This morning I went to my bookshelves looking for a particular book of poems. Prayers for a Thousand Years, edited by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon is a collection of prayers and poems created as a celebration of the millennium. Searching for a poem for worship in the New Year 2011, I realized it had been 10 years since I purchased this collection. How this had been lost on me is probably another story! How can it be that a decade has passed since we were filling our bathtubs full of water, watching and waiting for some unknown catastrophic event to happen?

Do you remember the celebrations of the year 2000? As I write this I recall the silly eye glasses that spelled 2000 and how they made me laugh. But I also remember the beautiful all night vigil we hosted at the church. We prayed our way into the new age on the labyrinth. Prayed and sang and walked, lighting candles to mark our way. I am remembering the young woman who kept watch all night, falling asleep in the middle of this ancient pattern, held in the metaphorical arms of the Holy. I wonder where she is now. I pray she is well and still held in those loving arms.

In the middle of this book of poems these words by Jane Hirshfield appear:

‘ “Almost the twenty-first century” –
how quickly the thought will grow dated,
even quaint.

Our hopes, our future,
will pass like the hopes and futures of others.

And all our anxieties and terrors,
nights of sleeplessness,
griefs,
will appear then as they truly are –

Stumbling, delirious bees in the tea scent of jasmine.’

What had we hoped for the turning of these thousand years? We had not anticipated that our world would be shaken by the events of September 11, 2001. We had not hoped for, not one, but two wars that seem to see no end. We had not seen the economic downturns and  the kinds of corporate and personal greed that shook our trust in human goodness. There have been many disappointments in this warp-speed decade from which we are emerging.

But during these times we have also seen another side of what it means to be human. We have seen people look at their lives with awakened eyes. What is truly important? What do I really need to be happy? To what degree do I need to consume things to be successful, to be fulfilled? We have seen a return to an understanding of where our food comes from and to whom we need to be indebted for it. We have prayed mightily to be reminded of those less fortunate, those who are homeless and need our care. We have watched resilience mount up like the wings of eagles in those who have found themselves unemployed and cast aside. And we have seen babies born, children flourish, songs be written and sung, poems memorized, politicians reach out and work together, new ways of procuring energy be discovered, hearts softened toward those who are different. These and so many more good things have happened in these ten, short years. It is, I believe, important not to let them be overshadowed by all the ones which were not.

As we enter the next decade of these two thousand years, we are still stumbling, still in search of the sweet scent of jasmine. It will probably always be so. But let us not forget to stop our struggling long enough to pay homage to the goodness with which we were created, that blesses us daily. Perhaps then, and only then, do we have a hope of carrying that great goodness into a future healing of our world.