29. January 2026 – THE FLENSBURG FILES

As protesters are fighting to keep ICE out of their states and protect immigrants and their way of life, another story unfolding has involved the US and its neighbors- in particular, Canada. Once known as a beacon of democracy and a neighbor to work together, countries around the world are turning their backs. This became evident at the Davos Conference last week, where Trump hurled accusations of countries and the UN not doing their parts to uphold peace, not to mention create a “Board of Peace,” which was snubbed by Europe sans Hungary and Slovakia. Mark Carney of Canada presented a speech which indirectly accuses the US of being apathetic and ignorant, and calls on countries to look at each other and determine who are our true neighbors and redefine what a good neighbor is. A Country Pastor, which has a facebook page here, analyses this stark contrast between the two closest neighbors.

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This week, some of America’s closest allies said something hard to hear. The United States is no longer being seen as a reliable partner, and more and more, our friends are starting to look at us like an adversary.

Have you ever asked one of your friends or neighbors, truly asked, what they think about you. Not what you hope they think. Not what you assume they see. But what they actually experience when they interact with you.

Most of us will never ask that question, because the answer might unsettle us. We prefer our own intentions to stand in for reality. And yet, more often than we like to admit, what our neighbors think of us still finds its way back. It comes through the grapevine, through a comment, through a sudden distance where closeness once lived. When it does, we are often surprised. Sometimes even hurt. Not because we intended harm, but because we did not realize how we were being experienced.

Jesus tells us to love our neighbors. We quote it easily. We teach it often. But love of neighbor is not proven by how we describe ourselves. Love of neighbor asks a harder and humbler question. How are we experienced by those around us. What do they see when they look at us from the other side of the fence.

Scripture never defines love as self assessment. Love requires listening. Love requires humility. Love requires the courage to hear truths we did not expect to hear. Only then can relationship be restored, trust rebuilt, and growth begin.

That question matters not only in personal relationships, but in how nations relate to one another.

For generations, Canada and Europe have been exactly that to the United States. Canada has been our closest neighbor, bound not only by geography but by shared history, trade, defense, and daily life. Europe has been our friend and ally, standing with us through war, rebuilding together after devastation, and helping shape a world that at least aspired toward cooperation over domination. These relationships were never merely political. They were relational. Moral. Built on trust.

Yet over this past year, many of those friends and neighbors have watched the United States speak and act in ways that feel less like partnership and more like relentless pressure, pressure that escalates, erodes trust, destabilizes relationships, and pushes them to the breaking point, almost to the point of insanity. From within our own story, this may sound like strength or realism. From the vantage point across the table, it feels destructive, destabilizing, and deeply unsettling.

Earlier in the week, in Switzerland, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a speech that gives Americans a rare opportunity. The chance to see ourselves through the eyes of a friend. Not an enemy. Not a rival. A neighbor who has shared history, risk, and responsibility with us for generations.

What Carney describes is not simply political change, but the breaking of an old story many nations have continued to perform long after they knew it no longer matched reality. Drawing on Václav Havel’s idea of living within the lie, Carney explains how systems persist not only through force, but through participation. Through people and nations continuing to display the sign in the window because it feels safer than telling the truth.

When Carney speaks about taking the sign down, he is drawing from Havel’s essay The Power of the Powerless. Havel tells the story of a shopkeeper in a totalitarian system who places a government slogan in his window, not because he believes it, but to avoid trouble and signal compliance. The system survives not only through coercion, but because ordinary people continue to participate in a public lie. When the shopkeeper removes the sign, he is not starting a revolution. He is simply choosing to live in truth. Havel argues that this decision, to stop performing what is false, is where real change begins.

Carney’s call is simple and unsettling. Stop pretending. Take the sign down. Live in truth. I strongly encourage you to read his full speech for yourself. It is sober, thoughtful, and unusually honest. The complete transcript is available here: https://globalnews.ca/news/11620877/carney-davos-wef-speech-transcript/

What makes Carney’s words especially compelling is how deeply biblical they are, even without religious language. Scripture consistently exposes false peace and performative righteousness. The prophets warned against crying peace when there was no peace. Jesus confronted outward displays of faith that masked fear and self interest. Truth, in Scripture, is alignment between what we say, what we do, and what we trust.

This is why the breaking of the old story matters. We are living through a moment when long held illusions are being stripped away. Assumptions we relied on are no longer holding. Alliances once taken for granted are straining. Institutions built on trust are weakening. What feels like chaos is often what truth feels like when it finally surfaces. This is not an escape from the world, but a revealing of it. Painful, yes. Clarifying, too. What is being exposed now is not caused by truth itself, but by how long we avoided it.

That contrast became even clearer yesterday with Donald Trump’s speech on the international stage. Where Carney spoke as a neighbor naming reality in order to rebuild trust, Trump once again leaned into grievance, transactionalism, and division. These are not simply different styles. They are competing visions of how power should be used in the world.

Scripture is clear about where these paths lead. A world shaped by fear and domination eventually consumes itself. A world grounded in truth, even when costly, leaves room for renewal. Scripture calls us to speak truthfully with one another and to pursue the kind of justice that makes for peace.

Friends matter. Neighbors matter. Perspective matters. The truth is not hard to see. What is hard to find right now is leadership willing to listen to it.

“Speak the truth to one another and render judgments that are true and make for peace.” Zechariah 8:16.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9.