Faith this

This annoyed me. And it's difficult to write about because it was foisted on me by people I love.

I belong to a bunco group - twelve women who get together once a month to play a silly dice game, overeat, and be remarkably open with each other about our troubles and our triumphs. We've been doing this for decades. Together we've done weddings, divorces, births, graduations, sickness, death, and a bunch of other stuff I should write a book about. We call bunco our therapy group.

Every year we do a special Christmas bunco. We get together a little earlier than usual, have dinner, roll the dice, exchange gifts, have dessert, and go home a bit later. Some years we dress up; some years we don't. Some of the ladies bring small gifts for everybody; most are too overwhelmed with other holiday stuff to manage that. Somebody nearly always asks for the floor at some point during the evening to say how glad she is that we're still together, and how much she loves each and every one of us. It's as much a part of Christmas for me as the Christmas tree and I love it.

But this year somebody decided that we should add a prayer to the festivity. Not only that, but the prayer would be offered by three members of our group who are fundamentalist, evangelical Christians who attend a church I won't name here, but of which I strongly disapprove. (I wouldn't dream of expressing my disapproval; we don't normally interfere in each others' closely-held beliefs. And if I disapprove of their church, they are certainly free to disapprove of my own practice, which is strongly anti-church. It doesn't matter. We're friends, and friends don't discuss religion.)

So we joined hands and our three evangelicals spun a prayer. 'Father, this, and Lord, that, and Bless these women whom I hold dear,' and so on. All well-intentioned and sincere.

I was so irritated I could barely hold my tongue. The underlying assumption to this strange spectacle was that the rest of us - those who attend non-fundamentalist churches on a regular basis and particularly those who don't - are somehow not faithful enough to lead a prayer. That God listens to the Christian fundamentalists and turns a deaf ear to the others. That the dogma issued from the pulpit at the evangelical church is more spiritual than a walk in the canyon to appreciate the beauty and diversity of our world. That faith has to imply judgment and rejection rather than tolerance and inclusion. That having faith in kindness and fairness and the essential goodness of other people isn't enough.

So here's the gist: I don't need evangelical Christians, particularly those who practice a harsh brand of religion which is unrecognizable when compared to the sensible and tolerant example set by Jesus himself, to ask God's blessing on me. I have been blessed and I'm humbly and utterly grateful for the beauty of life and the world and the place I've been privileged to occupy within it. If you ask me to pray, I'll say something like that. And than I'll say, Let's go around the circle. Bonnie, you're next.

And in my opinion, that would be a prayer. And that's a perfectly fine faith to be practicing.