I had collected things and didn’t know it. I began placing things that had no place, in spaces that had no space. The obvious were the books, binders, recordings and equipment. The fillers were the toys, trinkets and treasures of no real value.

It was easy to clean the room. It was easy to grab a box and place things in it. The hard part came later. I had to unpack all those boxes and places things somewhere.

But I just couldn’t.

For sixteen years I simply placed this thing there and that thing somewhere else. They didn’t belong there. But there were no real places for them anyway.

I couldn’t just give them up. They just blended together into one room.

But now I must.

It was in going through all those things without places that I discovered why the world is so messed up.

It came in an envelope marked “National Geographic.”

I had looked at this many times before. I wrote and asked for it. I was fascinated by it. But I had nowhere to hang it.

A map of the world. I love it. I want to see it hanging on my wall and travel all over it. I want to get a message from a friend and look on the map to see where my friend lived. I’d touch it, point to it and wave, “Hello, my friend!”

But I don’t have a place for it.

So, I opened it one more time. Just to look at it and dream.

It was then that I discovered the map had two sides. It was then I realized why we have problems.

One side was marked “Physical World” and the other side…”Political World.”

That’s the problem. God gave us the “Physical World.” We took it and divided it up into mine and yours. Theirs and ours.

We fought over boundaries and borders. We drew lines and pushed them to take a little of someone and make it our own. We split it up, sub-divided it, named it, conquered it, destroyed it and raised it up again.

But it wasn’t ours to divide. It was ours to live in. To exist. To value. To travel and to appreciate. I flipped over the map from side to side. The “Physical World” is how God sees it. How God meant it to be. The “Political World” is what we did to it.

“You stay over there and I’ll stay here.”

“You don’t belong here. Go back to where you came.”

We are of one creation. We are of one world. We are of one Nation. God’s, no matter what you call Him, how you see Him, what you believe of Him…One. One physical world without limitations, without boundaries, without lines in the dirt, without walls, without armies, without war, without politics.

One.

It worked in my office. Everything belonged even if it didn’t have a defined place, it fit in. Why can we do this with things and not with people?

One. We all belong here and there as “One.”

Bob Perks Bob@BobPerks.com