    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [February 1, 1996]
    [Pages 118-120]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast
    February 1, 1996

        Thank you very much. Senator Bennett, Vice President and Mrs. Gore,
    Mr. Speaker, Senator Nunn, and Members of Congress who are here, and
    members of the Supreme Court, Joint Chiefs, other public officials, to
    our guests from around the world and my fellow Americans: Let me begin
    by saying that most of what I would like to have said on my best day was
    said better today by Sam Nunn. All during his speech I kept saying to
    myself, I'm gladder today that I prayed for him not to leave the
    Congress than I was the day I prayed for it. But I also know with a
    heart and a mind and a spirit like that, there is a great, powerful
    service still awaiting Senator Nunn in whatever he should decide to do.
        I thank Sam Nunn and Alan Simpson and my neighbor Sonny Montgomery
    and all those who are here who are retiring from the United States
    Congress this year for the service that they have rendered to their
    constituents and to the American people.
        I never hear it done here, but I think we all ought to give a warm
    round of applause to all these people who work their hearts out every
    year so that we can have this prayer breakfast, Doug Coe and all of his
    associates. I am grateful to them. [Applause]
        And Hillary and I join all of you in praying for Billy Graham and
    for his wonderful wife, Ruth, and for their family.
        I'm still glad to be here, even though I don't think I need to say
    much now. I know one thing: We've got a lot to pray about here in
    Washington. We've got a lot of conflict. We've got an abundance of
    cynicism. We have to worry about a loss of trust in our public
    institutions all across the country.
        I disagree with Pete Geren. I think it was Harry Truman who said,
    ``If you want a friend in Washington, you need to buy a dog.'' I think
    of what Benjamin Franklin said; he said, ``Our enemies are our friends,
    for they show us our faults.'' Well, as someone who has had more of his
    faults shown, real and imagined, than anyone else, I think we all have a
    lot of friends here in Washington. [Laughter]
        I was thinking last night about what we really want out of this
    prayer breakfast. And I was up late reading, and I came across something
    King David said in the Fourth Psalm. You know, David knew something
    about leadership and courage and human failing. He said in his psalm to
    God, ``Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.'' ``Thou hast
    enlarged me when I was in distress.'' So I pray that when we leave here
    today, by the words of Senator Nunn, the readings of the Scripture, the
    remarks of others, we shall all be enlarged in spirit, not only for our
    public work but for our private trials. I look out here, and I see
    friends of mine in both parties whom I know today have trials in their
    own families, in challenges of the heart they must face. And we leave
    here in the prayer that we will be enlarged.
        Sam Nunn talked about the family and what Government cannot do. I
    ask that when we leave here we say a prayer for our families, to lift up
    those who are working hard to stay together and overcome the problems
    they face, to lift up those who are helping others to make and to build
    families. It is a rewarding thing to see the divorce rate leveling off
    and the teen pregnancy rate going down and the first indications that
    America may be coming back together around the values that made this a
    great nation. But we need to support those efforts. There

    [[Page 119]]

