Craig Lieckfelt

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Wisdom is all around — those who are unhoused, those in palaces. It's said everybody is the most important person you will ever meet, and the cracks many walk by are where you can find the Most High. Those who are hungry are angels in disguise.

I once called home a château where Voltaire spent a good amount of time. He said, "Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers."

Viktor Frankl said, "Between stimulus and response there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response."

God, thank you for our first responders.

God, thank you for bringing me to a rooftop in 2011, for a meeting to discuss a food festival. It was in TriBeCa, and I could see what was being built — New York's response, back then it was called the Freedom Tower, eventually giving way to the name One World Trade Center. I remember staring at that tower going up, thinking, listening, hearing

"that's what I'm talking about. Knock down our towers — look how we'll rebuild them. Taller. Stronger. More beautiful."

That moment was a permanent shift in my spirit, and I haven't been the same since.

It was well past midnight, and the workers were still building. That's the spirit of New York. We respond.

"The true measure of a human, of a community, is not how we behave in moments of comfort and convenience, but how we stand at times of controversy and challenge."

May I add, it's the most beautiful building I've ever seen.