C4K said:
Just a slightly different take on the first 100 days.
I wonder how the first 100 days would go, especially for believers, if we each committed to pray every single day for the new president. It might not change him, but I wonder how our attitudes and spirits might differ after the 100 days.
The First 100 Days is a traditional period of significance for a president. What an opportunity for us to do something tangible.
America the Beautiful
I certainly agree with you. I suggest that we go beyond that. Let's dedicate ourselves to a re-birth of our nation. Let's put aside our differences and each one of use commit ourselves to making America the shining light on the hill once again in the world, that remarkable Camelot where everyone has the chance to make the most of their God-given abilities to achieve their potential and to strengthen the democracy. For God's sake (literally) let's come together as Americans again with a common purpose, freedom and opportunity for all liberals and conservatives alike.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
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Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
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Our Current Crisis
Folks, once again we're in a crisis. It's not a civil war but a financial crisis. It's an opportunity for America to once again step up to the task. As with people, nations are either broken by crises like this one or they are made much stronger. That happened to America in the Revolutionary War, WW1, the 1929 Crash, the Great Depression, WWII, the Cold War, the dot.com bubble crash, and now we face another crossroads of history.
Our patriotism is built on the foundation of memorable statements like the one in the Declaration of Independence.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
On the Statue of Liberty is inscribed:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
As I would characterize this in my '60's dialect, Let's Get it Together again. Not for the liberals or conservatives, not for the Democrats or Republicans but for all of us so that we can forge a 21st century version of Lincoln's memorable vision
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
I'm very serious about this call. This is especially true for Christian Americans. With the Cross in the lead and the American flag behind we can still make a tremendous difference in our world. Let's go for it!
raying: