Welcoming the Guest Chaplain

Floor Speech

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise to say a few words about the tradition of spiritual leadership of the Chaplains of the Senate, a decades-old--a centuries-old, actually--tradition of this body, rooted in the fact that those who were the Framers of our Constitution and the Founders of our Nation understood that, although we are a nation committed to the separation of church and State, we are also a nation that is guided--that is guided by spiritual force, by deep beliefs, by diversity of religions, but also by a profound humility on the part of those of us who serve.

Our Chaplain, RADM Barry Black, has served for many, many years, and I have had the great blessing of hearing from him at Bible study and at the weekly Prayer Breakfast in a way that has helped bring Senators together and that has made a difference in the functioning and the foundation of this important body in our constitutional order.

Today, we have a guest Chaplain from my home church, First & Central Presbyterian in Wilmington, DE. She is my home pastor. Pastor Laura has served our congregation since July, 2 years ago.

A native of Arkansas, raised in Texas in the Disciples of Christ, Pastor Laura felt a calling to the ministry at the very earliest age but told God to just hold that thought for a moment. Two decades later, he called Pastor Laura again, more forcefully this time, and through my denomination, the Presbyterian Church, United States of America--or PCUSA.

After completing seminary in Iowa and serving three other ministry calls, Pastor Laura is now at our faith community in downtown Wilmington, doing God's work at a church without walls that welcomes without limits. Her humor, her hermeneutics, her exegesis, her homiletics--all the good stuff that a pastor does--help hold us together and inspire us to mission at a time that is almost uniquely challenging in my life.

I am so grateful for her wisdom and guidance at home in Delaware, and I thank Pastor Laura for her ministry today to this body, to our congregation at home, and throughout the arc of her life.

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