[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 11922]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 11922]]

            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES--Thursday, May 15, 2003

  The House met at 9 a.m.
  The Reverend Joseph A. Darby, Pastor, Morris Brown African Methodist 
Episcopal Church, Charleston, South Carolina, offered the following 
prayer:
  Gracious, merciful and omnipotent Creator, we thank You for this new 
day, for Your grace, for Your wisdom, and for Your mercy. We thank You 
for the blessing of democracy and for bringing us safely to this hour.
  Bless and guide all that is said and done in this deliberative body. 
Bless the Members of the House with Your judgment, Your strength and 
Your compassion, so that they will make decisions with an eye not 
towards what is politically convenient, but towards what is right for 
all Americans.
  Bless our world and keep all nations in perfect peace. Bless our 
Nation so that what Lincoln called ``the better angels of our nature'' 
will prevail. Bless our leadership at all levels so that public policy 
will be made in the light of truth that shall indeed make us free.
  Have mercy upon us and help us to celebrate the diversity of our 
unity and the unity of our diversity. Let the words of Your servant 
Amos be reflected in the decisions made here, so that justice will roll 
on like a river, so that righteousness will flow like a never-failing 
stream, so that we can really become one Nation, under God, with 
liberty and justice for all. Amen.

                          ____________________