A friend of ours spoke this morning about he and his wife attending the National President's Prayer Breakfast a couple of weeks ago. He told a bit about the history of the breakfast, including the fact that Methodists were involved from the get-go. Did you know that there was an annual breakfast where members of congress and all kinds of folks from all over the world get together to pray for the president and our country? It's a pretty cool concept. No fights. Just kindness and love.
I, myself, attended the Presidential Prayer Breakfast back in 1966, when I was 27 years old. Well, that statement's not true. At that time the breakfast was segregated. The women folk ate with the first lady. So my husband, Ken, got to have breakfast with President Lyndon Johnson. I got to have breakfast with Ladybird. Because at that time the only women associated with congress were called "Congressional Wives." (We've come a long way, especially in this last election.)
While that breakfast in 1966 was interesting and gave me a better feeling about the ability of congress to come together, Ken and I were both more impressed with getting to spend time with the Reverend Doctor Frederick Brown Harris who had recently retired as chaplain of the Senate.
Ken had met Dr. Harris earlier when he was on a business trip. He spied the chaplain in a restaurant, introduced himself, and they ended up having dinner and a lengthy conversation.
A couple of years later, when we realized we were going to get to go the the prayer breakfast in Washington, Ken called Dr. Harris to see if we could drop by the see him. We ended up spending a big chunk of alone time with both he and his wife. Dr. Harris was pretty amazed that Ken had quit his job and was then a seminary student. So, that day, we had an insiders tour of the senate, including getting to meet congressmen and senators and getting an up close and personal idea of how government works.
Later on I wrote an article about the experience. It was published in 1969 but I can't, for the life of me, find a copy of it.
I'm grateful for our speaker, Bill, this morning who started me on today's trip down memory lane.
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