I don't normally post in this particular sub-forum and hopefully my post is not in the wrong area. Please bear with me as I relate the situation and the background to the situation...I tend to get long winded at times (one of the trappings of an English Lit degree!).
I am not a religious person by nature. I was raised by parents from two very different religious backgrounds (my dad was raised very loosely "Yankee" Methodist where as my mother was raised fire-and-brimstone Southern Baptist.) In order to avoid the familial conflict of having one grandparent angry, my parents chose a very live-and-let-live approach to religion. We only attended church for a short while when I was a young teen, and only because my sister began to ask to go. I was brought along not by force but more by curiosity and a healthy dose of skepticism. We attended a non-denominational church whose reverend was a wonderful speaker and intellectual. Because of him, I joined the youth group (well, in the practice of full disclosure, I liked him, but a large part of my motivation to join was the girl I had a crush on at the time, but I ended up continuing because of the reverend). His sermons and youth group lessons were always, at least to my recollection, rather secular in their bend. Where he would relate his lessons to biblical verse, his focus was on teaching his members to be better, kinder, more tolerant citizens. Case in point, as a lesson in understanding and helping the poor, he broke the members of the youth group into pairs, gave us 20 dollars each and brought us to the grocery store to purchase a weeks worth of nutritional meals. each "family" pair had a specific dietary need or issue that would have to be addressed in our purchases. I believe mine was diabetes. He forced us in a very real way to understand the plight of those less fortunate. The food that was purchased at the store was then donated to the local food pantry.
Because of my upbringing, I feel I have an appreciation, tolerance, and understanding of a wide variety of beliefs. While I generally consider myself an atheist, I teeter on the edge of agnosticism. For clarity, intellectually I cannot accept God in the traditional sense, but at times I feel a sense of "connection" to the natural world that I can't always explain in exact or scientific terms. This has led me to be, at the very least in my own mind, tolerant of others views. I don't like to challenge others on their beliefs or make waves. However, if directly confronted I will engage in debate to a degree. This almost exclusively happens when someone tries to force their belief system on to me.
Fast forward 20 years to now. After 8 years as a teacher, I left the profession just before the economy went kablooey - very bad timing. I was unemployed for about a year in the middle of the bible belt unable, for a variety of reasons, to move to another area. I eventually got a job at an Air Force base library. This is a government job, but because of my boss despite working 30+ hours a week, I'm still "part time" with none of the benefits and a crappy pay. Despite that, I love working in a library. It would be the perfect job if the pay was commiserate with my work load. I am doing the job of cataloging/IT/circulation all for less than 10 dollars an hour. To give you an idea, cataloging alone is a specialized job and at most libraries warrants a minimum 30k SALARY. I keep receiving promises or advancement and benefit/pay increases, but they often are not expedient. I continue to look for more lucrative work, but because of the nature of this state, work is very scarce and unemployment in the county I live in is around 15%. Yesterday's staff meeting however put a bee in my bonnet, so to speak.
Our director, a GS position employee, started the staff meeting by saying that she wanted to open the meeting with a prayer. While normally I would just sit quietly and not actively participate, adhering to my own beliefs. Our director said, and I quote, "I would like to open the meeting today with a payer. I hope no one has a problem with that.
Well, even if you do, too bad." Immediately my hackles were raised. This is one of those situations where I would normally challenge the issue, even if passive-aggressively by excusing myself to the bathroom. But this is my boss and this is the ONLY job I've been able to secure in more than 3 years since leaving teaching and to challenge her would put me in a position of potentially being targeted. Now perhaps because I'd already been provoked, but when she proceeded to thank God for making the library run smoothly and for all the hard work He's done for the library, I became angrier. Not once was the credit for all this hard work given to those who actually do it - us.
The dilemma I find myself in, is do I stay silent and endure becoming more and more frustrated as she aggressively brings her version of God into a (government) workplace in order to preserve my job and only means of livelihood or do I make an issue of the event? Keep in mind that it is well known that I am the only one in the library that does not attend church and therefore would be VERY easy to suspect that I was the one to raise a complaint despite any protections of being anonymous. She has done smaller things before that have followed this same route (ie creating a "spiritual" section of the library, but rejecting anything being in that section that is not Christian in nature despite the suggestions of TWO other staff members that we serve a very diverse population of GOVERNMENT employees and only having one ideal in that section might be construed as prejudicial). I am very torn here for my own sense of moral justice and my need for preservation of myself and my family.
I appreciate any comments and while I honestly don't know that there is a "solution" out there for this, I would think the discussion would prove intellectually stimulating. Thanks for reading my wall-o-text!
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(384 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
