by netage | Additional Articles |
Zuni Mythology (New Mexico)
As it was with the first men and creatures, so it was with the world. It was young and unripe. Earthquakes shook the world and rent it. Demons and monsters of the under-world fled forth. Creatures became fierce, beasts of prey, and others turned timid, becoming their quarry. Wretchedness and hunger abounded and black magic. Fear was everywhere among them, so the people, in dread of their precious possessions, became wanderers, living on the seeds of grass, eaters of dead and slain things. Yet, guided by the Beloved Twain, they sought in the light and under the pathway of the Sun, the Middle of the world, over which alone they could find the earth at rest(1).
When the tremblings grew still for a time, the people paused at the First of Sitting Places. Yet they were still poor and defenseless and unskilled, and the world still moist and unstable. Demons and monsters fled from the earth in times of shaking, and threatened wanderers.
Then the Two took counsel of each other. The Elder said the earth must be made more stable for men and the valleys where their children rested. If they sent down their fire bolts of thunder, aimed to all the four regions, the earth would heave up and down, fire would, belch over the world and burn it, floods of hot water would sweep over it, smoke would blacken the daylight, but the earth would at last be safer for men.
So the Beloved Twain let fly the thunderbolts.
The mountains shook and trembled, the plains cracked and crackled under the floods and fires, and the hollow places, the only refuge of men and creatures, grew black and awful. At last thick rain fell, putting out the fires. Then water flooded the world, cutting deep trails through the mountains, and burying or uncovering the bodies of things and beings. Where they huddled together and were blasted thus, their blood gushed forth and flowed deeply, here in rivers, there in floods, for gigantic were they. But the blood was charred and blistered and blackened by the fires into the black rocks of the lower mesas(2). There were vast plains of dust, ashes, and cinders, reddened like the mud of the hearth place. Yet many places behind and between the mountain terraces were unharmed by the fires, and even then green grew the trees and grasses and even flowers bloomed. Then the earth became more stable, and drier, and its lone places less fearsome since monsters of prey were changed to rock.
But ever and again the earth trembled and the people were troubled.
“Let us again seek the Middle,” they said. So they traveled far eastward to their second stopping place, the Place of Bare Mountains.
Again the world rumbled, and they traveled into a country to a place called Where-tree-boles-stand-in-the-midst-of-waters. There they remained long, saying, “This is the Middle.” They built homes there. At times they met people who had gone before, and thus they learned war. And many strange things happened there, as told in speeches of the ancient talk.
Then when the earth groaned again, the Twain bade them go forth, and they murmured. Many refused and perished miserably in their own homes, as do rats in falling trees, or flies in forbidden food.
But the greater number went forward until they came to Steam-mist-in-the-midst-of-waters. And they saw the smoke of men’s hearth fires and many houses scattered over the hills before them. When they came nearer, they challenged the people rudely, demanding who they were and why there, for in their last standing-place they had had touch of war.
“We are the People of the Seed,” said the men of the hearth-fires, “born elder brothers of ye, and led of the gods.”
“No,” said our fathers, “we are led of the gods and we are the Seed People . . . ”
Long lived the people in the town on the sunrise slope of the mountains of Kahluelawan, until the earth began to groan warningly again. Loath were they to leave the place of the Kaka and the lake of their dead. But the rumbling grew louder and the Twain Beloved called, and all together they journeyed eastward, seeking once more the Place of the Middle. But they grumbled amongst themselves, so when they came to a place of great promise, they said, “Let us stay here. Perhaps it may be the Place of the Middle.”
So they built houses there, larger and stronger than ever before, and more perfect, for they were strong in numbers and wiser, though yet unperfected as men. They called the place “The Place of Sacred Stealing.”
Long they dwelt there, happily, but growing wiser and stronger, so that, with their tails and dressed in the skins of animals, they saw they were rude and ugly.
In chase or in war, they were at a disadvantage, for they met older nations of men with whom they fought. No longer they feared the gods and monsters, but only their own kind. So therefore the gods called a council.
