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Good morning. Bucking expectations. Here are three contrasting examples from the news over last couple of days: Two mothers. One lost her daughter to a dose of ecstasy. The other, her son to prison for supplying it. Mishal called their bond “the most unlikely”, as they fight together against drug ignorance. Female police officers. Didn’t choose their careers thinking colleagues would be those pinging their bra straps and ripping their tights, let alone the one who committed crimes worse than most police ever deal with. Child-on-parent violence. A mother begging Social Services to remove her barely-teenage son, for her own safety as well as her toddler’s. Not what any of us might expect. But all too often, prophesies do self-fulfil. Anyone known for naughtiness at school (as I was) experiences this daily: no hard work, good behaviour or helpfulness can buck some teachers’ expectations. It’s well known that those we think will succeed are given more opportunities, offered better feedback and even taught more diligently than others; the negative converse often determining someone’s failure. This isn’t necessarily sinister: humans need patterns in order to function. But expectations can prove insidious. In 1987 a British princess defied protocol to touch a patient with HIV. In the first century a teacher from Nazareth disregarded religious law to touch a leper. His pupils were shocked to find Him talking to an outsider, alone, in a deserted place… far worse, a woman. A faith leader invited Him to dinner and watched appalled as He let a sex worker kiss his feet, caressing them with hair which shouldn’t even have been visible. He appointed a crook as His ambassador; insulted good and respectable people; hurled furniture and others’ earnings in a place of worship; and chose despised farm labourers as His first witnesses and untrusted women as his last. God Himself shakes up expectations. In a fortnight, a climate summit will take place which could change our world. So most of us hope, anyway. But what do we expect? That nations will gather, not to wage war but create collaboration? That the richest countries, instead of surging further ahead might hold back for the poorest? That the most influential species of modern Earth might agree to eat less, heat less, speed less, for the sake of the most fragile and endangered? Even as we walk the extra mile instead of driving, it’s hard to believe our rulers care enough to take the narrow path. If expectations dictate outcomes, let’s hope, pray… and give the future the benefit of the doubt.