It has been the season of family films on the telly and trips to the pantomime. Have you seen Snow White at the Wyvern?

In Disney's version she sings, "Wishing will make it so." If only!There has been a lot of wishing lately. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Even Happy Millennium, whatever that means.

I could wish for many things, for me and for you. For good health, a happy family, a secure job. For a world where there is justice, peace, and proper care for the environment. But, sadly, wishing will not make it so. Tonight the balloons and fireworks. Tomorrow the hangover and the washing up.

Wishing only has results when it is followed by working to make it so. It needs me, it needs you and me, to find ways to actually make it happen.

But even then it does not always work out. So what do I do with my failure? How do I rebuild my relationships? How do I become part of the bigger picture, find a larger source of vision and the courage to go for it?

Somewhere back in all that hype about a new millennium was a birthday. Somewhere in the party we were celebrating what happened two thousand years ago.

Somewhere in that story was a man who met people in all their failure but all their possibility as well, someone who took people seriously, especially those who had got left out and left behind, and who started to turn wishes into reality.

The question for a new millennium is whether mankind belongs to the world of Snow White, or to a future where, with Him, all kinds of things could really be possible.