Hoping for a better world in 2017

I have to confess to no small degree of confusion about the situation in the Middle East and I rather think I am not alone in this.

My confusion regards who is in this conflict? Who are the combatants? Who are the different groups? Further to this, who is on whose side? I am also unsure what side our leaders wish to be on and what conflict we are waging?

Both sides seem just as blood-thirsty and hell-bent on seeking revenge on one another.

I am not sure what our role is and whether the people we are supporting are any more morally correct than the other side. We often speak of the“fog”of war. that sense in which when people go to war they very often hide their real aims which are not as noble as they would like to convey.

What seems to be being playing out in the Middle East these days are tribal conflicts, wounds that have been inflicted on one another over years.

It’s clear that any war is very painful but a civil war is even worse.

neighbours who have lived beside one another are set against each other.

towns and villages that once lived in peace rise up against people they have known all their lives.

the wounds of such a conflict are never easily healed, grievances get worse and aggravate such a conflict as the depth of the atrocities deepen.

In this new year is it a forlorn hope to wish that our world will be better?

Is it foolishness to think that people who have grown to hate one another will find friendship?

Is there any way that the deep wounds that have been inflicted this year will be healed in the next?

It is not foolishness to hope for a better world.

It is not a bad thing to hope that people’s better natures may come through.

It is not stupid to think that people will come to their senses and stop before more blood is shed.

Hope is a special human quality that can give us a different outlook and shape a different future as we head into 2017.

It is not foolish to hope for a better world.

We enter into the new year hoping for a better world. Father Paul Morton Saint Bride’s Church