Senate Confirms Kerry
The Associated Press reports that the Senate has confirmed John Kerry as Secretary of State with a 94-3 vote. Earlier today, the Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved the nomination. Kerry, a Vietnam veteran and five-term Senator, replaces Hillary Clinton as Secretary.
Verse of the Day: The Sabbath
Voice of the Day: Anne Frank
Prayer of the Day: Doubt
How merciful are you, O Lord, when you receive us even with our doubts and suspicions. We pray to keep tiptoeing toward you without fear of rejection. We pray to keep up our feeble attempts at serving you even when we question the worth of our efforts. Amen.
-From Common Prayer
Prayer of the Day: Technology
Lord, I am so often overtaken by machines, trapped by technology. Help me to find my life again, enhanced and not eroded by these technical aids. Help me to take control, at least in my heart, and put them in their place. Help me, Lord, to rejoice at the machines, and to be hopeful about the future benefits they can bring. May technology serve us Lord, so that we may better serve one another, and you. Amen
Adapted from a prayer on aftersunday.org.uk
Verse of the Day: You Shall Be Alike
As for the assembly, there shall be for both you and the resident alien a single statute, a perpetual statute throughout your generations; you and the alien shall be alike before the Lord. You and the alien who resides with you shall have the same law and the same ordinance.
- Numbers 15:15-16
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Prayer of the Day: 'Make it Our Instinct'
Lord, when one of us hungers, make it our instinct to feed. When one of us is displaced, make it our instinct to share our home. When one of us is called illegal, make it our instinct to advocate for our sister's rights. May we find our peace in the peace of the places to which you have called us. Amen.
Verse of the Day: 'Do Not Oppress the Alien'
Verse of the Day: Entertained Angels
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Voice of the Day: Mark L. Taylor
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Prayer of the Day: Sick
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Prayer of the Day: Fear of the Other
Lord, we recognize that too often fear of those who are different from us drives our actions and thoughts. Help us to love our neighbors and seek to understand them instead of dehumanizing them. Amen.
Voice of the Day: John Muir
Verse of the Day: 'Go and Do Likewise'
Verse of the Day: The Image of God
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’
- Genesis 1:27-28
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Voice of the Day: Thomas Merton
Prayer of the Day: Reconciliation
Dear God, sometimes it is as though all we see around us is a world stricken with conflict. However, your gospel preaches reconciliation to this hurting world. May we be vessels of this reconciliation today as we pursue love in our own relationships.
Inequality and Recovery
Economist Joseph Stiglitz contends that the growing inequality in the U.S. makes an economic recovery more difficult and is leading to the death of the American dream.
“Politicians typically talk about rising inequality and the sluggish recovery as separate phenomena, when they are in fact intertwined. Inequality stifles, restrains and holds back our growth. When even the free-market-oriented magazine The Economist argues — as it did in a special feature in October — that the magnitude and nature of the country’s inequality represent a serious threat to America, we should know that something has gone horribly wrong. And yet, after four decades of widening inequality and the greatest economic downturn since the Depression, we haven’t done anything about it.”