A few weeks ago my Boss enquired whether I have a bible, due to the fact that I’m undercover here at work, I acknowledged that I had a leatherbound one which I received as a 16th birthday gift (I did and I still have it, I’m a sentimental soul).
In her goodness she went out and bought me a R500 “The everyday life bible”(FEATURING NOTES AND COMMENTARY BY JOYCE MEYER!! WhooHEEEE!!!) Stating that I need to have an updated version adapted to modern day life…
Both my best bud and my S/O immediately stated that I should flog the thing on Gumtree. Problem is, although I’m horrified with the gift on a level, I feel like a traitor for not appreciating it - I appreciate the gesture though, and think it was a lovely thing for her to do.
A bit of a conundrum for my sense of morality and ethics.
Give it to a needy xtian and claim it a act of supreme charity by a secular humanist. Look I dunno if I did this, I could sleep at night. But hey, you could score some points with a religious friend.
Hold on to it while she remains your boss, and display it prominently if she ever visits your place. Good for salary/career enhancement. If you leave the company, or she does, chuck it in the bin or use it as zol-paper.
More seriously, was this gift prompted by a special occasion, for example a birthday? If it was just a spontaneous thing, she was perhaps showing her gratitude and appreciation for your efforts. You could take it at that face value and treat her to lunch at a good restaurant.
Or you could reciprocate at some point with Christopher Hitchens’s (Ed.) The Portable Atheist. Gift wrapped and left anonymously on her desk should work to preserve your in-the-closet standing. The book is a collection of essays and excerpts of atheist writings through the ages. No adaptations to modern times have been necessary because the basic objections remain as powerful as ever.
I’d probably take a red pen and start underlining a few choice passages and write some questions in the margin and return it.
But I’d understand if this is sensitive being in a work environment. For me in corporate, I’d love to see them try discriminating against me because of religion. I can do with the money >:D
I chucked it into the corner cupboard, the one that holds all the books that I consider duds and a waste of money. I have several people here at work that would appreciate the book, but because they’re at work, I cannot dare pass it along. I’m considering giving it to my mother in law but the S/O is not too keen to encourage her fundamental mindset. It can lay in that cupboard, someone will come along evenutally and I’ll pass it on.
If I can flog it, I’ll go buy some bread and make sarmies for the streetkids here in town one Friday afternoon. That should enable me to sleep at night if I do go that route.
I had some good chuckles at the responses though.
@Mefiante - it was an impromptu gift from her and her intentions are pure, she’s a lovely person and she just figured that it would be a practical gift considering my bible is so old.
I got my bible from my grandmother. it used to belong to my grandfather, who was a very religious man, and he left instructions before he passed away (about one month before I was born)that the book with all his little notes and old birthday cards etc. become mine when I’m old enough to read them (and presumably, the bible). I see no reason to throw away the book because the contents is not based on actual facts - I have many works of fiction in my bookshelf
I think its kinda sweet of your boss to give you a spontaneous gift like that (although I definitely would have preferred the money)
The difficulty of your situation, though, is that you can’t sell it on Gumtree or donate it to the Hospice or whatever, because people generally take the book rather seriously, and if I were you I wouldn’t want to contribute to the Woo by distributing their fiction.
Have you ever made home-made paper or Paper Mache thingys? Where you tear a newspaper up into strips and then dunk them in glue and … you know what I mean? I wonder if bible-paper would work for that? It seems to me like a pretty fun way to recycle.
Oh, for sure: both a very nicely illustrated children’s edition featuring a memorable painting of an unnecessarily voluptuous Pharaoh’s daughter fishing out the baby Moses from the Nile, and also an oxblood-coloured leather-jacketed new Afrikaans translation, my Bible study workhorse as a kid. Garishly coloured highlighters were quite the novelty in the 80s, and I remember applying them liberally to several verses that made half an impression on my adolescent mind. It also contains the ubiquitous yellow silk cross bookmark, carefully produced by persuading my worms for hours on end not to spin short cuts across the diagonals.
I have a bible inscribed by my parents, expensive one nogal, that was given to me on the morning of my confirmation. That act of solidarity is actually a fond memory that I’d like to hang on to.
I came up with another idea: I’ve always wanted one of those bibles where you’ve carefully cut out all the pages so you can store some kind of contraband in there… Gun? Knife? Drugs? Nothing in that bible on the bookshelf there I tell ya! Of course the shape must match the outline of the item being stored.
My eldest son did that. We seldom have cash on us, and in an event of needing it, we usually ask the kids to help out, a couple years ago he came out of his bedroom carrying his bible reverently in his hands and proclaimed:
Ask, and ye shall receive…
He opened it ceremoniously and displayed his stash of cash…
Till today, whenever we borrow from him, he will sagely proclaim - Do not concern yourself with the day of tomorrow, as I will provide - and flip open his bible.
How about just handing it back to her saying that you appreciate the gesture, but think that it would be of more use to someone else, and that regrettably you found it very awkward and a little inappropriate to have assumptions made about your religious position, which you would not like to go into further? If she is really a decent person, and not too fundamentalist, that should have her apologising for the position that she put you in, and it really was inappropriate for her to put you in that position without knowing any more.
Because being an vocal atheist in the workplace is not a clever thing to do. I and some other people on this forum knows it all too well. I was almost without a job beginning last year because of it. One live and learn to shut your trap when your back-pocket and future earnings is at stake. Aside from that, regardless of whehter she’s a decent person or not (she is), I find the mere thought of doing that rude, and wouldnt be able to do it - if the scenario was different and she was aware of my stance on religion, I would not have hesitated to say no thank you, but its not the case here.
If you’re too chicken to flog it on Gumtree then consign it to a suitably dark corner of your garage.