Rough Cut (no reporter narration).<br /> <br />STORY: Senate Chaplin Barry Black offers prayers for a resolution to the fiscal impasse as Senate convenes Sunday.<br /> <br />U.S. lawmakers voiced tentative optimism Sunday that fiscal crisis talks between Senate leaders would pave the way to a deal to avert a government default and reopen the government, but Democrats and Republicans remained far apart on details.<br /> <br />As the clock ticked down to a Thursday deadline for raising the U.S. debt ceiling, necessary to avoid a possible government default that would roil world financial markets, both Democratic and Republican senators said the fact their leaders were meeting represented progress.<br /> <br />Lawmakers are also scrambling to put hundreds of thousands of federal employees back to work after their failure to fund the government resulted in the partial shutdown.<br /> <br />Washington's debt ceiling drama played out as anxious global financial leaders gathered in the U.S. capital for annual meetings of
