[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 100 (Wednesday, July 27, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                                 prayer

  The Reverend Dr. William D. Watley, St. James AME Church, Newark, NJ, 
offered the following prayer:
  Let us pray:
  O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the Earth. You 
have said in Your word:
  ``I am about to create new heavens and a new Earth; the former things 
shall not be remembered or come to mind * * * No more shall there be in 
it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not 
live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be 
considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be 
considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit; they shall 
plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another 
inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a 
tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the 
work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for 
calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord and their 
descendants as well.''--Isaiah 65:17, 20-23 NRSV.
  God, we pray that Your vision for Your people will become our vision 
as well. We pray that we will understand our role and responsibility in 
making that vision our victory. Save us from cynicism that would 
categorize Your vision as rhetoric and not reality, as promise but not 
practical, and as a way we should live instead of the way we can live.
  Thus we pray for humility to use power. We pray for principles that 
are so deeply held that they override personal differences and overrule 
political expedience. We pray for the courage of our convictions and 
for faith that overcomes fear. Above all, we pray that we shall never 
forget that, beyond our constituency, we are accountable to You, our 
Creator, for our actions.

     God of our weary years, God of our silent tears
       Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way,
       Thou who hast by Thy might led us into the light,
       Keep us forever in the path we pray.
       Lest our feet stray from the places our God where we met 
           Thee,
       Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world we forget 
           Thee
     Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand.
       True to our God, true to our native land.--``Lift Every 
           Voice and Sing,'' (African-American National Anthem), 
           James Weldon Johnson.
  In Your name and through Your grace, do we pray. Amen.

  

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