A nation is not defined by its borders or the boundaries of its land mass Rather, a nation is defined by adverse people who have been unified by a cause and a value system and who are committed to a vision for the type of society they wish to live in and give to the future generations to come.

A small nation resembles a big family and likes to describe itself that way. In the language of the smallest European people, in Icelandic, the term for 'family' is fjölskylda; the etymology is eloquent: skylda means 'obligation'; fjöl means 'multiple.' Family is thus 'a multiple obligation.' Icelanders have a single word for 'family ties': fjölskyldubönd: 'the cords (bönd) of multiple obligations.' Thus in the big family that is a small country, the artist is bound in multiple ways, by multiple cords. When Nietzsche noisily savaged the German character, when Stendhal announced that he preferred Italy to his homeland, no German or Frenchman took offense; if a Greek or a Czech dared to say the same thing, his family would curse him as a detestable traitor.

The recognition of a distinct 'national identity' among members of the Body of Christ can keep before us our ties with Christians who live under different secular governments, with whom we have bonds that transcend and override our commitments to governments and groups outside the church.

If you can tag every Pakistani men as terrorists, you can definitely tag every Indian men as rapists... That's how the minority make an identity for the nation.

If the surprise outcome of the recent UK referendum - on whether to leave or remain in the European Union - teaches us anything, it is that supposedly worthy displays of democracy in action can actually do more harm than good. Witness a nation now more divided; an intergenerational schism in the making; both a governing and opposition party torn to shreds from the inside; infinitely more complex issues raised than satisfactory solutions provided. It begs the question 'Was it really all worth it' ?

Perhaps that is the greatest crime of conquest--that a civilization is denied the right to evolve beyond its own embarrassment.

Larry has been absorbed, as he wished, into that tumultuous conglomeration of humanity, distracted by so many conflicting interests, so lost in the world's confusion, so wistful of good, so cocksure on the outside, so diffident within, so kind, so hard, so trustful and so cagey, so mean and so generous, which is the people of the United States.