Posted on 09/14/2001 10:50:24 AM PDT by Bommer
We are here in the middle hour of our grief. So many have suffered so great a loss, and today we express our nation's sorrow. We come before God to pray for the missing and the dead, and for those who loved them.
On Tuesday, our country was attacked with deliberate and massive cruelty. We have seen the images of fire and ashes and bent steel.
Now come the names, the list of casualties we are only beginning. They are the names of men and women who began their day at a desk or in an airport, busy with life. They are the names of people who faced death and in their last moments called home to say, be brave and I love you.
They are the names of passengers who defied their murderers and prevented the murder of others on the ground. They are the names of men and women who wore the uniform of the United States and died at their posts.
They are the names of rescuers -- the ones whom death found running up the stairs and into the fires to help others. We will read all these names. We will linger over them and learn their stories, and many Americans will weep.
To the children and parents and spouses and families and friends of the lost, we offer the deepest sympathy of the nation. And I assure you, you are not alone.
Just three days removed from these events, Americans do not yet have the distance of history, but our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.
War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder.
This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others; it will end in a way and at an hour of our choosing.
Our purpose as a nation is firm, yet our wounds as a people are recent and unhealed and lead us to pray. In many of our prayers this week, there's a searching and an honesty. At St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, on Tuesday, a woman said, "I pray to God to give us a sign that he's still here."
Others have prayed for the same, searching hospital to hospital, carrying pictures of those still missing.
God's signs are not always the ones we look for. We learn in tragedy that his purposes are not always our own, yet the prayers of private suffering, whether in our homes or in this great cathedral are known and heard and understood.
There are prayers that help us last through the day or endure the night. There are prayers of friends and strangers that give us strength for the journey, and there are prayers that yield our will to a will greater than our own.
This world He created is of moral design. Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance and love have no end, and the Lord of life holds all who die and all who mourn.
It is said that adversity introduces us to ourselves.
This is true of a nation as well. In this trial, we have been reminded and the world has seen that our fellow Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and brave.
We see our national character in rescuers working past exhaustion, in long lines of blood donors, in thousands of citizens who have asked to work and serve in any way possible. And we have seen our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice. Inside the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the end and at the side of his quadriplegic friend. A beloved priest died giving the last rites to a firefighter. Two office workers, finding a disabled stranger, carried her down 68 floors to safety.
A group of men drove through the night from Dallas to Washington to bring skin grafts for burned victims. In these acts and many others, Americans showed a deep commitment to one another and in an abiding love for our country.
Today, we feel what Franklin Roosevelt called, "the warm courage of national unity." This is a unity of every faith and every background. This has joined together political parties and both houses of Congress. It is evident in services of prayer and candlelight vigils and American flags, which are displayed in pride and waved in defiance. Our unity is a kinship of grief and a steadfast resolve to prevail against our enemies. And this unity against terror is now extending across the world.
America is a nation full of good fortune, with so much to be grateful for, but we are not spared from suffering. In every generation, the world has produced enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America because we are freedom's home and defender, and the commitment of our fathers is now the calling of our time.
On this national day of prayer and remembrance, we ask almighty God to watch over our nation and grant us patience and resolve in all that is to come. We pray that He will comfort and console those who now walk in sorrow. We thank Him for each life we now must mourn, and the promise of a life to come.
As we've been assured, neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities, nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth can separate us from God's love.
May He bless the souls of the departed. May He comfort our own. And may He always guide our country.
God bless America.
I heard it on the radio. The folks in the advertising dept. at my paper were planning on participating in the national moment of silence at noon. I went in to the ed dept. to shut the radio off and the President was just then walking to the podium. I turned it up. We all listened intently, and agreed that it was a great speech. God Bless our President and our nation.
The only low point of the serive, other than BHC, was the preacherette who gave the benediction urging that we not avenge evil with evil. I fear she will be disappointed in days to come.
Could you elaborate on the wording? Could she perhaps have been referencing these stupid attacks on Arabs living in the States or to the calls to forget about collateral damage when we attack? If she was saying we shouldn't strike back, she should read her Bible better- God gave every nation the power of the sword with which to protect it's citizens. Not to mention that the war against terrorism passes Augustine's Just War test with flying colors. With unyielding anger and steel resolve...
Never, never, never doubt that God is in control.
God Bless America
Whether President Bush had help writing the words or not, it was clear that the speech reflected his heart.
The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was the perfect final hymn for a nation embarking on a major war.
To sum it up, what you will see is real leadership. You may want to tape it because it will fortify you for the days ahead when the doubts, and fear, try to creep back in.
Thanks for this post Bommer. I didn't get to see the speech here @ work today, I sure hope it gets re-run tonight when I get home.
God bless and keep the families of those who lost their lives Tuesday, and God bless America.
I wish I had taped it, but as I recall, "avenge eveil with evil" seems pretty close to a direct quuote. She (in a short benediction) did not frame it in any particular context. But it seemed to me she was speaking about military retaliation as opposed to domestic violence against Arabs is U.S. Then again, I might just be a little hypersensitive right now ;^)
Had Elain Gonzalez not happened, Bush would not be President.
The Cuban's in Miami insisted he was a special child from God. He is in control.
No argument there!
I listened to the speech on the radio while taking my son to the doctor's office - we were both quite choked up at the end of it.
That is a good idea. Although I was inspired and comforted by the service today, I am filled with dread of what is to come. I fear that when we look back a few years from now, this day will have been a high point before the rain of death and destruction that followed. I am praying as I have never prayed before in my life. I believe that what Pat Robertson said last night is true -- God has allowed his curtain of protection of this nation to fall this week because we have abandoned Him. We must, as a nation, return to God if we have any hope of regaining His protection and prevailing in the coming war against evil. I am hoping with all my might that this day of prayer will be the turning point.
Now is the time to make a choice for salvation or eternal damnation. Satan is real and has shown his face in a clear way. Our brothers and sisters in the towers made decisions to ask forgiveness with little or no time and are in heaven with our Lord. Jesus is the answer to all of our questions and worries. Thank God for the mercies he has shown our land.
Pray for GW and NY!
Rev. Graham really nailed it when he thanked W for calling for a national day of prayer and "remembrance" (mourning), and saying, "We needed it." Amen!
Oh, brother, did he ever. You have to catch a replay of it, if you can. The camera was following him in a tight close-up as he walked down the aisle to his seat, and he had that same frozen Norman Bates grin that he's had ever since the Chandra business started. The difference is--and I'd like to know if anyone else who saw him noticed this--I caught a certain gleeful twinkle in his eyes, as if he was thinking, "I'm home free, who cares about ME anymore?!" It was very weird and very creepy.
Aside from the presence of Condit and the Clinton rabble, it was a very good ceremony, I was a bit surprised by how moving I found it. And Bush was terrific, frankly, I thought he was the best speaker there. It's interesting how, as awkward as he can seem in front of cameras, he always seems to pull it off when it really matters.
I don't give a ^&*# how well or badly he speaks. I want to see how he fights.
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