To President Obama, Jan. 20, 2009.
Dear Mr. President:

I hope you will keep your community organizing skill-set sharp; that is what it will take to work across boundaries to build a wide base. In doing so you will lead us into a post-partisan age.

I hope, President Obama, that you will continue to lead us to a new way of thinking about ourselves as a community. The American worldview needs updating. While vigorously protecting the rights of the individual, the new worldview calls for more shared responsibilities for the whole. Liberty without justice becomes individualistic, unaccountable freedom. Liberty without a commitment to justice for the common good will eventually collapse. (Note our current economic troubles.) Democracy cannot be sustained in the presence of liberty without justice. Liberty and justice for all; that's the pledge.

Please lead us with this worldview, that we are all connected to each other. The world is created as a single entity, thus my wellbeing is bound up in yours, and we can only thrive when we thrive together. As King said, "Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality."

Such a worldview will require a new definition of economic wisdom which will also provide for economic justice. For instance, investment in the next generation is in everyone's best interest. We need a healthy and strong next generation. We need a well educated next generation. We need a hopeful next generation. We need a vibrant engagement with and by the next generation.

Finally, I hope, Mr. President, I hope you will not be so overcome with the responsibility of the job and the honor of the job that you lose your spiritual way. I hope you can find the time and place to remain humble before the Transcendent One, to keep an attitude of service, and to find daily courage. Is there a chapel in the White House, a place the president can get down on his knees on a daily basis? I hope so, for all our sakes.