I love thinking about the gifts that each region of the earth reflects best, and how to help them work in tandem! Today was talking with Belgian friends…

Thinking of my friends in Belgium today, having just spoken to a friends from there—creative friends, as Peter Bos called them collectively. Curious, friendly and easy going-good characteristics that region reflects! Each region reflects unique aspects of the big pattern. Thankful today for friendliness, such an underrated way on earth these days!

On the phone, i also sensed some of the eccentricity of the dutch, but with a laid back manner which is rarer in the northern parts of places. Being, is still valued. I appreciate that emphasis on relationship above just getting things done that specifically Flanders carries and reflects well! Some people see valuing relationship above productivity as a fault. I tend to value that characteristic more and more as i get older! Anyone can produce, few can Love well. Thanks to my belgian friend for reminding me of that today!

If we honored more what each nation and region is meant to carry, we would get along better, i think! And get to see more of God’s overall integrative expression of Himself! We work in global tandem down here. There are unique gifts on certain regions of the planet. Good to honor them, and express our needs for those eternal characteristics we each reflect. Plus, friendliness, for instance, the one i encountered today, can never be overrated! God, if nothing else, is a Friend!

Let’s find those gifts that one another highlight, help them shine, and find how they relate to our own!

I know that there are shadows to each region as well. As a case study, California is a great synthesizer, and can think at the speed of the north, but with the story telling wisdom of the south; yet, struggles with insularity, isolation from the whole, and materialism (which also means disparity between rich and poor–one of the biggest homeless populations in the US etc) for instance.

Yet what a great synthesizing teacher and interpreter. So many spiritual and tech movements and new metaphor have first been symbolized by her. But, not everyone can interpret her language and way, and there is a need for humble servanthood to help her wisdom get out to the rest of the nation. Still, like Paris, she speaks in poems and symbols and has a high level of visual intelligence. Yet a poem must have a servant art, as all art is meant to be a servant.

Each region, of even this nation has their own gifts, shadows and struggles. True identity, broken identity, and redeemed identity! Just like people. What God intended to reflect through you, how you messed it up, how He redeemed it. Then, we have the question of how to share our redeemed identities with one another to make a fuller expression!

If we can encourage the gifts and their connectivity to other’s, we end up with a better banquet table I think! Where I grew up is a royal haven, or safe place for regal things to develop. This got wounded of course, by pride and a sort of class system which was inherited from europe. Yet, it still is a regal safe place to haven. It struggles with connectivity with the rest of the nation at times, but also stands, as a highly educated state somewhere in between the elite of the north and elite of the south—those who could start and heal the north south divide still present in this particular struggling nation.

Interesting to think what the gifts of your region could do, and how they fit into your nation’s larger healing process and dialogue. NC is not deep south, but relates to the deep south and the intelligent quick witted north. It should be a haven for conversations on how to unify the nation at the heart level.

You have to look at integration of your region of nation as well as the global banquet of gifts to start to desire to heal your local gifts, and call them forth in tandem with other’s.

Europe as a whole, for instance, not unlike America, has a north south division. There is of course also a east west division , but often i see the north south divide as more spiritually intense. Two different ways on the same continent which need to integrate and share gifts. As in England, the industrial north and the literary south, but so much dialogue is possible now between the various parts of our nations or regions, if we can recognize one another’s gifts.

Certain places struggle more with isolation; other’s with creativity. But each of us need one another and reflect different aspects and gifts.

What’s the gift of your part of the world, and how can it be redeemed to work in relationship and mutual blessings with others? That’s been one of my guiding questions as a global person.

Of course, every region has been wounded, which is usually aimed at the exact gifts of that region. Sometimes we can find the true identity of that place, by looking at where they were most wounded. Just as it is with people. I love thinking of different regions of the world and how they need one another to be whole. Thankful for Belgian friendliness today, as well as the friendliness and can do spirit of Texas today.

We want to find, celebrate and heal our own gifts and one another’s! And then see how they are meant to collaborate and compliment on another into a fuller expression! That’s my passion, anyway! Again, what are the gifts you carry, your neighborhood and city carry collectively, then your nation? And how to move to healing those, then considering how they could bless and collaborate with other regions of the global family! Fun meditation today!