Thank you for this insight this afternoon, it helped wake me up from my typical “Friday 4 PM Slump.”

Burdens shared are burdens relieved. I had the extreme privilege of living across an arroyo from my grandparents when I was a child and I was just thinking how I wish I could relive those experiences for a while with my adult appreciation of what they taught me and how loving they were. My folks and my grandparents were farmers on opposite sides of the same valley in southern New Mexico—oh how uncomplicated life was then because if something came up to make us laugh or make us cry, the family was right there to share it and deal with it and no one person felt all the burden of any event.

Sometimes I fantasize about people living life together today, whether blood relatives or churches or any group of people willing to come together and do life together where everything is shared—nothing is just mine, but everything is ours. We produce income as a group, we share expenses as a group. Hey, maybe even work with an insurance company to be our own group for insurance coverage. The ones in the group who are blessed with the greater incomes are not possessive of it but feel a special joy that they can contribute more to the group. Everyone feels a sense of doing what they can to contribute to the group. Everyone as purpose in the group. The children have many mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandmothers, and grandfathers to share in their accomplishments. Sounds kind of like a hippie commune, but I see so many people in this world who have far more than they need and way too many people who have less than they need. Hmmm…seems like I have heard of whole cultures who rather successfully lived life this way.

The problem with the American way of life is that so many people through no fault of their own have things happen to them so beyond their control and they wind up lacking food, clothing, shelter, and a proper image of their worth as humans all because they don’t have a family to cover their deficits.

A capitalistic society is seemingly fine and dandy for the individual who was lucky enough to accumulate sufficient material possessions to provide them with all their physical
needs. But is that all life is about—just accumulating and hoarding money and stuff for just myself and maybe my blood family?

During the Great Depression, my parents and some other couples (at least 2 maybe more) drove out to California to find jobs as they were scarce in Clovis, NM where they were living at the time. They wound up renting one house for all of them and some found jobs and others maintained the house and watched the kids and they just shared life together knowing that they had different skills and some might find jobs and others might not, but they were in this together.

Could this happen today—-why not???

Could those who have church families or group associations start sharing life like families should?

As you said Mitch, “Maybe living life together could happen again…maybe.”