President Lincoln tells us:

Our reliance is in our love for liberty; our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all people in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and we have planted the seeds of despotism at our own doors.

What is this "spirit which prizes liberty"? In truth, it is not an abstract thing, but a living reality; the spirit is humanity-based, and exhibits our willingness as a species, despite all odds - even bloodshed - to desire and to act upon that desire in attaining liberation, in securing freedom for one and all.

Yes, it is an ideal, but a very palpable one in our one-world community.

This spirit transcends time and culture; specific act or emotion. But it has been specifically and poignantly evidenced this week.

Since Monday morning in New York, Washington, D.C., and Somerset County, PA, the spirit which prizes liberty has soared like never before on American soil - in our hearts and in our actions.

The sheer magnitude of the horrific events of our last few days has caused many of us - to exhibit this spirit. We take pride in our liberty and have felt violated to the core of our being by those who think they can ultimately destroy our cherished way of life in this republic of the United States of America, in this "land of the free and home of the brave," in this place which has served as sanctuary for many over the centuries.

Not that we are perfect as a nation when it comes to treating everyone fairly, but we are damn good, nevertheless!

And that is because of our spirit which prizes liberty - not just for those in the United States, but for all peoples everywhere.

As a means to understand this spirit today, let us go back to another time when we American were also in the midst of bloodshed on our soil.

Even those folk who, during Lincoln's presidency, might not have thought of themselves as "spiritual," did something similar to what some of us, who might not think of ourselves as "spiritual," did this week; something President Lincoln said he did, whenever the events of his life overwhelmed him:

I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day.

From such humility in the face of tragedy, Lincoln gained solace and perspective, and renewal of his spirit in order to fight for liberty. This was how he maintained his desire to keep the spirit of liberty alive within himself and within the American consciousness.

And many of us, being so brutally reminded on September 11, 2001 of how fragile human existence can be, have been humbled by the chaos of terrorism on our own land against our own people and against people from around the world who were also victimized by the execution of random evil.

Indeed, the human spirit can take only so much suffering, despite how strong we might think we are when we are NOT facing grave adversity. It is good, nay, it is wise to close off and find renewal of direction.

Lincoln used the positive effects of his prayer to reactivate his energy, his spirit, so that he might carry on his work of liberating the oppressed.

Lincoln, who never officially joined a church, but said, in affirming his belief in a loving god who wanted all human beings to be free, that if he were ever to become a member of a church, he would join the Universalists.

Lincoln is a good example for us today, I suggest, as we wonder what has happened to us and what we might do next; as we wait to see what President Bush and other national and international leaders are planning to do in addressing these terrible murders of tens of thousands of human beings.

It is wise to turn inward; to turn toward others; to think and speak of both the tenuousness but also of the tenacity of the human spirit which prizes liberty.

But after the praying, then what?

A suggestion comes from one of our great liberating religious leaders of the 20th Century, the Rev. Dana Greeley, and the first President of our Unitarian Universalist Association. In his poem The Concern of Our Church, he is talking about the spirit which prizes liberty when he pens:

Religion must be mystical and meditative
And introspective and personal,
But it must not be exclusively so characterized.

It must also be extraverted
And prophetic and practical,
And consecrated to the reform of mankind and society.

This world and the Kingdom of God on earth
Are the concern of our church.
And we must make the church equal to that concern.

Certainly Lincoln was able to combine both.

And he and Greeley, and all such liberating thinkers and doers, speak to those of us today in this country and around the world who are suffering great loss of courage and direction, or who desiring immediate revenge beyond thinking through the consequences. Such profound minds speak to us today of humanity's possibility in moving beyond the immediate status of pain, informing us to join our prayer and deed, our deep thought and fervent action, in ways which will be most constructive in leading toward liberty for all.

Of course, the immediate reactions so many of us had when we knew that the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon, and an airplane flying over PA had been attacked causing untold loss of life to innocent men, women and children from around the world, were shock, disbelief, numbness, confusion, anger, resolve.

It is in the resolve that we must be cautious, so very cautious.

Those whose actions call out for the declaration of war, must have the utmost consideration that such an action in this nuclear age, has the potential of causing human annihilation of unprecedented proportions.

