I just came yesterday afternoon from a powerful and very moving ceremony inside the Capitol Rotunda, where President Bush gave the Congressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama.

Seeing the two of them interact in the rotunda, sitting side by side for over an hour, laughing and cajoling, one his eminency the holy messenger, the other his presidency wholly a mess. I tried to imagine what would happen if the roles were reversed, that the Dalai Lama was President of the U.S. and Bush was the Dalai Lama. How would things be different, if at all. Ohh the mindscapes that lead to nowhere.

It was certainly an incredible opportunity for me to be in the same room with these two world leaders, both leaving their legacies in their own right, letting history judge for the long haul, and letting the present define the realities that those impacted by their actions will face tomorrow morning all over the world.

Suffice it to say, the Dalai Lama was a little more articulate on the problem of the finitude of each of the individuals in the room (he's 72) than our President, who gave a marvelous speech in his own right, one good enough that I would have had no problems giving myself, but with words which probably were little more than sounds to him.

Another day in the life here in the frontlines of all that is supposedly virtuous and honorable in our nation's capital.

Rev. Ron Stief is Director of Organizing at Faith in Public Life