I am astounded at the worry that the National Day of Prayer may not get enough presidential support.
First, there's the question of an edict that tells people to pray. Aside from the issue of those who are not believers or who have faith traditions that do not include prayer, of what value is a coerced prayer? Does a prayer need to be from the heart to be authentic?
Second, is this more about being seen in public while praying? By Christian standards (and the call for the National Day of Prayer is largely Christian), Jesus said:
And fourth, the prayer ought to be about the change that begins within ourselves - a prayer of contrition. As the biggest kid in school, the United States of America injures others: sometimes in cruelty, sometimes in retaliation, sometimes in self-interest, sometimes in trying to protect another, and (probably most often) thoughtlessly or carelessly, unaware of how much impact we have on others.
Remembering President Lincoln's proclamation:
Next year, I would like to see a Day of National Self-Examination and Repentance, with a call to spend the other 364 days praying, meditating, thinking, and acting toward being a better world citizen.
First, there's the question of an edict that tells people to pray. Aside from the issue of those who are not believers or who have faith traditions that do not include prayer, of what value is a coerced prayer? Does a prayer need to be from the heart to be authentic?
Second, is this more about being seen in public while praying? By Christian standards (and the call for the National Day of Prayer is largely Christian), Jesus said:
'And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.- Matthew 6:5-8, NRSVThird, if we are going to have such a day, I would argue it should be a renewal of spiritual practices an caring for others - something we can carry on through the year, rather than a single day to pray.
And fourth, the prayer ought to be about the change that begins within ourselves - a prayer of contrition. As the biggest kid in school, the United States of America injures others: sometimes in cruelty, sometimes in retaliation, sometimes in self-interest, sometimes in trying to protect another, and (probably most often) thoughtlessly or carelessly, unaware of how much impact we have on others.
Remembering President Lincoln's proclamation:
And, in so much as we know that, by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. - http://www.quietwaters.org/abraham_lincoln_national_day_of_prayer.htmI suspect that many who feel this day is important would not want to talk about out sin that "we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own".
Next year, I would like to see a Day of National Self-Examination and Repentance, with a call to spend the other 364 days praying, meditating, thinking, and acting toward being a better world citizen.
