Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff
Chaplain, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Washington, DC
Date of Prayer: 12/30/2019
Opening Prayer Given by the Guest Chaplain:
Almighty God, we pray, reflect, and meditate in different ways, but as a year––a decade ends––and 2020 begins, may we reaffirm, united, the hope of Langston Hughes: "Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed."
Dreamers dreamed a nation founded on equality, rights; a Constitution established for a more perfect union for liberty, for us, and our posterity. Our votes, oaths, and acts, must reflect those dreams.
With this decade's last House prayer, we give thanks for progress, look ahead with hope, but with eyes wide open to prejudice, hatred, and terror, that remain––fueling violence like the anti–Semitic Hanukkah party attack Saturday; the Texas church attack Sunday––praying, Almighty God, for strength to dream the bravest dream our dreamers dreamed, our people dreamed:
"We shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome, some day. Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome, some day."
And let us say, amen.
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