Will we make this year better?
Well it's 2006. I spent New Year's Eve at the new house of my friend Philip Del Ricci. We broke in the new year and the new house at the same time. I often like to recall what I did each previous year on New Year's Eve. For 2005 I was at the home of a fellow chorus member.
In 2004 the city of St. Louis was commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1904 World's Fair (you know, "Meet me in St. Louis, Louie; meet me at the fair...") So five other friends and I had a late dinner at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park (site of the 1904 Fair) where we could watch the fireworks at midnight and could see the giant ferris wheel built to imitate the original one at the World's Fair so many years earlier.
I'm drawing a blank about 2003, but I spent 2002 at the home of a couple who are dear friends of mine. In 2001 I was stranded in Chicago by a 2-foot snow storm. I remember looking out the window of the place I was staying and telling myself that I was paying $40 a day for that rental car to just sit there under all that snow!
Getting ready for the big event of 2000 - not only the turn of a century but this time the turn of the millennium - I mentioned to a friend that I had to decide where I wanted to be as the clock struck midnight that year. He suggested that instead I should think about who I wanted to be with. I knew he was correct. I was living in Seattle at the time, but I decided to return to St. Louis and spend the evening with a small group of friends at one of their homes. It was delightful. And I remember turning on the television just after midnight and hearing Karen Foss proclaim, "It is 12:05 am, and it is now January 1st of the year 2000." It was hard to believe we were no longer in the 1900s - after all, it had been 19-something for all of my life.
There was so much to-do about the new millennium. I told the people I worked with in Seattle that if the world did end with the beginning of the new millennium, as some naysayers predicted, that because of the time difference between St. Louis and Seattle, they would have 2 more hours to live than I would!
I did not really expect the world to come to an end, but I think many of us were disappointed that none of the computers around the world got screwed up like predicted. People tend to go crazy at turning points like that. Some people actually seem to look for doom and gloom. That trait is called "apocalypticism." It is addressed in a book about the millennium by Christopher M. Bellitto (Liguori Publications).
"Many of the important aspects of apocalypticism, especially the negative, come together in the recent history of religion and politics in the United States. We Christians have to be honest enough to look at ourselves in the mirror and admit this potent mix. We must emphasize personal renewal while others in our country simply continue those distracting "Woe is us!" and "The End is near!" prophecies as we enter the Church's third millennium."
I think what Bellito is saying is that if there is anything we need to get ready for, then we should do it not by trying to put guilt trips on people or pointing to tragedies throughout the world, but by constantly striving to become better people (i.e. personal renewal). That in turn will make the world a better place and perhaps some of the calamaties we have been experiencing will not be so devastating.
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