by John Barden

Created on: February 17, 2009

Was Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, like Sacred Scripture, divinely inspired, or was it 'merely' the intelligently designed masterpiece of our nation's one true poet laureate? And how was it that this frail, inelegant and profoundly wounded man ascended from small town obscurity to the seat of presidential power during the darkest and most uncertain moments of American history, becoming for all time - in spite of and because of endless attempts to demythologize him - the godlike hero that we celebrate today? Was there an unseen hand at work in the course of human events, or were we just exceedingly fortunate?

The first words that he uttered at the Soldiers Field dedication formed an awkward, archaic construction that could have held him up for ridicule had he not been able to support and sustain the solemn weight and might of his intention: "Four score and seven years ago...". Hindsight tells us no finer words could have been chosen. He must have realized this as he artfully infused his next phrase with a prayerful cadence by subtly echoing the opening words of Our Lord's Prayer: Our Fathers...".

What did 'our fathers' do 87 years ago? Like the creative God of Genesis who breathed upon raging chaotic waters causing dry land to appear, they "brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." And where did 'our fathers' get that notion but from the biblical belief so momentously put forth, again, in Genesis: 'In his own image He created him, male and female He created them.'

The genius of Lincoln was that he wasted no words, for the heart speaks from the sacred spaces between and above and beyond words. Having set forth our historical context and reason for being in a single sentence, he began to serve the main meal. They were gathered in that place, in November of 1863, because the country was "engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure." They had come because during the three days that preceded Independence Day of that year (July 1 - 3), 50,000 men gave up their lives trying to impede or advance that noble cause. Many "gave their lives that that nation might live."

They were here, not to consecrate a burial ground that had already been duly hollowed by the blood and sacrifices of those living and dead who had fought here, but to dedicate themselves to the great work that lay before them. This was

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