Picture a shared future says Archdeacon

Colouring his message with the example set by the Queen during her visit to Dublin, and referring to popular film culture, he said: “What will the future look like?

“We don’t know, but we’re willing to have a go at imagining what we will see and experience.

“In the 1989 film Back to the Future Part II: Dr Emmett Brown and Marty McFly time travel to October 21 of this year. Lawyers are abolished, automated clothing is in vogue and people travel in flying cars and on hoverboards.

“Whilst I enjoy the thought of flying cars I don’t see them making their way up Shipquay Street any time soon.

“Saint Paul wanted the new Christian church in Epheseus to remember that, ‘God is able to do far more than we could ever ask for or imagine.

“He does everything by his power that is working in us.’ Think about it. Saint Paul was saying that our hopes are surpassed by what God can do.

“When I ask myself what I hope to see in 2015, automatic clothes are not on my list, but living on a Island that is willing to commit itself to a shared future is.

“We are attempting to emerge from the violence of the past.”

“The Queen in an historic visit to the Republic of Ireland in 2011 said, ‘… much of this visit reminds us of the complexity of our history, its many layers and traditions, but also the importance of forbearance and conciliation.

“Of being able to bow to the past, but not be bound by it.

“We cannot erase our past, nor should we, but we must begin to picture a shared future.

“My hope for 2015 is that we will all seek to build one shared community on this island.

“A shared community that is made possible because ‘God is able to do far more than we could ever ask for or imagine.

“He does everything by his power that is working in us.

“Happy New Year”.