A fascinating metaphor for Belgium—your own history. Very well done.

When I was Bishop in Europe for The episcopal Church, stationed in Paris, we bought a church building in Waterloo from the Swedish Lutheran Church Abroad. Absolutely wonderful people, they refused to sell to commercial interests and would only deal with us. They had built the church from a restaurant.

However, buying a church building is not done often in Belgium, I learned. Indeed, we had to go back eventually to Napoleon's decrees and navigate the "layer cake" of federal, regional, cantonal, and city bureaucracies. They didi not play well together… Compounding the difficulties was the opposition of the local mayor, who was trying to make deal for himself with buying the building and especially the land. (He got his in the end...)

Along the way, I came to love your country, its people, food ("French cuisine, German portions"), and of course chocolate and beer. I found then and still find today that the split isn't advantageous to either side. Does the Netherlands want Flanders? Does France want Wallonia? (well, maybe with Brussels/Bruxelles...) And after all a small part of Flanders is in France—"les Flandres." I hope you all can work it out—si Dieu veut, als God het wil!