Changed shall ye be, oh our children, “cried the Twain.” Ye shall walk straight in the pathways, clothed in garments, and without tails, that ye may sit more straight in council, and without webs to your feet, or talons on your hands.”
So the people were arranged in procession like dancers. And the Twain with their weapons and fires of lightning shored off the forelocks hanging down over their faces, severed the talons, and slitted the webbed fingers and toes. Sore was the wounding and loud cried the foolish, when lastly the people were arranged in procession for the razing of their tails.
But those who stood at the end of the line, shrinking farther and farther, fled in their terror, climbing trees and high places, with loud chatter. Wandering far, sleeping ever in tree tops, in the far-away Summerland, they are sometimes seen of far-walkers, long of tail and long handed, like wizened men-children.
But the people grew in strength, and became more perfect, and more than ever went to war. They grew vain. They had reached the Place of the Middle. They said, “Let us not wearily wander forth again even though the earth tremble and the Twain bid us forth.”
And even as they spoke, the mountain trembled and shook, though far-sounding.
But as the people changed, changed also were the Twain, small and misshapen, hard-favored and unyielding of will, strong of spirit, evil and bad. They taught the people to war, and led them far to the eastward.
At last the people neared, in the midst of the plains to the eastward, great towns built in the heights. Great were the fields and possessions of this people, for they knew how to command and carry the waters, bringing new soil. And this, too, without hail or rain. So our ancients, hungry with long wandering for new food, were the more greedy and often gave battle.
It was here that the Ancient Woman of the Elder People, who carried her heart in her rattle and was deathless of wounds in the body, led the enemy, crying out shrilly. So it fell out ill for our fathers. For, moreover, thunder raged and confused their warriors, rain descended and blinded them, stretching their bow strings of sinew and quenching the flight of their arrows as the flight of bees is quenched by the sprinkling plume of the honey-hunter. But they devised bow strings of yucca and the Two Little Ones sought counsel of the Sun-father who revealed the life-secret of the Ancient Woman and the magic powers over the under-fires of the dwellers of the mountains, so that our enemy in the mountain town was overmastered. And because our people found in that great town some hidden deep in the cellars, and pulled them out as rats are pulled from a hollow cedar, and found them blackened by the fumes of their war magic, yet wiser than the common people, they spared them and received them into their next of kin of the Black Corn. . . .
But the tremblings and warnings still sounded, and the people searched for the stable Middle.
Now they called a great council of men and the beasts, birds, and insects of all kinds. After a long council it was said,
“Where is Water-skate? He has six legs, all very long. Perhaps he can feel with them to the uttermost of the six regions, and point out the very Middle.”
So Water-skate was summoned. But lo! It was the Sun-father in his likeness which appeared. And he lifted himself to the zenith and extended his finger-feet to all the six regions, so that they touched the north, the great waters; the west, and the south, and the east, the great waters; and to the northeast the waters above. and to the southwest the waters below. But to the north his finger foot grew cold, so he drew it in. Then gradually he settled down upon the earth and said, “Where my heart rests, mark a spot, and build a town of the Mid-most, for there shall be the Mid-most Place of the Earth-mother.”
And his heart rested over the middle of the plain and valley of Zuni. And when he drew in his finger-legs, lo! there were the trail-roads leading out and in like stays of a spider’s nest, into and from the mid-most place he had covered.
Here because of their good fortune in finding the stable Middle, the priest father called the town the Abiding-place-of-happy-fortune.
(1) The earth was flat and round, like a plate.
(2) Lava.
by netage | Additional Articles |
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.
We spend more, but have less. We buy more, but enjoy less.
We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time.
We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life.
We’ve added years to life not life to years.
We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space.
We’ve done larger things, but not better things.
We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul.
We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice.
We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait.
We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships.
These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes.
These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill.
It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.
Remember, spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.
Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.
Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.
