It may be a long four years. We elected a president with few policy positions, and given to insults. Hopefully his staff will ease him from his Twitter account, and he can learn how governments can improve lives. A fear remains: Trump, in my opinion, seems mentally ill with narcissism. Trained as an ethicist and a life-long church person, I offer some positive goals, couched as a short prayer list for 2017. Perhaps they seem hopeful, which is what prayer should be. But these prayers are offered as policy for Maine and our country, parallel to Depression-era policies.

Medicare for everyone

People will get sick, and still more than 20 percent of Americans lack health insurance. People without insurance will avoid care, because they have to choose between food, shelter and health care, ending up in ERs and ICUs, our most expensive care. Gov. Paul LePage rejected Medicaid funds, recreating the problem he took credit for solving: hospital red ink. For an old and poor state, it was a terrible policy decision. Virtually all other civilized countries have universal medical access as a fundamental human right, and much cheaper health care. In the face of “Repeal Obamacare!” without any idea of what might replace it, a prayer: “Medicare for everyone.”

Pride in our immigrants

Recently a member of our church, a retired farmer and Auburn city worker, spent several difficult weeks in rehab at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center and d’Youville Pavilion. One of his nurses, African-born and speaking seven languages, had just passed his Nurse Practitioner exams. The farmer and his nurse became good friends. Maine needs such new citizens. As a soccer referee, I watched the Lewiston teams play skilled, sportsmanlike soccer. With organizations like Tree Street Youth, our new youthful neighbors are going to college, learning skills for a new economy. Lewiston-Auburn and Portland are virtually the only places in Maine with growing populations, both a blessing and a challenge. A prayer: “A welcoming community, valuing everyone’s gifts.”

60 million refugees

Several appalling wars have created 60 million refugees. To date, America has a very mixed record, welcoming some, rejecting others. The countries of Europe and the Middle East cannot absorb everyone. Except for our Native American citizens, we are all immigrants, whether it was a potato famine, anti-semitic pogroms, French-Canadians or Greeks looking for a living, or Somali civil wars. A prayer, the Old Testament command to the Jews: “So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

Seeing the sea

A recent boat trip down the Intracoastal Waterway to Florida was an eye-opener: miles of the ICW with docks reduced to kindling wood, water lapping at the tops of seawalls and houses from New Jersey to Florida built barely above sea level. The sea is an unforgiving, unrelenting visitor, and our largest Eastern naval base in Norfolk is likely doomed. Now with climate deniers and oilmen leading environmental and energy agencies, climate science is virtually unanimous: higher seas will devastate our coasts, where millions live, unless we lower our warming pollution. A prayer: “Open our eyes.”

New economy skills

Mr. Trump appealed to people whose lives were sliding downwards. The hard truth is that profitable coal mines and paper mills with good-paying jobs likely will not return. To hope for a good union job in a paper mill is to pretend that computers, the internet and email never happened. Building good manufacturing jobs will require skills with computers and robots, using technology instead of being displaced by it. Many new jobs will also require skills working internationally, so languages and cultural understanding become important. Kudos to the Lewiston schools for its experiments with teaching Chinese and Arabic. A prayer: “Invest in our people, looking ahead.”

We know the Golden Rule is in the sacred texts of virtually every religion. With one of the early decisions likely to be on health-care access, we might also re-read the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan was the immigrant, the distrusted outsider, but he helped the wounded traveler, while the priest and pious Levite stepped to the other side of the road. Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.”

Bill Hiss is a retired dean and vice president at Bates College. He lives in Minot.