"A person has to be thoroughly disgusted with the way things are to find the motivation to set out on the Christian way. As long as we think that the next election might eliminate crime and establish justice or another scientific breakthrough might save the environment or another pay raise might push us over the edge of anxiety into a life of tranquility, we are not likely to risk the arduous uncertainties of the life of faith. A person has to get fed up with the ways of the world before he, before she, acquires an appetite for the world of grace."
- Eugene Peterson
Thursday, September 11, 2008
On this day the two quotes below resonate strongly with me.
One is from the pen of a great lion of a statesman from the twentieth century. The other is from a former Secretary of Defense, spoken at the Pentagon this morning.
The first:
I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all....Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder....The second:
Silly people — and there were many, not only in enemy countries — might discount the force of the United States. Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They would never stand blood-letting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyze their war effort. They would just be a vague blur on the horizon to friend or foe. Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy, and talkative people. But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch. American blood flowed in my veins. I thought of a remark which Edward Grey had made to me more than thirty years before — that the United States is "a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate." Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.
— Winston Churchill, The Grand Alliance
Here, beneath the sloping fields of Arlington National Cemetery — fields that hold our nation’s fallen — this building stands as a silent monument to the resolve of a free people. And so too this Memorial in its shadow will stand not only as a symbol of a nation’s grief, but as an eternal reminder of men and women of valor who saw flame and smoke and stepped forward to save and protect the lives of their fellow Americans on September 11th.[H/T The Corner]
Let it also remind us of each of those who have volunteered to serve in our nation’s Armed Forces, before and every day since. Our nation’s military has stood guard in this new age of peril, determined that what happened here, seven years ago, must not happen again.
We have been “acquainted with the night.” We have taken its measure. In the darkest of times, we have stood together. In defiance, our nation has pressed on toward morning. With resolve renewed, and with the certain strength of the American people, our nation will force the dawn.
My constant prayer is that God will bless the families of those we remember this day. And that the good Lord will bless all of those who have lost loved ones in the long struggle that has followed. We are deeply in their debt. And each of us will remain so for the rest of our lives.
- Donald Rumsfeld, The Pentagon, 9/11/2008
Great words. Thanks.