by under_believer 13 Replies latest jw friends
So what would you prefer? A moment of heartfelt contemplation and meditation used to calm, relax and nurture ones spirit while communicating with the creator? At a Kingdom Hall? HA! Hahahaahaahaaa!
Hey man, I loved the prayers. Even if they were ten minutes long. For me it was tangible evidence that the end of my sentence was approaching.
I resented the lecture-prayers, because there was a sense of obligation to nod and say "Amen" to all of them, no matter how awful they were. After they got you all pissed off, there was peer pressure to agree by saying "Amen" because everyone else did. You just couldn't say, "That was too terribly long and I'm pissed off from standing with my head bowed for an eternity!" Nope, no can do.
Wow...you guys are like my soul mates. I'd actually forgotten this, but TOTALLY agree, and I used to be so bugged by it.
I don't mean to be overly harsh; I mean some of the people praying this way just picked it up from someone else and thought it was the right thing to do. But it just felt like a self-serving opportunity for someone to show you how attentive they'd been throughout the meeting/assembly/convention. I didn't think it was wrong to include (what seemed to be) a very important or timely point made during the meeting, but this lecturing with a laundry list of meeting topics did not seem directed at God--but directed at those with bowed heads.
"...and, Father, please help us to always remember the need to be diligent in all the alternative types of Witnessing today. In the shopping malls, in parking lots, over the phone. And help us to appreciate the significance of the seven-headed Wild Beast--and the meaning of all ten horns and ten diadems. And don't let us forget how hard our brothers are working to arrange discounts at hotels during the convention, and to appreciate what a slap-in-the-face it would be to go to the Holiday on Lincoln Avenue instead of the Holiday Inn on University Drive."
There's one old brother who gives a long pre-amble to the prayer, but he does it in such a way that you're not really sure whether he's actually started the prayer yet or not.
We had this one old brother that would start rambling on in his prayer. A few times he would forget to say "amem." He would go back and sit down while the whole congregation was standing with our heads semi-bowed. We would all then try to figure out of the prayer ended and why he wasn't still on the platform.
