Anthony
I've got a great comeback for you.  Never actually had a chance to use
it myself (does anyone else find that as soon as they have finally figured
out the snappiest way to respond to a specific patronising situation
the opportunity NEVER arises again?) but use it yourself with my
blessing.  When they say to you `may I pray for you that God heals
you/cures you', just answer `Why, what's wrong with me?'

Rayna

On Sun, Feb 18, 2001 at 05:43:16PM -0600, Anthony Arnold wrote:
    The times when people make me the most mad and scared are the times when I'm
    somewhere in public and they think nothing of coming up to me and offering
    preyers for me so god heels me.  I know that people would love to help and
    care for me but I don't believe we should begin talking about religious
    things anywhere and everywhere especially to people we don't know like what
    people have done to my family and me.  Once we were on a business trip for
    PRC, and we had the afternoon without any meetings planned so we decided to
    take the subway in Pittsburgh just for something fun.  It was fun and
    interesting alright, a woman was on the train and was talking very
    religiously to me about heeling, giving me a bible and offering me airplane
    tickets to heeling baths in Asia or wherever they are.  My little brother
    was scared and so were my parents just because she was coming on to me so
    strongly with her ideas.  Also after we got off the train, she was following
    us some more and scaring everybody.

    We have also been to restaurants around here, where people have actually
    came up to our booth and start praying to me and we have actually had to
    walk out sometimes.  To me, the family in the next booth over might have
    more serious problems needing prayer and help, but people don't see it.

    Thanks,
    Anthony