Yes, Virginia, Congress does have a soul

It may be easier to believe in Santa Claus than in a Congress with members of integrity, honesty and principle. But roughly once a week in Room 219, a Virginian leads a group in which the true soul of Capitol Hill comes to surface.

"Room 219 is the closest room to the House floor, and we will literally go in there, Republicans and Democrats, and pray," said Rep. J. Randy Forbes, R-Va., the founder and co-chairman of the Congressional Prayer Caucus. "What we pray for is God to bless the country, we pray for people who have cancer and health problems, and we pray for wisdom."

What they don't pray for, according to Forbes, are partisan wins. No doubt caucus co-chairman Rep. Mike McIntyre, a Democrat from North Carolina, wouldn't stand for it. But the caucus members are much more focused on a goal that seems lost nowadays amid the shuffle for jobs, cars, homes and personal prestige: binding together in spiritual growth and maturity.

The spiritual camaraderie should give comfort at a time when camaraderie itself seems at an all-time low. Who in America is not sick of political posturing and partisan arguments?

So today, on George Washington's birthday, it's nice to know that some in Congress still hold fast to Founding Father principles that are rooted in God and godly governance.

"I am a real Christian - that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ," wrote Declaration of Independence author and signer, Thomas Jefferson, in his personal papers. And in his notes on the state of Virginia, he wrote: "God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation bethought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?"

More succinct was Benjamin Franklin: God governs in the affairs of men.

John Adams, second president and signer of the Declaration of Independence, meanwhile, rarely shied from the chance to express his faith in the context of our nation's burgeoning greatness.

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity," Adams wrote in a letter to Jefferson. "I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God."

In this day and age it's a refreshing realization to see that some in Congress do, in fact, remember these roots, honor this history, and recognize - with humility - who's really in charge.