On This Day, We Gather Because We

If Everything Seems To Be The Same And No Distinctions Are Made, Then We Won't Know What To Protect. We Won't Know What To Fight For.

When The United States Stands Up For Human Rights, By Example At Home And By Effort Abroad, We Align Ourselves With Men And Women Around The World Who Struggle For The Right To Speak Their Minds, To Choose Their Leaders, And To Be Treated With Dignity And Respect. We Also Strengthen Our Security And Well Being, Because The Abuse Of Human Rights Can Feed Many Of The Global Dangers That We Confront - From Armed Conflict And Humanitarian Crises, To Corruption And The Spread Of Ideologies That Promote Hatred And Violence.

So I Came To My Christian Faith Later In Life, And It Was Because The Precepts Of Jesus Christ Spoke To Me In Terms Of The Kind Of Life That I Would Want To Lead. Jesus Christ Dying For My Sins Spoke To The Humility We All Have To Have As Human Beings, That We're Sinful And We're Flawed And We Make Mistakes, And That We Achieve Salvation Through The Grace Of God.

But Today, Just A Few Years Into The Twenty-first Century, We Already Find Ourselves In A Different And Precarious Position. As Revolutions In Communications And Technology Have Broken Down Barriers Across The World, It Has Given More Power To Both Our Competitors And Our Enemies.

Reflecting On His Years In Prison, Nelson Mandela Wrote That There Were Dark Moments That Tested His Faith In Humanity, But He Refused To Give Up.