Worth Repeating Todd J. Williams

It has been two decades since that fateful day that forever changed our nation. We vowed never to forget and the implications and consequences of those acts of terror are still with us today. The night of the attacks, President Bush went before Americans and gave a simple, brief, and clear speech. It is not the eloquence or power of it that makes it Worth repeating. It is when it was delivered; on the night of a day we should never forget. The use of Psalm 23 is an eternal comfort and I am glad he used it. It spoke to me twenty years ago and still does today.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was in a very dark place in 1863 when he wrote this poem that would eventually be set to music and come to be known as I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. He lost his wife in 1861 in a horrific way. Still grieving, Longfellow wrote in his journal on December 25, 1862, "A merry Christmas' say the children, but that is no more for me."  In 1863 his son who enlisted to fight in the Civil War was gravely wounded in battle. Longfellow was nursing him back to health at home. Deeply depressed and despairing on that Christmas morning 1863, he heard the bells, and the rest is history.

President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is more than iconic. It is impactful, profound, and inspiring. It is historically significant and worth not only repeating, but remembering. Only a few minutes long, embarrassingly brief by the standards for oratory of the day, Lincoln's speech evokes the most profound idea of the American founding, "that all men are created equal". This principle which is so essential to democratic society yet so hard for human nature to embrace, express, and experience in its fullest cannot be forgotten. In 1863, Lincoln called the nation to live up to this ideal, to not allow the to dead to have died in vain by quitting and failing to bring to realization for all the inherent equality that all humans posses in the eyes of God.

This podcast is excerpted from a speech given in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan at Memorial Day Ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery. It is brief, but poignant and profound and very "Reaganesque". This national holiday is set aside to commemorate and remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms, but it should also cause us to reflect upon what is worth dying for and fighting for and how we might live worthy of the sacrifices made for us. It should also cause us to be grateful for, and to, the men and women presently serving our nation, who have not volunteered to die, as President Reagan reminds us, but volunteered to defend values which people have always been willing to die if need be. Thank you to the fallen, and to those who stand today in defense of freedom.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow captures a character portrait in poetry. One we can learn from. One we can draw inspiration from. One we can share with our children and grandchildren. Published in 1840, early in Longfellow's career, this poem has stood the test of time but is less familiar to us today. That's too bad. It is rich. I memorized it in high school and couldn't figure out why at the time. Now, it makes more sense. Life is to be lived, and character is forged in it, shaped upon the anvil of experience. Steady, strong, true, present, and engaged. Not a bad way to be. Not a bad way to live. But we only get there through the fire and the pounding and the pressing on.

In these days of the COVID19 crisis, it is easy to lose sight of the love and power and sovereign care of God, easy to fear, easy to grieve the loss of comforts of easier days. But the power, grace and mercy of God are real and sustain us. He will keep us and give us strength. The prayers in The Valley of Vision are honest, biblical, profound, and eloquent. They are the product of puritan faith and are beautiful expressions of emotional and spiritual transparency. This particular prayer is a fitting one. May it bless and encourage you.