[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 12526-12527]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                59TH NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST--PART IV

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MIKE McINTYRE

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 29, 2011

  Mr. McINTYRE.

       We've seen a lot of hardship these past two years. Not a 
     day passes when I don't get a letter from somebody or meet 
     someone who is out of work, or has lost their home or are 
     without health care. The story Randall told about his 
     father--that's a story that a whole lot of Americans have 
     gone through over these past couple of years.
        Sometimes I can't help right away. Sometimes what I can do 
     to try to improve the economy or to curb foreclosures or to 
     help deal with the health care system--sometimes it seems so 
     distant and so remote, so profoundly inadequate to the 
     enormity of the need. And it is my faith, then, that Biblical 
     injunction to serve the least of these, that keeps me going 
     and that keeps me from being overwhelmed. It's faith that 
     reminds me that despite being just one very imperfect man, I 
     can still help whoever I can, however I can, wherever I can, 
     for as long as I can, and that somehow God will buttress 
     these efforts.
       It also helps to know that none of us are alone in 
     answering this call. It's being taken up each and every day 
     by so many of you--back home, your churches, your temples and 
     synagogues, your fellow congregants--so many faith groups 
     across this great country of ours.
       I came upon a group recently called charity: water, a group 
     that supports clean water projects overseas. This is a 
     project that was started by a former night club promoter 
     named Scott Harrison who grew weary of living only for 
     himself and feeling like he wasn't following Christ as well 
     as he should.
       And because of Scott's good work, charity: water has helped 
     1.7 million people get access to clean water. And in the next 
     10 years, he plans to make clean water accessible to a 
     hundred million more. That's the kind of promoting we need 
     more of, and that's the kind of faith that moves mountains. 
     And there are stories like that scattered across this room, 
     of people who have taken it upon themselves to make a 
     difference.
       Now, sometimes faith groups can do the work of caring for 
     the least of these on their own; sometimes they need a 
     partner, whether it's in business or government. And that's 
     why my administration has taken a fresh look at the way we 
     organize with faith groups, the way we work with faith groups 
     through our Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood 
     Partnerships.
       And through that office, we're expanding the way faith 
     groups can partner with our government. We're helping them 
     feed more kids who otherwise would go hungry. We're helping 
     fatherhood groups get dads the support they need to be there 
     for their children. We're working with non-profits to improve 
     the lives of people around the world. And we're doing it in 
     ways that are aligned with our constitutional principles. And 
     in this work, we intend to expand it in the days ahead, 
     rooted in the notions of partnership and justice and the 
     imperatives to help the poor.
       Of course, there are some needs that require more resources 
     than faith groups have at their disposal. There's only so 
     much a church can do to help all the families in need--all 
     those who need help making a mortgage payment, or avoiding 
     foreclosure, or making sure their child can go to college. 
     There is only so much that a non-profit can do to help a 
     community rebuild in the wake of disaster. There is only so 
     much the private sector will do to help folks who are 
     desperately sick get the care that they need.
       And that's why I continue to believe that in a caring and 
     in a just society, government must have a role to play; that 
     our values, our love and our charity must find expression, 
     not just in our families, not just in our places of work and 
     our places of worship, but also in our government and in our 
     politics.
       Over the past two years, the nature of these obligations, 
     the proper role of government has obviously been the subject 
     of enormous controversy. And the debates have been fierce as 
     one side's version of compassion and community may be 
     interpreted by the other side as an oppressive and 
     irresponsible expansion of the state or an unacceptable 
     restriction on individual freedom.
       That's why a second recurring theme in my prayers is a 
     prayer for humility. God answered this prayer for me early on 
     by having me marry Michelle. Because whether it's reminding 
     me of a chore undone, or questioning the wisdom of watching 
     my third football game in a row on Sunday, she keeps me 
     humble.
       But in this life of politics when debates have become so 
     bitterly polarized, and changes in the media lead so many of 
