Once upon a time  there was a little boy whose father worked in a nearby city. The boy missed him all day because work kept him away and so he anxiously waited to hear the approaching footsteps outside his front door signaling his fathers return each night.   

Once home his father would be tired. He enjoyed a period of peace and quiet after each day relaxing after dinner in his favorite chair reading the newspaper. Then he and the boy would go to another room where they would play before mother would come in and announce,  “Time for bed. Say goodnight to your father.”

 

 

 

But on this particular evening the boy was impatient. He didn’t want to wait for his father to read the paper. “Dad”, he said, “play with me”. Seeing how insistent the boy was his father looked into the paper and finding a full page map of the world, got an idea.“ Okay, he said, let’s play!”      

As he spoke he began tearing the page with the map on it in half and then in half again and then again and again until his hands were full of small scraps of rectangular bits of paper containing oceans, poles, continents and land masses. With a broad sweep of his hands he scattered the pieces above and in front of his head covering the entire floor in the middle of the room. "You put the pieces of this big picture together and by the time you’ve finished I’ll have read my paper and we can play before your bedtime.”          

The boy agreed and began putting the pieces together. His father relaxed. Fully absorbed in reading he then all but forgot about the little boy and his assignment. Before long however, he felt a small hand tugging at his pant leg. There, seated on the floor was his son, a wide grin lighting his innocent face and there behind him fully assembled was - a full map of the world.     

Amazed, he dropped his paper and with both his hands took hold of his son and looking him in the eyes said, “How did you ever manage to do that so quickly”?

“It was easy Dad”, was the reply. “When you took the page out of the paper I saw there was a picture of a man on the other side and I realized that when I put the man together the whole world will come together “

 

 

 

 

 

         In that way entire communities resemble worlds in a nutshell - and that is - The Big Picture.