The campaign is over. I am excited about the symbolism and potential of Barack Obama's election as President of the United States. I am scared to death about facing the huge challenges faces us especially the economic crisis and the crisis of global climate change. Father Richard Rohr cited Joseph Campbell's description of the hero's journey -- that "the only way to be a hero is to prepare and be ready when the moment comes. You can't pick ahead of time which dragon you'll slay. The opportunity always sneaks up on you, and then all you can do is be ready."

The dragon that has picked us is really a monster – a severe recession and a global climate crisis! To be ready, prepared to engage in heroic action for the sake of the Gospel, there are a few things we need to do as individuals and as faith communities. This is our investment strategy:

• Get grounded, centered, and acquainted! Get grounded within yourself so that you can touch the very floor of your existence. Get centered inside your own skin. This does not mean to be cut off from those outside yourself, but gradually to become directed from within yourself. And get acquainted with yourself. Come to know who you are as clearly as you can. This will not be knowledge from others, but wisdom emerging within you.
• Emphasize connections with other Christians! The best way to do this is to get to know Christians from groups and denominations other than your own in a personal way. Learn to accentuate their positives and we can move toward eliminate any negative perceptions we have of them (and they have of us). This does not mean we will agree on everything, or even a significant percentage of everything. It just means that the disagreements won’t matter so much.
• Focus on systemic justice and peace! To the extent we work together to rebuild ourselves and the world around us in the image of Jesus' image of God's life, we will probably be too busy and tired to worry about the differences between us. Remember that Jesus' greatest conflicts were with the religious leaders of Judaism because of their rigidity and the ways they emphasized the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it. Let us put that spirit into practice.
• Find ways to respect and connect with other religious traditions! Once we achieve a certain comfort in an ecumenical environment (with other Christians), there is more work to be done. People of faith around the world can, and really must, work together so that nations and cultures around the world will move toward each other cooperation and respect. This movement is essential if the people of the world are to work together for peace, justice, and mutual acceptance.
• Resist fundamentalism and other forms of extremism! Our cooperation with people of good will – Christians and non-Christians alike – is the best way I know to resist extremism in the world. We cannot meet hatred with violence with a mind to destroy the evil we see, but with the strength of compassion and faith in the ability of the Spirit to transform evil into good – eventually.
• Re-emphasize what our faith values. Let us who follow Jesus take his teachings seriously and begin to live them consistently.

That's my investment advice for now. I’ll see you on the journey!

Thanks for continuing to bless me as we journey together.

--Jack Price