God's Vision
I spent the entirety of the first day of the year 2000 watching TV. Sounds very sad doesn't it? It wasn't.
What I was watching was the live CNN coverage on Foxtel, the Australian cable channel, <can link to my foxtel article here if you ran it> of the rest of the world's clocks ticking over to the new century. And wasn't it just the most stunning thing you ever saw?
I learned about culture on remote Pacific Islands, I saw Auckland light up like daylight in the middle of the night, I saw the Sydney Harbour Bridge smile, Africa move in rhythm, I saw the Eiffel Tower perform a dance of light in the darkness, I saw a crystal ball drop in New York's Time Square, the Pope talk about God against a back drop of Fireworks, I said a prayer for the darkness across Caracas and saw the sun rise over the pyramids in Egypt. What a night!
I don't believe we will ever again see the world so totally united in the one celebration and meaning again, at least not in my lifetime. My son won't see it either, nor his children or their children. It will be quite a few generations before that kind of unity is ever experienced on this earth again in such a visual way on a global scale.
I had trouble putting in to words what the sensation of watching meant for me. While I had difficulty putting it into words, an American friend on a mailing list didn't. She stated so beautifully what I had been trying to articulate for the entire day, she said "to see the diversity and yet something of a oneness of our entire planet. It was sort of like seeing us the way God must see us".
Now isn't that a wonderful analogy. The celebrations seemed to magnify everything about us.
There's something about watching the color and light around the world contrast with the darkness in Caracas as if the city were placed there to remind us during this exciting time of human pain and heartache and the power of nature. We were reminded also of nature's beauty as we watched the sun rise across the pyramids -- the best and worst of all things magnified ten fold.
For the most part we saw the best of human nature -- we witnessed joy and harmony, yet there were moments in the celebrations which didn't sit well with the overall sensation of it and which seemed out of place.
The worst of us magnified.
Things such as each nation's attempt to say they had the biggest and the best celebrations or staking claim to something they simply cannot own like England's continual claim that year 2000 did not being until they ticked over because they were on Greenwich Meridian Time and that was were time began.
Time does not begin or end anywhere, it is fluid and ever moving, just as we are continually evolving and our cultures changing. For me, the celebrations on the small islands were just as powerful, if not more so, than those in the major cities like Sydney, Paris, New York, Washington and London. If not equally as powerful then certainly more so.
Consider the Kiribati Islanders who were the first nation to greet the year 2000. With a simplicity of life that had not a Y2K bug in site, 70 islanders rowed for three weeks to make it to the island for the celebration. At midnight they danced a traditional dance and chanted "Let all the world be joined with us to greet the new millennium, let us put aside all divisions -- let us unite in love and peace.". Later the islanders welcomed the sunrise with a traditional call from a conch shell.
Simple, powerful and meaningful. The best of us, magnified. For me, this was just as wondrous as the 3 million dollar fireworks display on my own doorstep in Sydney.
And yet, amidst it all there were some who couldn't take in that simple message and insisted on being the biggest and the best, staking claim to being where time begins and having the arrogance to assume that time does in fact have a beginning and an end.
Can we not just accept God's vision, that we are all equally important and diverse, yet part of a oneness that cannot be measured or bettered by another?
Why must we insist on being the first, the best and the greatest in western society? This, I believe is part of what us Westerners so desperately need to overcome in order to gain the peace and clarity that we hope to see in this new century. We have a great deal which we could learn from the Kiribati Islanders, and the backdrop of the year 2000 certainly magnified that simple fact ten fold.
Kylie is co-editor of online Australian lifestyle magazine Box Planet which is for Australian families, parents and living.
Dear Reader: You can help us make this website even better! We'd love to hear your comments about this article! Scroll down to sound off! All of our articles and ideas have come from our imagination and from reader submissions. Please use this form to contact us if you have articles, crafts, activities, games, recipes, songs or poems that you would like to add to this website. Make sure to stop by our friendly forums too! Read more articles from moms in our section devoted just to them! Webmasters and Authors: We are looking for more "mom authors'! We will gladly include a link back to your site or book in exchange for sharing your content. Just contact us!
Make Sure to Visit These Related Links and Articles
Quote this article on your site
To create link towards this article on your website,
copy and paste the text below in your page.Preview :
God's Vision - From Mom's Point of ViewThursday, 29 January 2009 God's Vision I spent the entirety of the first day of the year 2000 watching TV. Sounds very sad doesn't it? It wasn't. What I was watching...
|
