[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Page 7312]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 prayer

  The guest Chaplain offered the following prayer:
  Eternal God, we come before Thee in dangerous times. Many are anxious 
and fearful as the lives of our Nation's forces and their allies are in 
harm's way, opposing an evil and oppressive regime. We pray for swift 
victory and a safe return. We know that the one certainty of war is 
sacrifice. And yet there is the haunting thought that if nothing is 
worth fighting and dying for, then evil goes unchallenged, cruelty 
unthwarted, and oppression unchecked. What then is worth living for?
  We pray for courage and inner strength for those young men and women, 
who, on their country's behalf, offer a forceful, yet vulnerable 
presence to compel a malevolent dictator's overthrow.
  Lord, we live in a day when the foundations of truth and goodness 
have been despised and denigrated and lives are built on hedonism, 
cynicism, and relativism. Yet these are sand, and after life's quaking 
storms only the things which cannot be shaken remain.
  O God, let good be brought out of evil as people realize that freedom 
is a luxury, denied for most of history to most of humanity. Thus, may 
our gratitude for our own freedom be shown by never taking it for 
granted or using it wantonly, forgetting its cost in sacrifice, past 
and present.
  May these Senators, as guardians of this precious freedom, be its 
sharers with others, as blessed by Thee. And may they use their 
position of power for a lasting purpose that benefits this fair land 
and far beyond. Amen.

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