A National Day of Prayer

Did we even know that it was there until someone suggested we might lose it? It’s like that with a lot of things, I suppose. It’s the little things we take for granted in life, and the more routine they are, the less we appreciate them. Family dinners, summer cookouts, good health, an undisturbed night’s sleep, for example. But then life or law or circumstances or the passage of time take such things from us, and we wish that we had treasured them more when we had them.
I suspect it is that way for at least some of us with the National Day of Prayer on May 6 (the first Thursday in May). I have gone to the community prayer breakfast on that day at the Armory, a tradition that both Republican and Democratic Presidents have encouraged since before I was born. Perhaps because a government task force organized it, there didn’t seem to be a need to shoe horn yet another event into the church’s calendar. But then US District Court Judge Barbara Crabb on April 15 ruled (over the objections of the White House) that the National Day of Prayer (practiced in this nation since 1775 and made “official” in 1957) was in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. In Judge Crabb’s words,
It bears emphasizing that a conclusion that the establishment clause prohibits the government from endorsing a religious exercise is not a judgment on the value of prayer or the millions of Americans who believe in its power. No one can doubt the important role that prayer plays in the spiritual life of a believer. In the best of times, people may pray as a way of expressing joy and thanks; during times of grief, many find that prayer provides comfort. Others may pray to give praise, seek forgiveness, ask for guidance or find the truth. And perhaps it is not too much to say that since the beginning of th[e] history [of humans] many people have devoutly believed that 'More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.'" Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 433 (1962). However, recognizing the importance of prayer to many people does not mean that the government may enact a statute in support of it, any more than the government may encourage citizens to fast during the month of Ramadan, attend a synagogue, purify themselves in a sweat lodge or practice rune magic. In fact, it is because the nature of prayer is so personal and can have such a powerful effect on a community that the government may not use its authority to try to influence an individual's decision whether and when to pray.
Intellectually, I understand what her Honor is saying, that there is a real danger in allowing our secular government to set the religious agenda of the nation (one of the reasons that our ancestors wound up here in the first place). But spiritually I’m troubled, troubled at the loss of a single day when all of the nation’s denominations and faiths would unite their hearts in prayer to the Creator of us all. The government never told us how or what to pray, only that doing so—each in our own tradition—could be a great blessing to our nation. The President’s proclamation last year put it this way, “…Let us also use this day to come together in a moment of peace and goodwill. Our world grows smaller by the day, and our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife; and to lift up those who have fallen on hard times. As we observe this day of prayer, we remember the one law that binds all great religions together: the Golden Rule, and its call to love one another; to understand one another; and to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.” Those are good and important words, and they will live on even if a nationally sanctioned day of prayer does not.
I would urge us not to surrender the spirit of the National Day of Prayer to the scrap heap of history. If indeed the Constitution requires elected officials to put this work down, then let the many people of faith take it up again, exercising their freedom as sons and daughters of God to bring the welfare of our national and global communities before the ever-watchful eyes of our maker. With or without a proclamation, the work of prayer belongs to all of us, and so I would invite each of us to set aside time for prayer on Thursday, May 6, to lift up to God our nation, its leaders, its poor, and its foundations of freedom and justice. Politically, we are all very diverse, but the faith that unites us is stronger than the momentary events of history. Let us unite our hearts on that day, and pray for God’s guidance and wisdom in these times.
Your fellow traveler,
Thom