Remember, to say, “I love you” to your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
To all my friends in my life, thanks for being MY FRIEND!
by netage | Additional Articles |
by John R Mabry
Progressive Catholics have long cherished Teilhard de Chardin and his unique and mystical vision, and for those of us who have only recently discovered the New Cosmology, his discovery is as great an epiphany as the encountering of Hildegard, Julian of Norwich, or any of the other mystics who testify to Divine immanence. Teilhard was a man possessed of rare vision who was capable of remythologizing his faith to fit the “facts” that his scientific studies convinced him of. His was not a God “out there” who disapproved of humans hypothesizing about or even tampering with the Creation. His God was an organic entity who lived and breathed the life and breath of the Creation, a Creator who was simultaneously giving birth to and being born from the magnificent organism of the universe. His views are profoundly Creation-centered, and are worthy of our present consideration not only because his thought was ahead of its time, but because his predictions;which seemed so unlikely in his own time;are coming to pass unnoticed beneath our very noses…More
by netage | Additional Articles |
Eric Raymond
I was raised Catholic by a Catholic father and a relaxed Protestant mother. I had my first mystical experience in 1967 at the age of 10, at an old-style Latin Tridentine mass in the hills outside Rome, as the priests were censing the aisle of the church during the Offertory. It presented itself as a sudden, intense sense of being in a moment outside time, an eternal instant co-existing with every other eternal instants of history, with the illusion of time and change stripped away. “As it was in the Beginning, is now, and ever shall be, World without End, amen” conveys the flavor exactly…More
by netage | Additional Articles |
Joshua Lacroix
Every four years the capital celebrates the ritual of the Inauguration. A ceremony that consecrates a solemn event, the swearing-in of the President elect. The oath of office is a re-enactment of the civil religious anointing of the President; the embodiment and guarantor of democracy.
I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend, the constitution of the United States.
The Inauguration is deeply rooted in tradition. In 1789 George Washington became the first President in a ceremony held in New York city.
The first chief justice of New York state, John Jay, thought that the swearing-in lacked legitimacy without a Bible and requested that one should be provided for the ceremony. None could be found in the Federal Hall were the first inauguration was held. Ironically, a Bible from a neighborhood Masonic Lodge was borrowed to proceed with the ceremony.
George Washington inaugurated the first swearing-in with his hand on the Bible. He also kissed the Bible after taking the oath of office. Although most presidents use a Bible, some Presidents have opted to affirm their oath rather than swear to it.
The Constitution does not mention anything about the Inauguration ceremonials. Nor that the President must place his hand on the Bible while taking the oath of office. We owe these antecedents to George Washington. He also added the words:
So Help me God
Thomas Jefferson was the first President to be sworn in Washington D.C. in 1801. The inauguration has been basically the same ever since with each President adding their own unique traditions along the way. A celebration that includes an Inaugural Day church service, the swearing-in at the Capitol, the inaugural parade and several inaugural balls.
A Deist Perspective
George Washington was a free mason and a deist. The Washington National Monument, a most visible structure of the political capital, was financed and built by the free masons in honor of their great brethren.
Even though the first President was a deist, he nevertheless inaugurated the use of the Bible for the swearing-in. The “deist believes in the existence of God or supreme being but denies revealed religion, basing his beliefs on the light of nature and reason”. The classical Deist comparison, also adopted by the free masons, relates that God is like a clock-maker. God wound up the clock at the beginning of the world once and for all, so it can run on and produce world history.
Foremost the Deist relies on nature and reason to understand God’s design in the universe. The Deist does not believe in the “revealed” word related in holy books of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc… Deism views “God as an eternal entity whose power is equal to his/her will”. A quote from Einstein is often used to describe an eloquent deist view of God:
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
Typically Deists do not believe in God’s intervention in human affairs. However, some deists believe that God did intervene (providence) on behalf of George Washington in the most historical and crucial moments of his life.
Revelation
For the Judeo-Christian and Muslim traditions God revealed Himself in the holy texts of the Bible or the Koran. These sacred books reveal the manifest Presence of God in the world and to the world. It is through His chosen divine “revelation” that God manifest himself in these holy texts.
