Condoleezza Rice Addresses 51st Annual National Prayer Breakfast

Thursday, February 6, 2003.

A year ago today, I blogged a bit of Rice's address, noting that I could not find it in its entirety anywhere. I have now discovered that it is available at several places on the World Wide Web, including here. Since webpages come and go, I've decided to blog it now (ellipses in original).

I am greatly honored by the invitation to speak here this morning. It is a day when official Washington gathers not as Republicans or Democrats; not as conservatives or liberals; nor as Christians, Jews, or Muslims. Rather, we are gathered as a fellowship of the faithful who share a love of God and who embrace God’s will and ways – even in moments of pain and loss, like right now, when those ways seem so mysterious to us. Today, our Nation’s thoughts are with the seven brave souls taken from us five mornings ago. We pray that in losing their mortal lives they have found life eternal in His care.

I approach the honor of addressing you with a deep sense of humility. I am not a member of any clergy. I am, however, the daughter, the granddaughter and, indeed, the niece, of ordained Presbyterian ministers. So in some ways this occasion feels very familiar to me.

Sundays in my family meant church. It was the center of our lives. In segregated black Birmingham of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the church was not just a place of worship; it was the social and civic center of our community.

Throughout my life I have never doubted the existence of God, but, like most people, I have had some ups and downs in practicing my faith. After I moved to California in 1981 to join the faculty at Stanford, there were a lot of years when I was not attending church regularly. I was traveling a great deal, always in a different time zone, and going to church too often fell by the wayside.

Then something happened that I will always remember. One Sunday morning I was approached at the supermarket by a man buying some things for his church picnic. He asked me, “Do you play the piano by any chance?” I said, “Yes.” And he said his congregation was looking for someone to play the piano at their church. It was a small African-American church in the center of Palo Alto and I started playing there every Sunday. And I thought to myself, “My goodness, God has a long reach – all the way to a Lucky’s Supermarket in the spice section on a Sunday morning.”

The only problem was, it was a Baptist church and I don’t play gospel very well, unlike our great Attorney General John Ashcroft. I play Brahms. At this church the minister would start with a song and the musicians had to pick it up. I had no idea what I was doing. So I called my mother, who had played for Baptist churches, to ask her for advice. She said, “Honey, just play in C and they’ll come back to you.” And that’s true. If you play in C, the foundational key in music, people will come back. Perhaps God plays in C, and that’s why we always seem to find our way back to Him, sometimes in spite of ourselves.

Looking back on the years since I found my way back, it is hard for me to imagine my life without a strong and active faith. Faith is what gives me comfort, and humility, and hope … even through the darkest hours. Like many people – here and abroad – I have turned to God and prayer more and more this past year and a half, including this past Saturday morning. Terror and tragedy have made us more aware of our vulnerability and our own mortality. We are living through a time of testing and consequence – and praying that our wisdom and will are equal to the work before us. And it is at times like these that we are reminded of a paradox, that it is a privilege to struggle. A privilege to struggle for what is right and true. A privilege to struggle for freedom over tyranny. A privilege, even, to struggle with the most difficult and profound moral choices.

American slaves used to sing, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen – Glory Hallelujah!” Growing up, I would often wonder at the seeming contradiction contained in this line. But as I grew older, I came to learn that there is no contradiction at all.

I believe this same message is found in the Bible in Romans 5, where we are told to “rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.”

For me, this message has two lessons.

First, there is the lesson that only through struggle do we realize the depths of our resilience and understand that the hardest of blows can be survived and overcome. Too often when all is well, we slip into the false joy and satisfaction of the material and a complacent pride and faith in ourselves. Yet it is through struggle that we find redemption and self-knowledge. In this sense it is a privilege to struggle because it frees one from the idea that the human spirit is fragile, like a house of cards, or that human strength is fleeting.

We see this theme in illustrated in sacred texts the world over. In the Book of Job, God tests Job's faith by taking from him everything that he cherishes – his wealth, his health, and his family. Early in his trials, one of Job’s friends counsels him to be patient, saying, "Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth; therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole ... In famine he shall redeem thee from death; and in war from the power of the sword ... And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace ..." In the end, Job's sufferings strengthen his faith and, we are told, he is rewarded with "twice as much as he had before" and he lived "a hundred and forty years" until he was "old and full of days." We learn in times of personal struggle – the loss of a loved one, illness, or turmoil – that there is a peace that passeth understanding. When our intellect is unequal to the task – the spirit takes over, finding peace in the midst of pain is the true fulfillment of one’s humanity.

Struggle doesn’t just strengthen us to survive hard times – it is also the key foundation for true optimism and accomplishment. Indeed, personal achievement without struggle somehow feels incomplete and hollow. It is true too for human kind – because nothing of lasting value has ever been achieved without sacrifice.

There is a second, more important, lesson to be learned from struggle and suffering is that we can use the strength it gives us for the good of others. Nothing good is born of personal struggle if it is used to fuel one’s sense of entitlement, or superiority to those who we perceive to have struggled less than we. Everyone in this room has been blessed, and I am sure we all know that it is dangerous to think about the hand that one has been dealt relative to others if it ends in questioning why someone else has more. It is, on the other hand, sobering and humbling to think about one’s blessings and to ask why you have been given so much when others have so little.

Our goal must not be to get through a struggle so that others can congratulate us on our resilience, nor is it to dwell on struggle as a badge of honor.

Perhaps this is why in describing his personal struggle, the Apostle Paul felt it necessary to say to the Philippians, “Forgetting those things that are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead … I press toward the goal for the price of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” We find a similar idea in the Talmud, which says “one should only pray in a house that has windows” – in order that we may remember the outside world. And in the Hadith, we find Muhammad saying: “No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.”

But to direct the energies from our struggles toward the good of others, we must first let go of the pain, and the bad memories, and the sense of unfairness – of “Why me?” – that inevitably accompany deep personal turmoil.

I believe this lesson applies not only to individuals, but to nations. America emerged from the losses of September 11th as a nation that is not only stronger, but hopefully better and more generous. Tragedy made us appreciate our freedom more – and more conscious of the fact that God gives all people, everywhere, the right to be free. It made us more thankful for our own prosperity, for life, and health – and more aware that all people, everywhere deserve the opportunity to build a better future.

It prompted us to cultivate what the President has called “the habit of service” to others so that the “gathering momentum of millions of acts of kindness” may bring hope to people in desperate need. And perhaps most importantly, September 11th reminded us of our heritage as a tolerant nation; one that welcomes people of all faiths, or no faith at all.

Now, as our Nation once again deals with great loss, with fears and uncertainties, let us once again recommit ourselves to those values which define us. Let us renew our quest for understanding the natural world and all the heavens which God has made. Let us renew our commitment to standing for life, and liberty, and peace for all people. Let us renew our commitment to working with all nations to conquer want, and hunger, and disease in every corner of the globe. Let us accept our responsibility to defend the freedom which we are so privileged to enjoy.

If terror and tragedy spur us to rediscover and strengthen these commitments, then we can truly say that some good has come from great loss. And in all the trials that may lie ahead, we will carry these commitments close to our heart so we may leave a better world for those who follow. This is our prayer for our Nation and our people. This is our prayer for all Nations and all peoples. Lord, hear our prayer.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 02/08/04 12:16:45 PM
Categorized as Social/Cultural & Speeches and Suchlike.