NOTE: This is a fictional account, but is based somewhat unloosely on future prophesied events and promised conditions, as clearly as I can imagine them unfolding and being realized. It will be interesting to compare these prognostications of mine one day to how far off I was in some of my ruminations, and possibly how close I was on certain others. It is written in first person, with Frank Calloway as the protagonist. See Chapter 1 (there’s a link to it at the bottom) for more information.
All of the earth’s population is separated into seven divisions, with no special commonality among those in each group, except that families and close friends are usually assigned together in their respective groups. The purpose of subdividing earth’s inhabitants in this way is to give everyone an entire year’s vacation once every seven years. This is called our ‘Jubilee’ year. At any given time, one-seventh of the earth’s population is celebrating their Jubilee. Also, once every 50 years — after all seven groups have enjoyed seven Jubilees each — there is a general Jubilee for everyone simultaneously. The group that had to wait the longest for their Jubilee (six years) thus gets two years in a row of Jubilation. After each ‘Great Jubilee,’ there is a re-shuffling of the groups, so that eventually everyone will have been on Jubilee at the same time as every other person on earth (in addition to the semicentennial ‘Great Jubilee,’ when all are Jubileeing together).
What is this all about? What happens to or for those on Jubilee?
During a group’s Jubilee year, they are free to go wherever they want, and do whatever they want — within reason, of course, following the laws of love for God and neighbor. Meanwhile, the other six-sevenths of the population serve as the Jubileers’ hosts and guides: feeding them, housing them, showing them around — wherever they happen to go. Of course, all this hosting and feeding and guiding work is voluntary, and is usually enjoyed as much by those doing the hosting as it is by those being hosted. After all, there is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving.
Travelers on Jubilee visiting a community seeking accommodations, meals, and fellowship simply gravitate to a village’s community center, or to the common area where the foodstuffs are stored, and wait to be invited to someone’s house; they always are, and usually very quickly. Hearty hospitality is a hallmark of our new world society. In fact, locals make it a habit to look for Jubileers whenever they pass through the “Commons.” In this way, they meet new people from all over the world, discover connections with them — finding out that they know someone in common always being an enjoyable way of ‘breaking the ice’ and seeding further conversation and inquiries.
Sometimes the villagers see people on Jubilee they already know, perhaps someone from whom they accepted hospitality somewhere, some time. Often they haven’t seen each other in years, but due to our now having the full use of our mental capacity, we remember them vividly even though what used to seem like a long time has passed. As time goes on, it will eventually be the case that sometimes centuries or even millenniums will have passed, and yet all will recall the previous meeting in detail. It will even happen that we had a conversation with someone about, say, growing peach trees, and then the next time we see them — perhaps several hundred years later — we resume the conversation where we left off, remembering everything that was said and perhaps telling them without preamble what we have learned and tried since then in the way of growing the best peaches.
In the old system, the average family on earth only got a couple of weeks a year free to themselves; many, especially in Europe, got a few more, but some got none at all. Even then, families could often not afford to go where they wanted to go or do what they wanted to do. Too often the situation was that you either had the time but not the money or you had the money but not the time to take a real vacation.
Now, though, we have a full year to explore the world, or do whatever else it is that we want to do with that time. We can spend all of it in one place, such as the places that used to be called Switzerland, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Japan, Hawaii, Tahiti, Bora Bora, California, Colorado, Vermont, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and so forth; alternatively, we can spend our Jubilee Year visiting several of those places, spending a few days or weeks or months in each. For those with such goals, mammoth projects such as walking or sailing or paddling all the way around the earth can be accomplished in stages. It might take you quite a few Jubilee Years to do it, but we are not limited by a short life span as was previously the case; we have ‘all the time in the world’ — that is to say, since we live forever, and in perfect health, we can take on projects that last centuries or millennia, without fearing that we won’t live to complete them. We can even undertake suchlike projects at home, during non-Jubilee years. For example, we can plant a redwood and watch it grow from a sapling to a cloudscraper.
As to accommodating those who enjoy hiking, there are walking paths crisscrossing the entire globe, with hostel-like accommodations strategically placed every eight to sixteen kilometers apart (the distance between them depending on the terrain — whether it’s relatively flat or mountainous).
I spent my first (and only, so far) Jubilee year simply walking — taking the time to enjoy the scenery, talking with others on the trail, and reveling in the fellowship at the accommodations at night. Those on Jubilee are treated like honored guests and catered to, as far as food and lodging is concerned (just as they themselves do for Jubileers the other six years out of seven). Of course, in my case, I stayed mostly at hostel-like chalets. There are few things more enjoyable than the leisurely and exquisite delight of soaking up the surrounding beauty, meeting new friends as well as seeing old friends again, and then sharing food and drink with the hosts and whoever else happens to be on hand at the “hostel” (actually, we don’t usually call them that anymore, due to its negative connotation, being a homonym of the word hostile; instead, we call them hospitables).
And it’s not as if the six years that we are not on Jubilee is a grind, by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not a case of escaping drudgery when we go on Jubilee, but more a case of enjoying a change of pace and an expanding of horizons. We aren’t ‘clock watchers’; it’s more like a pleasant surprise than a longed-for relief when our Jubilee turn comes up.
The once-every-5o-years ‘Great Jubilee,’ during which all are simultaneous Jubileers, takes a lot of planning and preparation — foodstuffs are laid up, much canning and preserving is done beforehand, tools are cleaned and put away, animals are provided with fodder to last them the year (except for those who are taken along on these journeys, which typically include some dogs and cats, and even horses and mules and such; even the occasional elephant).
Chapter 1 is here.
Chapter 8 is here.