    may not be much we can do here as lawmakers. Hillary said in her book
    that ``til death do us part'' has often become ``til the going gets
    tough.'' It may be that it ought to be a little harder to get a divorce
    where children are involved.
        But whatever we do with the law, we know that ultimately this is an
    affair of the heart, an affair of the heart that has enormous economic
    and political and social implications for America but, most importantly,
    has moral implications because families are ordained by God as a way of
    giving children and their parents the chance to live up to the fullest
    of their God-given capacities. And when we save them and strengthen
    them, we overcome the notion that self-gratification is more important
    than our obligations to others, we overcome the notion that is so
    prevalent in our culture that life is just a series of responses to
    impulses and, instead, is a whole pattern with a fabric that should be
    pleasing to our God.
        I applaud what Senator Nunn said about our children, for with them
    it is more true than in any other area of our life that it is in giving
    that we receive. I ask that we pray for those who are trying to make
    strong our communities and our Nation and our Nation's connection to
    people of like minds and real needs around the world. For that, too, is
    a part of family life. We would be a better country if our communities
    and our country acted more like the best family, where we all played our
    part, including the Government, where we all did for ourselves and tried
    to help each other. Humanity's impulse is to reach outward to the poor
    and homeless in need; to the striving who seek a hand up, not a handout;
    to the stricken from here to the Middle East, to Haiti, to Bosnia; to
    the Earth, which needs our help in preserving the temple God gave us.
        Sometimes I think we forget in America how privileged we are to be
    looked to, to extend the bonds of family beyond our border. When Hillary
    and I were served breakfast here today, the gentleman who was serving us
    leaned over and he said, ``Mr. President, I am so grateful for what the
    United States did in Haiti. I came here 30 years ago from Haiti, but it
    is still my country, and now it's free.''
        When I met the foreign dignitaries, I was going through the line and
    there standing was the mayor of Tuzla. For every American in uniform, he
    is now our mayor, and we are a part of his family efforts to bring peace
    and freedom to all the people of Bosnia.
        Galatians says, ``Let everyone bear his own burden,'' and then just
    a couple of verses later says, ``Bear one another's burdens.'' Would
    God, through Saint Paul, have given us such contradictory advice? No, I
    don't think so. I think being personally responsible and reaching out to
    others are the two sides of humanity's coin. And we cannot live full
    lives, we cannot be enlarged, unless we do both.
        So I ask all of you, beyond praying for our families, to pray for us
    here in Washington to make the right decisions about how we should
    enlarge and strengthen the family of our communities, our Nation, and
    our ties to the world.
        Finally, I ask you to pray for us to have a more charitable attitude
    toward one another, leaders and citizens alike. I was aghast and deeply
    saddened yesterday when I read in one of the newspapers all of us read
    around here--probably when we shouldn't some days--that a citizen of a
    State of this country had described one of his Representatives in
    Congress as a heathen, a Representative who is a genuine, true national
    hero. But I must say that the citizen would get a lot of ammunition for
    that just by watching the fights here.
        What I want to say to all of you is that the disagreements we have
    had here in this last year have been very important and not just
    political and not just partisan. They have been part of the debate
    America must have as we move into a new era. But we need to conduct them
    with a great sense of humility. We need to show the right attitude
    toward those with whom we disagree, even when we feel wronged.
        I received a letter a few days ago from a very devout Jew who is a
    good friend of the Vice President's and mine, and he was talking about
    injustice. He said, in the matter of injustice, as awful as it is, it is
    always--always--better to endure it than to inflict it. We have to reach
    across these divisions.
        In these 50 hours of budget discussions the Speaker and I had with
    the Vice President and Senator Dole and Senator Daschle and Mr. Gephardt
    and Mr. Armey, in some ways I wish all of you could have seen it,
    because they were remarkably free of cant and politics, and I learned a
    lot. I owe them a lot.
        Believe it or not, we're not supposed to talk about what happened,
    but two things that happened--there were two different occasions

    [[Page 120]]

    where I found myself in the minority but in agreement with Mr. Armey, on
    two issues. And I thought to myself, I can't let this get out; he'll
    lose his leadership position. [Laughter]
        Our friend Sonny Montgomery read that wonderful passage from
    Corinthians in his first reading. I would ask you to remember, all of
    you, how that passage is worded in the King James Bible: ``Now we see
    through a glass darkly. Now I know in part.'' Every one of us is subject
    to error in judgment as a part of the human condition. And that is why
    the last chapter of that magnificent verse says, ``Now abideth these
    three, faith, hope, and charity, and the greatest of these is charity.''
    We need a charitable outlook in our feelings and our dealings toward
    those with whom we disagree, because we do not know as we are known by
    God.
        So let us pray that our families will be stronger. Let us pray that
    the impulse of our families and those values will help us as leaders to
    make our communities, our Nation, and our work in the world stronger.
    Let us pray for a stronger sense of humility in our own efforts and a
    much stronger sense of charity toward the efforts of others. Let us know
    always that the spirit of God is among us when we permit it to be.
        When Hillary and I went to Ireland a few weeks ago and saw the
    yearning for peace there in the eyes of the Catholics and the
    Protestants, we had the honor to meet the Irish Nobel Prize-winning
    poet, Seamus Heaney, and I had the honor of quoting one of his wonderful
    lines, in hoping that I really was there at a time when, to use his
    words, ``hope and history rhyme.''
        This can be such a time, I am convinced, only--only--if we are
    charitable, if we are family, and if we act according to the spirit of
    God. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad
    in it.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:42 a.m. at the Washington Hilton Hotel.
    In his remarks, he referred to evangelist Billy Graham; Representative
    Pete Geren; and Mayor Selim Bslagic of Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina.