[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Page 13306]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 prayer

  The guest Chaplain offered the following prayer:
  Lord God, in a world where power usually rules by subjection and 
oppression, we stand before Thee whose rule, if lovingly accepted, 
raises us to a new freedom of living and spirit of hope.
  We remember the story of Moses giving the Pharaoh Thy word, which was 
not just a plea for freedom--``Let my people go!'', but ``Let my people 
go that they may worship Me, serve Me!''--freedom for a purpose.
  Teach us, O God, that when freedom is made an end in itself, and not 
the means to a greater end, it easily degenerates into license and self 
pleasing. The finale is not freedom, but community destroyed and people 
self-enslaved.
  Lord, we know that those Israelites, when freed, were given by Thee 
in the wilderness a purpose--to live by those basic commandments, rules 
for peace and harmony. These we neglect at our peril. For if no divine 
nature, name, and day is shown reverence and there is not respect for 
parents, life, relationships, property, and truth, then a society 
disintegrates from within, since there is no reverence and respect for 
anything but the solitary self.
  Lord God, unless Thou build humanity's house, those who try labor in 
vain. Unless Thou guard a civilization's city, its protectors are 
caught napping. So, grant grace to this elected body of Senators, 
leaders in this superpower, that they may be led to use aright our 
freedom's dear-bought opportunities, aware of ends beyond the material 
and the visions that make life noble. This we ask in the name of love 
revealed. Amen.

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