Miami Centennial Invocation

Miami High School Principal, Glen Lineberry was asked to give the invocation at the Centennial dinner on Saturday night. He says he welcomed the opportunity to give the invocation and reflect on a tradition in Miami which still guides those today. Here then is his invocation: 

May the words of our hearts and mouths be pleasing to Thee,O Lord.

We are gathered here tonight in gratitude and in hope.

Grateful for the company of our friends and loved ones.

Grateful for the extraordinary natural beauty that surrounds our town.

Gradeful for the almost incomprehensible labor that went into creating Miami – carving the wealthy out of the earth, founding a community in a remote place, and surviving the vicissitudes of wars, depression and economic dislocation.

Grateful for the strength and fortitude of those who came before, who built our town and raised our families and did their very best, in good times and bad, when the copper market was high and when the bottom dropped out.

We are hopeful that You will give us the guidance and strength that You gave them.

The guidance and strength to do our work, to raise our families, to stay true to each other and to You.

The guidance and strength to maintain and strengthen the community traditions that bind us together, that make Miami more than just a town.

The guidance and strength to know when circumstances require us to change or even abandon some of those tradition, when twhat has worked before no longer moves us in the direction we need to go.

You provided that guidance and strength to those who had to change industrial practices to respond to new environmental understangins; to those who knit multiple communities into one during the civil rights era. We are after all, here together in a building originally intended to keep people apart.

we ask now that you provide us with that same guidance and strength as we work to prepare our children and repair our economy to deal with the challenges of Miami’s second century. With Your help, we can do those things, and our children and their children will walk in a brighter world.

And we ask three particular blessing tonight.

May God bless the meal before us, and those who labored to prepare it.

may God bless the evening ahead of us, and all those who worked to create this centennial celebration.

And may God bless the Vandals.

Amen.