Prayer for America 12/01/05

God, the light has faded from the sky, and the first stars have begun to shine through a velvet night.

Those stars, Lord God, fill me with wonder. Each bright point is one among many and still a brilliant, shining sun in its own right. No matter how brightly they shine, they never blind each other's light. Maybe people could learn something from the stars. But didn't you tell us, Lord, that your words were written in the heavens?

One loves America above all things, for her youth, her greenness, her plasticity, innocence, good intentions, friends, everything. William James, in a letter to Mrs. Henry Whitman, 1899