[Page H4535]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 PRAYER

  The Chaplain, the Reverend Margaret Grun Kibben, offered the 
following prayer:
  God, our creator, You who have reached out to us in love and graced 
us, undeservedly, with gifts of encouragement, opportunity, and 
responsibility, make Your will known to us this day.
  Reach out to us again and break through the noise of our own making, 
the disparate sounds of our voices and competing volitions which deafen 
us to hearing the wisdom You offer us.
  Grant us again Your mercy, as unworthy as we are, and reveal to us 
how our efforts to fix things, to settle accounts, and effect our own 
outcomes have veered widely from the faith You ask of us and the trust 
You want from us.
  Put a fresh heart in us that it would reflect Your desire for peace 
and amity. Invigorate and motivate our work that it would advance Your 
intentions for the challenging moments in which we find ourselves, and 
enliven with Your spirit and inspire the words that we use that they 
would reveal the love You would have us share in our dealings with each 
other.
  Lord of our lives, we lay our own will down that Your will only will 
be done.
  With the strength found in You, we call on Your name as we offer our 
prayers this day.
  Amen.

                          ____________________