What happened?

I am finding it hard to believe that at this time ten years ago, I was planning a trip to South Beach to welcome in the year 2000, relieved and happy that I'd escaped being on call for any Y2K problems that might arise at work. And thinking about going platinum to welcome in the new millenium (I did).

I lived in San Francisco. It was a few short months before I bought my first home. The stock market was soaring. I was in love.

A year later I was single and still missing the man who'd also been my best friend.

And a year after that America was still recovering from the collective shock of 9/11. I was looking for a new home in Portland, feeling fortunate in a bad economy to be relocated to Oregon when my company closed up shop in the Bay Area.

In these past ten years I've gone to Australia and Germany twice each, England several times, and visited The Netherlands, France, and Italy. After a ten year hiatus, I returned to Mexico for the first time in 2007 and have been back many times since then. I've had some amazing trips and unforgettable moments with friends. I've loved again. And I've lost two special family members.

After moving to Portland, I eventually returned to SF. And then moved on to Vegas. And now I'm back in Portland. I quit my job before being clear about what I was doing next, and I'm still figuring it all out as I go. The economy is bleak once again, and each downturn we've had this decade has increasingly revealed signs that America's economic problems are fundamental and not the result of a simple boom and bust cycle. We've grown used to things that are unsustainable; we've become blinded to what's real.

I find it hard to believe that the aughts are coming to an end, that 2010 is around the corner, that this is the 21st century. Like many I know, I find myself thinking: it wasn't supposed to be like this, right?

I'm still muddling through. For the most part, we all are. But the problems we're facing together grow bigger and bigger: an economy that depends on China loaning us money, a climate that is gradually shifting toward one less hospitable, a creaking infrastructure that becomes increasingly vulnerable to collapse, near gridlock in Washington. More people. Limited resources. Technological solutions that have unintended consequences.

Hope and promise still exist, but shams and illusions and stubborness are obstacles in an interconnected world that loom larger than they once did when communities--and nations--were more self-reliant. We're all in this together yet still looking out for #1.

These thoughts are not meant to be wholly pessimistic, but where we turn down a new path--and whether we can muster the will to do so--are answers that I don't have, answers that I'm not seeing anyone offer.

LAST NIGHT I watched Ben-Hur, and afterwards I went to the web to research a simple question: what is the meaning of Christ's crucifixion? In an era of Google and Wikipedia, I've grown used to finding a quick, unambiguous answer to most questions. Last night's query was not such a case. And that reminded me of my general belief about the Bible, the one that's reinforced every time I stay in a hotel and open a drawer to leaf through the copy left by the Gideons. How does John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

coexist with all of the apocalyptic fire and thunder of Revelation? How does a God who so loves the world destroy it?

My thought about the Bible is this: you can use it as a handy guide to pick and choose people to throw stones out. Or you can use it as a path to inquiry: what can I learn from these contradictions? How will I live my life? What kind of person will I be? It's an inquiry with no clear answers; with answers that mostly produce more questions. It's easier to throw stones or watch TV or vote "no." But too many stones and too much TV and too many "no's" give you a decade like the one we're now completing.

All of this was triggered by a couple of articles I've just read, one looking at President Obama's year of compromises and diminished goals (wasn't Reagan partially successful because he drew a hard line and then declared victory with whatever compromise resulted?), the other describing Tiger Woods' double-life as symbolic of so much of what's befallen us in these past ten years.

And before reading those articles I spent an evening having interesting conversations at a holiday party, mostly with people I didn't know that well. The contrast of the experience there and my thoughts at home about the wider world lead me to think that we humans are best in small groups. I haven't found a societal problem yet that hasn't been made worse by the sheer number of people on the planet.