A Global Home of Harmony and Love?

 I'd like to build the world a home

And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees
And snow white turtle doves

I'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I'd like to hold it in my arms
And keep it company

I'd like to see the world for once
All standing hand in hand
And hear them echo through the hills
For peace through out the land
(That's the song I hear)

I'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony

I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony) The New Seekers

I could have written a blog entry yesterday -- lots of ideas and time -- but the world has seemed so bleak as we limp toward the end to 2023 I just couldn't muster the energy. Would I feel any more motivated on the final day of the year?  During the night I was awake and for no good reason I thought of the song, with lyrics above, that I knew as a television commercial to sell Coca Cola in my teen years. 

In 1971 the commercial aired with young people from many countries standing on a hilltop singing a utopian song about a better world -- with Coke, of course. It cost $250.000 to make and at the time it was the most expensive ad ever made. It was clevery promoted by the company on radio and a group, The New Seekers, recorded it without the promotion of the product and it became a hit. 

The lyrics are even more sugary than the drink but somehow they surfaced for me in the wee hours. Maybe my gloom-worn brain was conjuring up a symbol of something better than this moment. In 1971 the Vietnam War was grinding on and a few months before students had been shot and killed at Kent State University during a protest. Those were dark days as well. 

My hope for all of you is that there will be an abiding sense of God's love and harmony as we find our way into 2024. That may sound naive, yet the Christ story is astonishingly improbable and somehow surmounts pain and loss to be the source of joy and meaning. 

I wondered if I would awaken and be unable to recall I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing. I think I would prefer this hymn which owes a lot to Revelation 21. 

Happy New Year!

I see a new heaven, I see a new earth 

                     as the old one will pass away,

where the fountain of life flows and without price goes

              to all people who abide in the land.

1 There, there on the banks of a river bright and free,

yielding her fruit, firm in her root,

the Tree of Life will be.  R

2 There, there where death dies and our lives are born again,

body and soul, struggling but whole

like flowers after the rain.  R

3 There, there where the darkness brings visions from above.

There where the night, bearing new light,

reveals the promise of love.  R

4 There, there where we work with the love of

healing hands.

Labour we must, true to our trust

to build a promised new land.

                                 Voices United 713