Remembering 9/11
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty." - John F. Kennedy, 01/20/1961
"To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." Abraham Lincoln, 03/04/1865
Lincoln was speaking of slavery and the civil war, but when I read this on the wall of the Lincoln memorial two years ago, it struck such a chord with the present that I haven't forgotten it.
Finally, Ecclisiastes 3, as quoted by Yitzhak Rabin, 09/13/1993, at the signing of the Oslo Accords:
"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to love, and a time to hate; A time of war; and a time of peace."
May we all see peace in our lifetimes.
"To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." Abraham Lincoln, 03/04/1865
Lincoln was speaking of slavery and the civil war, but when I read this on the wall of the Lincoln memorial two years ago, it struck such a chord with the present that I haven't forgotten it.
Finally, Ecclisiastes 3, as quoted by Yitzhak Rabin, 09/13/1993, at the signing of the Oslo Accords:
"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to love, and a time to hate; A time of war; and a time of peace."
May we all see peace in our lifetimes.