[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17329]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 PRAYER

  Dr. Harold Bales, District Superintendent, United Methodist Church, 
Salisbury, North Carolina, offered the following prayer:
  Eternal God, when we lift our eyes to spacious skies, we know that 
You are there.
  When as if two lightning bolts slice hotly through the high places 
and plunge us by the thousands into molten, crushing caverns, we know 
that You are there.
  When heroic spirits, roused to action, steer a chariot meant for evil 
to the right and make a crater of courage in the rich soil of freedom, 
we know that You are planted there as if a seed, the seed of life.
  When wild barbarians spur their murderous winged mount into the 
encampment of those who serve when called to liberating strife, we know 
that You are there.
  And when representative forces of freedom meet to do their civilizing 
work, grant, O God, not only Your blessing on their work but grant Your 
presence there.
  So please, God, bless this House and those within it, that through 
its actions and by Your presence here, justice, mercy, love, and peace 
may come to reign in every house upon this earth.
  Amen.

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