National Days of Prayer were fairly common around the time of the founding of our country, such as on May 15, 1776, when General George Washington ordered: “The Continental Congress having ordered Friday the 17th instant to be observed as a Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, humbly to supplicate the mercy of Almighty God, that it would please Him to pardon all our manifold sins and transgressions…” Unquestionably, the meaning of words, and even how we would understand God’s movement within a military and political conflict, have changed over the last 250 years. Nevertheless, it is intriguing that most formal declarations of prayer from that time seek “Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer” in those precise terms. Fasting is seldom discussed as a companion to prayer beyond liturgical seasons in which it is a point of emphasis, and it’s doubtful that many people would get behind a “national day of humiliation” today. Even if we account for the evolution in language and suggest that “humility” might be a better choice to convey Washington’s meaning in a modern context, we still find that humility is a virtue seldom lauded, particularly on the national stage. Perhaps the Founding Fathers, even amidst their very worldly concerns, recognized that God seems to move to the lowest place first, “reaching up from the bottom,” so to speak. Contemplative practice represents our attempt to move to the bottom, so that we can find God there and reach out together.
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