In this sensitive, reflective, incredibly beautiful book Virginia Owens spreads before the reader a feast of families. With each course she serves up stories from her own family life in Texas as well as stories of families of well-known persons and families of the Bible.

With remarkable, fresh insights Virginia Owens fixes attention on the family in a way secular and religious writers have not done. While she reveals the frailty of human relationships and warns against making the family an object of veneration, she also recognizes the family's temporal values and graces. And if she removes the props of a misplaced faith in family as an ultimate source of meaning and security, she offers the consolation of the Trinity, the true family with which we are to feast.

Family has always been humanity's way of explaining themselves to themselves. Current popular television drama reveals this with programs like the Waltons and all those stress-ridden soap-opera generations. Family is also the Bible's way of explaining humanity—since the days of Adam and Eve Family has always been a medium for passing the important things of life, like traditions and faith, from generation to generation.