Future Rests Within Heart, Not Atms

Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness the energies of love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world, Man will have discovered Fire. — Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881-1955)

The maelstrom of the Holidays has begun. All the usual sensory overloads are in place; the overdone mall, the underdone turkey, all the sublime and ridiculous excesses of the season.

But this year is a little different. Having just polished off our Thanksgiving feast, we’ll move on to Christmas cheer followed by New Year revelries. And then, depending on your point of view, roll headfirst into the end of the world.

Y2K. In the soon-to-be-simpler days of the ‘90s, that term sounded as far off as life on Mars. But now, those times are upon us. And though I don’t personally know anyone who’s moving to a backyard bunker to wait for spring or the apocalypse (whichever comes first), there is some indication that the paranoia meter is running a tad high. Why else would people stockpile canned hams and cram cash under their mattresses? And those are the optimists.

Well, it could be worse, much worse. In fact, in the year 999, it was. At the turn of the last millennium, most average European folks were peasants. Their fortunes, such as they were, could turn overnight from awfully bad to truly dismal. For many, hunger was almost a constant companion. Life was, to borrow 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ line, “nasty, brutish and short.”

It’s not surprising then that they ,too, had doomsday notions. Many of the events of their lives coincided nicely with the Bible’s descriptions of the end times: wars and rumors of wars, streaking comets, erupting volcanoes, multiple earthquakes, a general sense of chaos. A lot like 1999.

Some of these faithful peasants are said to have literally died of fright in the last minutes of 999. Presumably, those who lived to see the sun rise on the year 1000 heaved a sigh of relief and went back to work. The Renaissance, after all, was waiting in the wings.

Like our forebears, we live in tough times. Like them, we suffer the pain of our own village. Unlike them, we almost instantaneously know the rest of the world’s bad news, too.

We have the technology to receive information at startling speeds. But our ability to process all of that information, to make sense of some of the senseless harshness of life, lags behind. Sometimes, it’s difficult to get up in the morning and face the news, much less do something about it.

And yet, the world we live in at the turn of this millennium is, in many ways, far more humane than that of 999. Most of us don’t wake at dawn to plod rocky fields with an underfed ox, or anxiously await the decrees of a capricious lord, or die of dysentery.

There are numerous horrors in our world, to be sure — globally, nationally and locally. But for those of us seeking signs and wonders, this nearly-past millennium offers all sorts of indications that humankind is evolving into something fairly remarkable.

A very brief recollection might include: the compass, the printing press, the computer. The Sistine Chapel, The Smithsonian Institute, Habitat for Humanity, Galileo, Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, Chief Joseph, Isadora Duncan, Eleanor Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela, Dr. Seuss, The Magna Carta, The Declaration of Independence, The Civil Rights Act. Oh, and Godiva chocolate.

Each of us can compile our own list of reasons to hope. (In fact, it might not be a bad exercise for New Year’s Day.)

Like the peasants of 999, we are hungry. But for a growing number of us, that hunger is of a more spiritual nature. And in terms of human development, we’re just about right on schedule. It makes perfect sense that as our physical needs are satisfied, the hunger of the soul will ignite.

We fear the technological glitches that Y2K may bring, but most of us know the future of humankind rests with something a little more intractable than computers, ATM machines and grocery store scanners. The future rests, as it always has, within the human heart.

In a few short weeks we, like our peasant ancestors, will wake to a new chapter of our collective human history. Our own Renaissance is waiting in the wings. In that rebirth, may we, for the second time, discover fire.