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Good morning.

The great and the good of the G8 gather in solemn conclave in Loch Erne today. An almost random selection of national leaders jet in to have a bit of a chat and eat rich food… and I’m sure you can hear the cynicism creeping into my voice. It’s so easy. Easy to mock, easy to criticize.

We’ve all seen these meetings before, and the political shenanigans that go with them.

And the zeitgeist is increasingly cynical towards politicians – people writing "none of the above" on ballot papers.

But I also wonder if my cynicism here, as so often, isn’t really a form of defensiveness – or even a sign of a lack of faith.

When I was a teenager my friend Roger and I would walk home from the pub and talk about our hopes for the future. It was the mid-nineteen-sixties and idealism was everywhere. Nowadays those teenage dreams just seem naïve. So to defend myself against any further disappointment I slide quietly into cynicism.

And take the world with me, including the G8 Summit.

And miss the point.

Good things have happened in the world – and continue to do so. We haven’t yet made heaven on earth, and there are any number of bad things happening all over the place, but to put it at its mildest, we haven’t had a nuclear war that’s wiped humanity off the face of the planet.

It isn’t teenage naivety to live in hope, it is possible to be grown-up and optimistic.

Lord God,

may we be kept from sliding into cynicism,

may we dare to hope for a better future for ourselves and the whole of humanity,

and, with your grace, may we have courage to pray for a successful outcome for the G8 summit.

Amen