In a word, then, prayer is dynamic. It is not simply a static force in a person’s life or in the life of the nation. If a person utters the same prayer as a child and then again as an adult, its meaning intrinsically changes. Growth and endurance make it so, altering its meaning and even its tonal inflection. For someone saying the Prayer of Saint Francis or singing “God Bless America” on the day before September 11, 2001, and then again forty-eight hours later, the entire meaning changed. Certain phrases take on a nuance that did not exist earlier. In a short time, those same invocations will take on a different connotation yet again. Prayer does not sit still.
One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America by James P. Moore, Jr. Doubleday, 2005. p. xxiii
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