Creation Patterns
The Columbus Zoo has a wildlife refuge (The Wilds) with over 9,000 acres outside the city on donated, reclaimed land from a former strip mine. The white rhinoceros population they build up at The Wilds lives on not a few thousand square feet but on hundreds of acres. This space allows the rhinos to form social structures that support reproduction, which don’t form unless they have enough space. There are similar, human patterns when we live in a stable, healthy environment that supports the way we are created to live. This section - Community Focus Areas - describes one of them. The pattern described here occurs over and over in communities around the world. It is so common and we are so embedded in it that we have a hard time seeing it clearly. Many (most?) people in a community don’t see or care about the existence of this pattern. This doesn’t mean that they don’t function in it, just that their work doesn’t involve building the relationships and connections that build up the health and productivity of the overall system. The people who do (or could) work to improve the relationships and interactions between and among components of these systems will benefit from understanding: 1. the existence and recurrence of this pattern, and 2. its specific expression, incarnation, form, and functioning in their own community. People are gifted and called to work in different ways in different areas in these patterns. No work in one area is superior to work in any other area. While work in different areas can be different, each one is vitally important for the overall health of a community. Work in any area brings benefit. Disfunction in any area causes loss. No one’s work is more or less important than anyone else’s. It is important that everyone does what they understand to be their part. The people who have the gifts and calling to work on the system itself will benefit from understanding this pattern’s existence and function, as well as their own appropriate role in it. This short section hopefully can help with that understanding.
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