Michael S. Heath

This was the Washington Monument this morning at 5 a.m. I jogged west toward the Lincoln Memorial with the illuminated sand-colored obelisk on my left and darkened White House on my right. I stopped and snapped the picture to include here.

When I got back to the hotel I thought about George Washington's First Inaugural address. In that short speech the Revolutionary war general and President observed, "that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality."

He continued, "I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire, since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."

Those are thoughts worth pondering this 9/11.