[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 3450]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 PRAYER

  The Chaplain, the Reverend Daniel P. Coughlin, offered the following 
prayer:
  Lord God, You speak as one who whispers to a beloved. You speak to 
the heart. Yet Your people do not listen. Lord, you give us Your word 
as a gift, truly filled with promise, a binding secret. Yet Your people 
pay no attention.
  You have created the ear to always be open. But from somewhere 
within, Lord, we choose not to hear. So self-absorbed are we, so noisy 
in imagination, so preoccupied, Your word cannot be taken in.
  Claiming to seek the truth, we play with numbers and madly put spin 
on language, when all You require is that we face the truth, study with 
honesty long and hard, then with humble attention open ourselves 
completely to Your saving Word to guide our very next step into 
realistic truth.
  Now surrounded by complex and conflicting situations, Lord, each of 
us cries out to You: ``Speak, Lord! Your servant is listening.'' Amen.

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