For the religious, God is not a power in the background, but IS the mysterious and inmost grounds of Being. For the Christian believer this revelation can only be found in the Bible.
Deism, Revelation and Heresy
It is one of the paradoxes of the United States that a Deist would put his hand on the Bible as he is inaugurated as the first President. An even greater paradox that a born-again Christian would follow suit thereafter. Both contradicting their own beliefs and the sacred text on which they have laid their hand…
Matthew 5:33 Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
Contribution by Ray Soller:
In the article: The Inauguration: A Deist Antecedent, Joshua Lacroix wrote:
The Constitution does not mention anything about the Inauguration ceremonials. Nor that the President must place his hand on the Bible while taking the oath of office. We owe these antecedents to George Washington. He also added the words: “So Help me God” (SHMG).
Recently Washington’s religion has been described as a “theistic rationalist” (Realistic Visionary – A Portrait of George Washington), a term that has been coined by Gregg Frazer. When reflecting back upon Washington’s personal religion, it is surprising that he would have added the words, “So help me God.”
The fact is that all firsthand historical records describe the first twenty presidents as swearing to their oath of office exactly as prescribed by the Constitution. Most people believe that the practice of concluding the presidential oath with SHMG started with George Washington. However, in spite of the widespread notion to the contrary, there is no contemporary historical evidence showing that George Washington added anything to his presidential oath of office, or that any of Washington’s successors for the next 150 years actually recognized adding “So help me God” as a traditional part of the inauguration. The first President, who is known to have added those words to his presidential oath, is Chester Allen Arthur. He appended SHMG to his oath when he was sworn into office on Sept. 22, 1881 after the death of President Garfield. Later on, several other presidents during the first third of the 20th Century adopted this practice. The last President, who did not use those words, was Herbert Hoover.
One may say that a President can choose to add these words to the presidential oath, but it is a clear violation of the Constitution, and surely not a good idea for a judicial official to prompt the President to succumb to a religious test of office. This, unfortunately, has been the unbroken practice since FDR’s Inaugural Ceremony in 1933, and there is no record that this practice started with George Washington.
A customary place for a President to acknowledge God’s role in our national affairs is the Inaugural Address. In deed all Presidents with one exception have done so. Washington’s second Inaugural Ceremony, in contrast to his first (where Chancellor Livingston, a fellow Mason, most likely, requested a Bible; where Madison drafted Washington’s Inaugural Address; and where Congress laid out the concluding church service), was one which Washington managed completely. There was no planned church service, or official prayer. Furthermore, there were no reports of a Bible being present, or Washington saying, “So help me God.”
The practice of adding “So help me God” to federal oaths outside of the courtroom began in 1862 with the Iron-clad Test Oath during the Civil War. It was supposed to keep Confederate sympathizers from participating in the Federal Government. It may well have been a counter-measure designed to offset the psychological impact that followed when Jefferson Davis repeated “So help me God” as he took his oath of office for the Confederacy. It wasn’t until President Arthur’s administration that the federal oath was restored to a degree of normalcy, and stripped of its designed Civil War anti-Confederate hostilities. As you are probably well aware, Congress preferred to retain the “So help me God” anomaly.
The notion that George Washington, as the President of the Constitutional Convention, would, at any subsequent time, disregard the concerted effort of the convention delegates and spatchcock the presidential oath is an unsubstantiated Orwellian legend.
I hope that you can find this information helpful.
Sincerely, Ray Soller
Additional information:
www.inaugural.senate.gov/history/index.html
http://www.constitutioncenter.org/visiting/CalendarofEvents/Events/2007_02_06_17077.shtml
by netage | Additional Articles |
President Dwight D Eisenhower (1961)
My fellow Americans:
Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.
This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.
Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.
My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.
In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.
II.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.
III.
Throughout America’s adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology — global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle — with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research — these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs — balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage — balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.
IV.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
V.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
VI.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war — as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years — I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.
VII.
So — in this my last good night to you as your President — I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.
You and I — my fellow citizens — need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation’s great goals.
To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America’s prayerful and continuing aspiration:
We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.
