Waiting for what? 2. A vision to dawn

As nations lock horns in Copenhagen and a serious deal looks unlikely, it is time to recognise that the situation demands a new vision, not a rearranging of the deckchairs.

My guess is that negotiators at Copenhagen are highly frustrated just now. How can they move the situation beyond the bare self-interest of the participants? How can they make a deal that has serious affect?

Reinhold Neibuhr in Moral Man and Immoral Society pointed out how hard it is for people representing groups of others in negotiation to work for anything other than the self-interest of their group. Negotiators are aware that everything they say will be scrutinised by their own people and, if they are perceived to compromise their future in any way, they will be in deep trouble.

The only hope for a true breakthrough is for the countries of the world to embrace a new vision for our common life on earth. We know there is a crisis, but the crisis does not seem to motivate adequately. It crashes against cultures that are addicted to consumption and restricted to measures of well-being based on GDP. There is a need to be positive and articulate a different way of being around which we can unite.

Long ago the communities that formed the Judaeo-Christian scriptures hoped for a better world. Their dreams arose from an agrarian life, from nurturing the soil and celebrating its crops. They believed in a Creator who provided and who sensed injustice and abuse wherever it occurred. They spoke of swords being beaten into ploughs and of spears becoming pruning hooks, of a world where each can sit under their vine and under their fig tree and no one shall make them afraid.

The dreams of this period can be summarised in six themes

Rest Harmony Fruitfulness Celebration Trust Peace

Of course there are lots of different ways of saying these things, but what is clear is that these people carried a substantial hope for a better world. And that is something like that we need today.

This hope was to focus in the coming of a person they called Messiah, who they looked to make this new world real.

More on this in The Dream that inspired the Bible - a vision of hope for the whole creation

Suggested Task: What is your favourite description of the world as it should be?

Give us quotes/ extracts/ poems - anything that you sense carries vision for future of the earth

Your comments.