Revive us again ....

Two high points of last week's Democratic National Convention --- beyond the fine speeches of President Obama, Senator Clinton, Michele Obama, Bill Clinton and others --- will stay with me long after other details have faded.

One certainly was the incredibly moving appearance of Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Kahn, whose son U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Kahn, was killed in Iraq and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

So proud and humbled to stand on the same soil as a U.S. citizen with such fine Americans as these --- and to have served in the same U.S. Army, in a different time and place, as their son.

The other was the eloquent address by the Rev. William Barber II, a Christian (Disciples of Christ) preacher from Goldsboro, North Carolina.

He reminded me, among many other things, of the reasons why --- after many bitter years and the loss of anything that might be remotely considered orthodox Christian faith --- I still rise every Sunday morning and go to church.

Here are some excerpts from the Rev. Mr. Barber's address, lifted from Janell Ross's piece at The Washington Post, "The Rev. William Barber dropped the mic."

"I am worried by the way that faith is cynically used by some to serve hate, fear, racism and greed."

"Listen to the ancient chorus in which deep calls unto deep."

"Pay people what they deserve, share your food with the hungry. Do this and then your nation shall be called a repairer of the breach."

"Jesus, a brown-skin Palestinian Jew, called us to preach good news to the poor, the broken and the bruised and all those who are made to feel unaccepted."

"Some issues are not left or right or liberal versus conservative. They are right versus wrong."

"We need to embrace our deepest moral values...for revival at the heart of our democracy...When we love the Jewish child and the Palestinian child, the Muslim and the Christian and the Hindu and the Buddhist and those who have no faith but they love this nation, we are reviving the heart of our democracy."

And then, Ross wrote, "When Barber had said his piece, he turned to a portion of the hymn, 'Revive Us Again.'

"Revive us again;
Fill each heart with Thy love;
May each soul be rekindled
With fire from above.

"Hallelujah! Thine the glory.

"And with that, Barber walked away."

Amen!