Recently I had the opportunity to cross a few items off my bucket list, like being in the same room as the president and hearing Andrea Bocelli sing Ave Maria in person. The reason I was able to do this is because I had the opportunity to attend the 61st annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C.. This event was one of the most amazing events that I have had the pleasure of attending.
The Prayer Breakfast was started so that politicians of all denominations and political parties could come together and pray. This is something that congress members and senators do on a weekly basis while in session in D.C.. They do this to break down party lines, and hopefully come to an agreement about the issues plaguing our country. Then once a year they all come together again along with citizens from all over the country and world, including plenty of higher level politicians, the president, and have a large breakfast.
The National Prayer Breakfast is a two day event beginning with seminars on the first day and a dinner and then the official breakfast the second day, more seminars, a lunch and then another dinner. The big event is the breakfast. You have to go through security to get in and are not allowed to take pictures because the president is in the room at that point. This year the famous people in attendance at the breakfast were President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, first lady Michelle Obama, olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas, former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, Dr. Ben Carson who was the main speaker, and world renowned opera singer Andrea Bocelli who sang two pieces.
This year’s event had people in attendance from all over the world and over 160 countries were represented. While at the event, politicians leave behind their political views and just focus on prayer and the Scripture.But beyond the event being a great experience for me, it was really refreshing to see politicians from both sides coming together and ignoring party lines for a couple of days. While I may not be the most spiritual person, I was still happy to see these politicians coming together under something. Hopefully this can lead to these politicians coming together to agree upon policies for our country.