     us to listen and reinforce our existing biases, it's useful 
     to go back to Scripture to remind ourselves that none of us 
     has all the answers--none of us, no matter what our political 
     party or our station in life.
       The full breadth of human knowledge is like a grain of sand 
     in God's hands. There are some mysteries in this world we 
     cannot fully comprehend. As it is written in Job, ``God's 
     voice thunders in marvelous ways. He does great things beyond 
     our understandings.''
       The challenge I find then is to balance this uncertainty, 
     this humility with the need to fight for deeply held 
     convictions, to be open to other points of view but firm in 
     our core principles. And I pray for this wisdom every day.
       I pray that God will show me and all of us the limits of 
     our understanding, and open our ears and our hearts to our 
     brothers and sisters with different points of view; that such 
     reminders of our shared hopes and our shared dreams and our 
     shared limitations as children of God will reveal a way 
     forward that we can travel together.
       And the last recurrent theme, one that binds all prayers 
     together, is that I might walk closer with God and make that 
     walk my first and most important task.
       In our own lives it's easy to be consumed by our daily 
     worries and our daily concerns. And it is even easier at a 
     time when everybody is busy, everybody is stressed and 
     everybody--our culture--is obsessed with wealth and power and 
     celebrity. And often it takes a brush with hardship or 
     tragedy to shake us out of that, to remind us of what matters 
     most.
       We see an aging parent wither under a long illness, or we 
     lose a daughter or a husband in Afghanistan, we watch a 
     gunman open fire at a supermarket--and we remember how 
     fleeting life can be. And we ask ourselves how we have 
     treated others, whether we've told our family and friends how 
     much we love them. And it's in these moments, when we feel 
     most intensely our mortality and our own flaws and the sins 
     of the world, that we most desperately seek to touch the face 
     of God.
       So my prayer this morning is that we might seek His face 
     not only in those moments, but each and every day; and every 
     day as we go through the hustle and bustle of our lives, 
     whether it's in Washington or Hollywood or anywhere in 
     between, that we might every so often rise above the here and 
     now and kneel before the Eternal; that we might remember, 
     Kaye, the fact that those who wait on the Lord will soar on 
     wings like eagles, they will run and not be wary and they 
     will walk and not faint.
       When I wake in the morning, I wait on the Lord, and I ask 
     Him to give me the strength to do right by our country and 
     its people. And when I go to bed at night I wait on the Lord 
     and ask him to forgive me my sins, and look after my family 
     and the American people, and make me an instrument of His 
     will.
       I say these prayers hoping they will be answered, and I say 
     these prayers knowing that I must work and must sacrifice and 
     must serve to see them answered. But I also say these prayers 
     knowing that the act of prayer itself is a source of 
     strength. It is a reminder that our time on Earth is not just 
     about us; that when we open ourselves to the possibility that 
     God might have a larger purpose for our lives, there is a 
     chance that somehow, in ways that we may never fully know, 
     God will use us well.
       May the Lord bless you and keep you, and may He bless this 
     country that we love.
       [Song by Alison Krauss]
       Congresswoman Kirkpatrick: Thank you so much, Alison. It 
     has been quite a morning.
       Congressman Miller: We are grateful to all of our head 
     table guests and our distinguished visitors around the world. 
     We all hope you have something powerful to think about and 
     apply to your leadership challenges wherever you may live.
       Congresswoman Kirkpatrick: Prayer is a powerful thing 
     because we all are connected to a powerful loving God. We are 
     all brought to this place and this moment for a reason and it 
     is our responsibility to figure out what we can do to spread 
     the message of hope and faith we received today. One of the 
     things we perhaps all have noticed is that in the world that 
     God has made almost always where there is tragedy, there is 
     also a release of great love. People across the country and 
     around the world have been focused on the terrible senseless 
     shooting 26 days ago in Tucson. It has made us all ask, why, 
     and examine what we can do to make the world where such 
     things don't happen.
       Congressman Miller: Most of us have said our prayers for 
     the life and the recovery of all of the victims and 
     especially our colleague Gabby Giffords. This morning we get 
     to pray with her husband Captain Mark Kelly. Captain, we 
     thank you for your own service to our country. As a member of 
     the United States Navy and as an astronaut, we

