Thursday 7 February 2008

The family in the community

Isn't this a beautiful image of how families and communities could be? This excerpt is pulled from a book I'm reading about life in Judea around 30 AD. The characters are about to embark on a two-week walk to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Tabernacles, along with numerous other families of their town:

"Once they started on the march, there would be no effort to keep individual families together. The group was like one large family anyway. The children would gather into rough age groups to play and be together. Whichever family was closest to a given group would keep an eye on them. Most of the men would move out to the head of the column, watching for problems and setting the pace. The women would likewise gather in groups to visit as they walked. The caravan was really much like a rolling village, with family groups taking precedence only at meal times and at night."

I hope that, come the good weather, we'll be able to meet many more people in our neighbourhood and spark a little bit of this spirit in our own community.

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