Shabbat is the hearth in my week. Peter Schumann, founder ofBread and Puppet Theatre, always bakes bread at a production of their work. I’m part of their production of Ophelia this weekend. Looking forward to that communal hearth and eating the bread!
This last paragraph was so beautiful and also something that helps explain or define many of the problems of modern society. I have been reading a book about late Stone Age societies (10,000-5,00 BCE) and how they actually were part of larger communities than the stereotype--these communities would come together in certain times at set places and then break up into smaller groups for extended periods. When they gathered, it was of course always around hearth fires, of various sizes. The "warm" emotions we feel around the fire are ingrained in our bones from not only from this era but hundreds of thousands of years prior to that. In the past few centuries of modernity, it has become increasingly difficult for people to find a space where they have that feeling. And when people don't have that safe space, they seem to find some "ism" or some addiction or something else to replace that feeling. Sometimes this can be positive, but too often it leads to selfish and hateful behavior. How can we relight our communal fires?
Shabbat is the hearth in my week. Peter Schumann, founder ofBread and Puppet Theatre, always bakes bread at a production of their work. I’m part of their production of Ophelia this weekend. Looking forward to that communal hearth and eating the bread!
This last paragraph was so beautiful and also something that helps explain or define many of the problems of modern society. I have been reading a book about late Stone Age societies (10,000-5,00 BCE) and how they actually were part of larger communities than the stereotype--these communities would come together in certain times at set places and then break up into smaller groups for extended periods. When they gathered, it was of course always around hearth fires, of various sizes. The "warm" emotions we feel around the fire are ingrained in our bones from not only from this era but hundreds of thousands of years prior to that. In the past few centuries of modernity, it has become increasingly difficult for people to find a space where they have that feeling. And when people don't have that safe space, they seem to find some "ism" or some addiction or something else to replace that feeling. Sometimes this can be positive, but too often it leads to selfish and hateful behavior. How can we relight our communal fires?