opportunities and possibilities.

For some, the threshold of a brand new month, a brand new year and a brand new millennium is a cause for anxiety while, for others, the promise of a new beginning is awaited with almost breathless anticipation.

If nothing else, this celebration gives us a chance to place the time in which we live in its historical context. We have the opportunity to understand more clearly how we reached where we are and to make more thoughtful assessments about where we wish to go in the future.

The 20th Century has been characterised by giant technological achievements and other truly extraordinary examples of man's ingenuity. On the other hand, however, the century has borne witness to far too many examples of our continued inability, as human beings, to love one another, respect one another, share with one another and care for one another.

In all the excitement of a world grown so interconnected that we now talk of a global village, let us remember what a village truly stood for -- a community that looked after and cared for its own, working and living together in harmony.

As we look forward to the year 2000, we realise that while we cannot do anything to change what has happened in the past, we hold the ability to shape the future in our hands.

We can make that future bright by working with each other, by respecting each other and by using our individual and collective talents to make Bermuda an even better society than it is today.

Here in this tiny Island -- this mere dot on the world map -- we have an opportunity, indeed an obligation, to demonstrate the way forward by keeping the values of the past -- while using the technology of the future -- to ensure a better quality of life for all.

It is my hope that we will broaden our hearts as well as our minds as we move forward into the 21st Century, so that all children will enjoy the right to a safe, happy and nurturing childhood; so that no one will go hungry while there is an abundance of food; and so that the elderly, the homeless and the indigent will be respected and cared for.

A new page is about to be turned. A new chapter is about to start. Indeed a new volume is about to be written. Let us resolve to meet the New Year and the new millennium with confidence, secure in the knowledge that we enter a new era rich in blessing and opportunity.

With God's help, the 21st Century will dawn on a Bermuda united in the way forward, with each resident committed to the building of a fairer, more just and more caring society.

On behalf of my colleagues in Government, my mother and my family, I wish each of you a New Year filled with peace and prosperity.

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