please pray for me

[George]

Please remember me in your prayers, and ask God for help, as I am being forced by my work to attend a pagan blessing ceremony on Sunday next week. (I had hoped if it was God's will to partake of Holy Communion and was beginning to prepare for it).

My supervisor asked this morning if I could go, and I said no as I would be at Church, and I couldn't attend a pagan rite, but the person above my supervisor (my own uncle) said I have to as everyone else has done things on the weekend for work before and it is my turn. (He is not religous).

What it is, is the opening of some stonefields(which my company was involved in restoring), or something like that, and there will be a Maori blessing which will involve all kinds of pagan 'gods' etc, asking their 'blessing' and thanksgiving.

I feel sick to the stomach at the thought of it all - I feel that on top of the not going to Church on Sunday, attending a ceremony that includes pagan rites and rituals is adding insult to injury and I feel I would be committing blasphemy.

I really don't know what to do about it all. As it is, we don't have a regular Priest, and one visits now and then from Australia, and he is here at the moment (for one month), so there are only a few opportunities for us to have Liturgies.

I will have a talk with our Priest and ask what to do, but I feel like I have been stabbed through the heart.

Please pray about this, and that all will work out for the best.

George

[尼古拉前执事]

I feel sick to the stomach at the thought of it all - I feel that on top of the not going to Church on Sunday, attending a ceremony that includes pagan rites and rituals is adding insult to injury and I feel I would be committing blasphemy.

If this continues, you should be able to call in sick, which is a solution.

[George Australia]

What it is, is the opening of some stonefields(which my company was involved in restoring), or something like that, and there will be a Maori blessing which will involve all kinds of pagan 'gods' etc, asking their 'blessing' and thanksgiving.

"Let the gods, who did not make heaven and earth, perish from the earth and from under these heavens."

[George]

Thanks for the humour, Father Deacon, it cheered me up a bit! If only I really could call in sick....

Many thanks, also Orthodox6, for your kind words, advice and prayers.

It is painful that my uncle refused to even consider my point of view, though I don't think it is a dig at my faith, more that as he is non-religious he just doesn't have any idea.

I wish I could just walk away from the job, but I need to give at least a month's notice. However I have been thinking of finishing up at the end of the year anyway (I do educational/environmental work in schools and am employed by a water company, and I teach children how to test streams to see if they are polluted or not, and what kinds of creatures live in them, but want to return to being a classroom teacher...)

I have also read about the Orthodox man and the fakir - I think it was in 'Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future'. It is certainly an incentive for me to pray much harder about all this. I talked to my fiancee who told me my pain is her pain. (She couldn't believe what I was being asked to do.)

Once again, thank you (and everyone else) for your prayers. It is a true blessing, and you are in my prayers too.
George