2007

What’s in a name? Or a number? A year by any other number would move as fast as any other year -- well, almost. It may move mercilessly or mercifully, depending on how this one will turn out to be. Or is it, depending on how much we have learned from all the rest we have gone through and therefore how much we have prepared to accept the challenges this one presents to us?

In many ways, we think in terms of numbers. How old are you? How far is your home from your office? What time is it? How many kids do you have? How much did you buy your dress for?

No, we don’t really think in numbers; we use them to make sense of our lives. Our chronological age determines whether we are old enough to drive or to marry or to become president. The distance from office to home somehow tells us how much stress one goes through in commuting every day. The time allows us to organize our day. The number of a person’s children (and their ages) tells us how spread out and how involved one’s emotional, financial and physical resources are. And the cost of one’s clothes tells us how successful or how vain a person is.

But how could an innocent looking year numbered 2007 be any different from 921 or 1674 or 1939? Well, obviously, 2007 is as much different as the pain in one’s tooth at this very moment is from the one that you had extracted ten years ago. The “now” or this “moment” is within the span of time we have arbitrarily designated as 2007.

It’s not just another revolution around the sun. Or another set of 365 rotations of the Earth. Or another set of 12 cycles of the moon around the Earth.

Neither is it another series of events marked on the calendar by historians, rulers and businesspeople. Nor an anticipated batch of disasters that will inevitably find their place on the headlines. Nor an accumulation of programs, controversies and works that will give politicians, journalists and artists reason to exist.

2007 is, to be frank, all of these and much more.

What makes it unique like every other year is the often unwritten description we attach to a year: A.D. Anno Domini. The Year of Our Lord. The phrase points out at least two simple facts: First, that it is the number of years since Christ was born, approximately, that is; and, second, that it is therefore a year that we consecrate to the Lord, who reigns in heaven.

Yet there is a third fact that attaches itself to this numerical tool. It expresses a hidden hope, no, a prayer, that this – 2007 – may be THE Year of the Lord. His long promised return. His anticipated visible rule over all governments and kingdoms. His final countdown on an old, decaying creation. The Omega. The End.

And then all our counting and waiting would then end and be swallowed in one bright and blissful Eternity.

(Painting above done by Romy Rosete of Baguio City. For inquiries on how to acquire the original painting, please send email to author.)