is exactly why I was trying to understand rather than judge. Again, doesn't it work that way in your world?

I can quite believe you do not understand what I am saying but I am not the one who is twisting posts.

But haporthrosie, it wasn't said the woman said she would pray openly on the spot, if she had said - shall we pray together or I will pray for you, then I can understand why she is so heavily criticise here, but she asked a question .

I said at the start of this thread some with a mental illness do this, so - caring, concerned, evangelical, ill, thoughtless , I don't know so will not judge her.

What a patronising post GG do you mean she was black from an evangelical church? Different cultures everywhere - who knew? I have a perfect right to make a judgement about what this woman did.

I had not even thought about her colour - why would 1! For whatever reason, she felt it okay to ask and the OP and her husband didn't. I don't like the fact that the OP and her husband were put in a position where they felt uncomfortable, unhappy or anything else but in this world we meet people who come at things from a different point of view.

Why does that give anyone any right to judge her and, to be honest, what good does that do? The women concerned is very likely ever to know that you have judged her behavior and found it wanting when compared to your own customs and conventions.

unlikely likely

If we have to know everything about everyone before we pass a judgement or opinion on here, we’d never post anything much would we? We can take something like the OP and judge it at face value and have a view . If we start on the whole is she mentally ill etc it denies any moral or ethical absolutes that should inform the behaviour of mentally healthy people behaving in a way that is acceptable in 21st century Britain. So, who thinks that it is acceptable for a mentally healthy person but who is a committed Christian who believes in the power of prayer to go up to a stranger and ask if she can pray for him? Does that make it clearer? I’ll start - no it’s not acceptable, it’s disabilist.

And GG you might try getting your facts straight by actually reading the OP

GG, perhaps I misread. I thought you wrote 'I would think that may have been true in our repressed and repressive culture, but, thankfully, sweeping even your prayers under the carpet or shaded behind a hand is one cultural feature that is dying out.' I understood that you wrote this in response to a remark about prayer being private. The implication as I read it is that you seem to regard prayer being thought of as private equaling repression.

If I misunderstood, then that is my ignorance, or perhaps my interpretation. Possibly a bit of both. It's also connected with my opinion. Everyone in every world has a right to hold and air opinions - apparently this deserves repeating.

What I wrote seemed to me to be part of a discussion, not a jump. I don't consider my world separate from anyone else's. We all live in the same one and therefore need to treat each other with respect, and be able to have rational discussions.

There's a fine line between opinion and judgement. It's a subtle distinction, but it exists nonetheless. At least I think it does. You seem concerned only with the feelings of the woman involved - alright. Other people have other ideas - that's actually alright, too. We're usually mature about it on GN, though.

I wonder if the bit in (if memory serves) Matthew 6 about praying in silence is just a judgmental part of someone's 'world'?