Whatever one thinks of the wisdom of building a mosque near Ground Zero, this controversy now affords us an immense opportunity to examine who we are as a people. It provides us with the opportunity to get back to our foundational ideals, which have always stood as a beacon for the rest of the world.

A lot of our leadership has become acutely aware of speaking more fairly, of speaking more balanced, of recognizing that hate speech in any form, even if it comes out of emotional anger, is dangerous.

To be aware of others' accomplishments and the indebtedness we have to so many people is to appreciate and begin to respect all members of the human family.

For believers, both privilege and privation are a trial, and both demand responses: one demands service, and the other demands patience. The greatest privilege is to live well in flourishing lands; the greatest privation is to live in the midst of war, especially civil war.

By 1865, all Southern women - the happily and regrettably single, the perpetually engaged, the wives and widows - had tired of the war. The Confederacy was shrinking, and the morale of its remaining men shrinking with it.

Talk of citizenship today is often thin and tinny. The word has a faintly old-fashioned feel to it when used in everyday conversation. When evoked in national politics, it's usually accompanied by the shrill whine of a descending culture-war mortar.

It was 1981. I was working on a novel. And I put that novel aside one day after I read a newspaper article. The story said there were 19 women still on the pension payroll who were Confederate war widows. They were women who very early in their lives had married very old men.

The World War II generation believed the United States could do anything - anything... And Vietnam was a shattering experience for everyone.