Saturday--16Mar13: 75/290
With the voting in of Pope Francis this week at the Vatican, my own attention has been turned southward to Argentina, a country of 40 million plus people. This past summer I was also thinking about Argentina, but not with regard to a new Pope.
Last summer, part of celebrating being alive for 70 years was a long awaited trip to Alaska (the picture is of Mr. McKinley in Danali National Park). It was a trip I’ll not forget until I can no longer remember. What thoroughly struck me last summer, with the geography of Alaska, is that up there, near Fairbanks, a “spine” of two continents begins.....then ends in Argentina at Cape Horn.
We here in Colorado happen to have the privilege of living on that spine in what we call the Rocky Mountains. To be sure, where this spine begins and ends has some fairly spectacular scenery in Patagonia. And, yes, for you geography purists, there are mountain ranges that take off and/or meld into this spine that are important in their own right.
Looking at a map of North, Central and South America provides a fascinating spine of connection from top to bottom of this part of the planet known as Earth. Somehow, the Creator designed this spine, approximately 32,260 miles long, to majorly water and nurture all this north, central and south landscape.
Up here in the northern hemisphere this next week marks the official beginning of Spring. Down there in the southern hemisphere marks the beginning of Fall. Seven of the world’s time zones make up this land mass.
South America: 400,103,516 (F) 202,358,164 (M) 197,745,352
Central America: 197,385,196 (F) 100,300,355 (M) 97,084,841
North America: 347,388,982 (F) 176,175,064 (M) 171,213,918
____________ ____________ ______________
944,877,694 478,833,853 466,044,111
Let me do the math for you. That’s 12,798,472 less men than woman. Interesting.
According to the World Bank stats from 2011, the population of our whole world is: 6,973,738,433. I’ve now heard we are way over 7 billion here in 2013. 6 billion men, women, and children living in other corners of the globe, beyond this spine that connects the continent we live on. Whew...........
7 billion people made in the image of God.
You are not just one in a million (as the olde saying goes). You are 1 in 7 billion. When God created Adam and Eve and all the rest of creation he said, “It is good.” As the Spirit of our God stirs within your own soul, guess what? Because God can see the “true you, the you he created you to be,” I believe he is still saying, “that (you) is (are) good.” :-)
Do you believe what God says about you?
You, his ultra unique and special person?
You 1 in 7 billion remarkable person, you?
Can you even begin to count the ways of just how much you are loved, personally, completely by the Creator of the universe. Truly amazing you, as amazing as the rest of his creation, from your own spine out.
We have special relatives visiting us this weekend. I hear them stirring downstairs. Time to go down and make brew some coffee from Central American part of this geographical spine that has intrigued me today so that we may be more fully awake and alive and functioning in our individual places in the world.
How will you function today in your own place in the world?
Get going...........!!!
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