[[Page 12527]]

     thank you for being here to lead us in our closing prayer.
       Captain Mark Kelly: Congresswoman Kirkpatrick, Congressman 
     Miller, thank you for inviting me here today. I am not so 
     sure I can thank you for having me follow Jose Enriquez, 
     Randall Wallace and the President of the United States, 
     though. What allowed me to be here today, I think, is Gabby's 
     condition. It continues to improve. Every day she gets a 
     little bit better and the neurosurgeons and neurologists tell 
     me that that is a great sign. The slope of that curve is very 
     important. It is good to be here at an event that has become 
     such an important part of our national dialogue. As you can 
     imagine, the last month has been the hardest time of my life 
     and the hardest time of my family's life. It was on January 
     8th, just four weeks ago on Saturday, that Gabby's life and 
     my life have forever been changed. And we are not the only 
     ones; the shooting has cost other families dearly. Gabby's 
     community in Tucson, my community in Tucson, the people of 
     Tucson are suffering. Suffering deeply, but suffering 
     together. When something like this happens it's natural to 
     think, how? Why could this happen? Why were six people 
     killed? Why was a nine year old girl, an innocent child, 
     killed who just wanted to meet her Congresswoman? Why was 
     Gabby shot through her head and left barely clinging to life? 
     We can't ever know the answers to these questions. We won't. 
     But, thankfully, miraculously, Gabby survives.
       I was telling Gabby just the other night, two nights ago 
     that maybe this event, this terrible event, was fate. I 
     hadn't been a big believer in fate until recently. I thought 
     the world just spins and the clock just ticks and things 
     happen for no particular reason. President Lincoln was a big 
     believer in fate. He said ``the Almighty has His own 
     purposes.'' He believed that there was a larger plan. I can 
     only hope and I told Gabby the other night that maybe it is 
     possible that this is just one small part of that same plan. 
     That this event, horrible and tragic, was not merely random, 
     that maybe something good can come from all this. Maybe, it's 
     our responsibility. Maybe it's your responsibility to see 
     that something does.
       As many of you know, I'm an astronaut. I've been fortunate 
     on three separate occasions in my life to look down at this 
     planet from space. We orbit the earth at about nearly the 
     same distance that Washington is from my home in West Orange, 
     New Jersey--but from space far above that traffic on the New 
     Jersey Turnpike, you have an entirely different perspective 
     of life on our planet.
       It's humbling to see the earth as God created it in the 
     context of God's vast universe. Many of you may also know 
     that my twin brother Scott is also an astronaut. And through 
     this very difficult time, he has been aboard the 
     International Space Station. It's a really tough place to be 
     when your twin brother and your family, and the nation, is 
     going through something that is so difficult. He was asked by 
     several journalists what it's been like to be so far away and 
     unable to return to his family during this time, and I think 
     what he said bears repeating. Scott said, ``What we do here 
     in space is incredibly challenging. Our country faces a lot 
     of challenges and the way we address those challenges is 
     through teamwork. And I'd like to see more teamwork with more 
     people not only in government but everyone in meeting the 
     challenges our country faces. Hopefully if anything good can 
     come from this, it's that we learn to work better together.'' 
     Scott concluded by saying, ``We are better than this. We must 
     do better.'' My brother is right, I know we will do better, 
     and I know that prayer must be part of that effort.
       One morning when Gabby was still in Tucson at the Tucson 
     University Medical Center, I was outside visiting that 
     memorial that just sprung up on the grass in front of the 
     hospital. It isn't a formal religious site but there is a lot 
     of religious material that people left there on the lawn--
     Bibles, angels, prayers. And the people of Arizona have 
     turned that place into a place of prayer, a pilgrimage site. 
     On that particular morning there was no wind, there were 
     candles burning on the lawn, hundreds of them, and it was 
     like stepping into a church, a place with heaven itself as a 
     ceiling. That reminded me that you don't need a church, a 
     temple or a mosque to pray. You don't even need a building or 
     walls or even an altar. You pray where you are. You pray when 
     God is there in your heart and prayer isn't just asking, it's 
     also listening for answers and expressing gratitude, which 
     I've done a lot lately.
       With that, I'd like to conclude with a prayer that my 
     wife's Rabbi, Rabbi Stephanie Aaron who married us, said over 
     Gabby's hospital bed on the first night when this happened on 
     January 8. Rabbi Aaron said, and this is my prayer:
       ``In the name of God, our God of Israel, may Michael, God's 
     angel, messenger of compassion, watch over your right side. 
     May Gabriel, God's angel, messenger of strength and courage, 
     be on your left. And before you, guiding your path, Uriel, 
     God's angel of light, and behind you, supporting you, stands 
     Raphael, God's angel of healing. And over your head 
     surrounding you is the presence of the Divine.''
        Thank you. God bless you and please, please, please 
     continue to keep Gabby's thoughts and prayers in your heart, 
     it is really helping. Thank you.
       Congressman Miller: I would ask that you all remain in your 
     places to allow the President and the First Lady to depart. 
     Thank you so much for coming Mr. President and thank you for 
     bringing Mrs. Obama with you today.
       Congresswoman Kirkpatrick: Jeff, it's been quite a morning, 
     and thank you again for being co-chair with me on this. Thank 
     you and God bless you and now go and make peace.

                          ____________________