This is not a time for bullies to have a street fight. The rules are different. The jungle mentality must not win out.

Yes, words of approbation fail when it comes to how we feel about the events of September 11th, but we must consider our actions as if all our lives depend upon it - because they do.

And if our President and his advisers are so foolhardy to put humanity's head on the chopping block, then the people must take to the streets in fervent, but peaceful protest.

A just war? Yes! But not a foolish one! Not one where nobody wins, because no one is left!

It is time we do more than nothing; but we must not attempt to destroy everything.

Such strident anger calling for a congressional declaration of war which some are screaming for, could be our death knell as a society where the spirit prizes liberty.

Such a nihilistic rallying call comes from one such alarmist, the columnist Charles Krauthammer who wrote:

The "long peace" is over. We sought this war no more than we sought war with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan or cold war with the Soviet Union. But when war was pressed upon the greatest generation, it rose to the challenge. The question is: Will we? (Sarasota Herald Tribune, September 13, 2001)

Yes, we need to do something so that those who died and those who died trying to save them (the firefighters, the police officers, the airline passengers who sought to take over the hijackers, the heroes and heroines in the World Trade Center whose stories now will never be known) - so that these dead will not have died without justice being meted out to their assassins.

But to jeopardize so many more in the name of revenge would only add to the carnage.

This needs to be a worldwide issue; it is time that the nations of the world join forces - finally realizing that as one of us is slaughtered by the perpetrators of inhumanity, all of us are affected.

It is a time to be strong, indeed, but not foolish; to have a plan of retributive justice where those who have sinned against humanity and the forces of creation will be punished, rather than to take up arms of destruction with the kind of spirit of vengeance which can only bring the possible obliteration of our species and all species.

It is, indeed, a time to take a stand so that the spirit which prizes liberty shall not be rent asunder. Each of us, as well as our nation, as well as our world, has been affronted by such deadly atrocities. The world will never be the same again. Our children, and their children and the children yet to be born will live a very different planetary existence form the one that existed before the morning of September 11, 2001.

Oh, the human spirit which prizes liberty will still be extant, I dare trust, long after we all are gone, but the innocence, the sense of safety, the sense of trust in the ways of the world have now been lost.

This tragedy is not comparable to any other tragedy in the scale of human history, because the rules have been changed. Post-modern existence has altered our way of dealing with others. Technology has shrunk the world, scientific discoveries have called into question our former assumptions, the statements about absolutes from philosophers, politicians, theologians or even scientists, are now subject to debate. They were even before September 11th, but such a monumental tragedy has pushed us full throttle into the fast lane of complexities of which we now have only an inkling.

We are part of our history - and of our past. We cannot escape either. We cannot merely hide our heads in the sand, hoping that terrorism will go away, hoping that our children will not be slaughtered, hoping that the world will still be beautiful.

No one with a true sense of spirituality - which for me implies a respect for the inherent worth and dignity of all people, and for the spirit which prizes liberty - wants war. But those who start war, must be stopped.

We are part of our history - and of our past. As the philosopher William Ernest Hocking said:

Three is no choice but to immerse oneself in the stream of history, accept one's time location, breath in…tradition, become defined as the (person) of this issue, this party, this emergency…Failure to accept responsibility, refusal to take a stand on vital issues - these are deeds of death…To understand the times in which we live, to add our weight in the scales on the side of equality and (humanity), this is "life with shape and character," the only eternity worth the having.

My friends, may we accept the challenges ahead that each of us will face, with courage and love.

May we as a people of the world, unite to bring forth justice, believing the words of Abraham Lincoln when he said:

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

CLOSING WORDS: "The Brave Die But Once"

Courage faces death head on
And does not turn its head away;
Courage faces life head on,
Fears not that death may come and stay.
Courage does not run and hide,
It does not die and die inside,
But hour by hour and year by year
Walks on what e'er may be its fear:
It flies the sky, or braves the sea,
Or walks thru death as it's called to be.
God, we commend unto thy care
The souls of these who now are gone:
Their lives are past,
We still live on…
Help us, like them,
To live, die strong.