Kingdom's Keys Fellowship
Where God's Kingdom Meets Man's Heart.
Pentecost 57 "Justa lookin' fora home, justa lookin' fora home" Isn't Everyone?
Pentecost 57 ‘Justa lookin’ for a home, justa lookin’ for a home” Isn’t Everyone?
Ps.84: 3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
As a young teenager moving from the then pristine North Carolina of the 40’s to the crowded ugly amphitheater called New York City, I felt the crushing insignificance that comes as scurrying herds of nameless faces pass by you. In small Carolina towns you had a name, a face and a place. My best friends were Jimmy, Billy Joe and Fred. We roamed the woods, had our own dogs that followed us wherever we went. All our parents knew each other and on Sundays we always ate with a neighbor close by or they with us. Every parent and adult was your cover, your protection and your authority. There was an atmosphere of security wherever you went. ‘Yes, m’am’ ‘No, sir’ were standard signs of respect. Whatever you said or did, right or wrong, was settled in a cushion of an understood and overall accepted value structure.
In the city streets you were ‘one of those kids,’ a suspect when anything bad happened, a kraut, a dago, a spic, a jungle bunny, a mick, a kike, or whatever ethnic slur could crowd you into its rejection pool. These I discovered were the ‘courts‘ of the world. ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘no, ma’m’ were laughed at. You were treated as ‘typical’ of whatever national grouping you looked like. This generated a lot of gang membership and competition for who controlled ‘your turf,’ the block you lived on. I went from being known individually, valued as a child being raised and measured for a future, to being put up with, a neighborhood kid in the way and a dot on the landscape of survival.
Circumstance shapes you, gets you to thinking. Can I get out of here and when? That’s what kept me going. So many people are trapped in the confines of what they feel secure in, what they are willing to put up with and accept as limits for them. They never get outside of who they think they are as defined by where they are and who they know.
Three significant brush strokes crossed the canvass of my experience opening the door to a horizon beyond the city streets. The first I shared in the last writing, exposure to a world of mountains, forests, wildlife and the expansive universe. Add to this my earlier Carolina small town social security blanket. There’s another world out there, the courts for the heart God has created for this world to let us look beyond to see the ones He has in His Kingdom.
Second, I had the benefit of an incredible high school education that gave me the academic foundation that later carried me through college and seminary. But also I found great music, great art and great thinking as another set of ‘courts’ in this world to be discovered. While not becoming proficient in any of them they became centers for my appreciation and admiration for those who found their passion in them. More courts of the heart for this world but bridges into more.
Third, and most significant was finding my self in a church way outside my neighborhood where people actually liked me, I liked them and the atmosphere was a total reversal of the grubby brownstone East Harlem flavor I lived in with its fear ridden ‘tough guy’ maneuvering. This third opening gave me something more that would reshape everything from that point on though, at the time, I was not really, as they say, ‘into it.’ It was the beginning of my discovery of the ‘courts’ of the Lord. I was introduced to ‘church,’ the liturgy, membership and belonging to something spiritual and social and something unseen drawing me. These would set my course for something beyond that years later would make heart sense, mind sense and sense out of who I was and what I was here for. It was my safe haven, my retreat from the world, my escape from where I lived.
The courts of the world I had been dragged into were temporary, fear-laced and ‘tents of the wicked’ put up along the way for social survival. They were those that promised acceptance and recognition defined by ethnic, physical, social and local standards demanding loyalty to the group and its leaders that made those definitions. They were the immediate securers of pride and lasted only as long as you lived there. Fear was the driving force behind all that. I found the courts of world promise were fueled by pride and fear demanding constant attention to details like appearance, language and reinforcing one another’s approval of fake toughness. There was a distinct difference between the ‘courts’ of my neighborhood and the ‘courts’ I found in church.
“You have not handed me over to the enemy.
You have put me in a wide and safe place (Ps.31:8).”
More on ‘courts’ as we move from the secular to the spiritual……..stay tuned.
Ps.84: 3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
As a young teenager moving from the then pristine North Carolina of the 40’s to the crowded ugly amphitheater called New York City, I felt the crushing insignificance that comes as scurrying herds of nameless faces pass by you. In small Carolina towns you had a name, a face and a place. My best friends were Jimmy, Billy Joe and Fred. We roamed the woods, had our own dogs that followed us wherever we went. All our parents knew each other and on Sundays we always ate with a neighbor close by or they with us. Every parent and adult was your cover, your protection and your authority. There was an atmosphere of security wherever you went. ‘Yes, m’am’ ‘No, sir’ were standard signs of respect. Whatever you said or did, right or wrong, was settled in a cushion of an understood and overall accepted value structure.
In the city streets you were ‘one of those kids,’ a suspect when anything bad happened, a kraut, a dago, a spic, a jungle bunny, a mick, a kike, or whatever ethnic slur could crowd you into its rejection pool. These I discovered were the ‘courts‘ of the world. ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘no, ma’m’ were laughed at. You were treated as ‘typical’ of whatever national grouping you looked like. This generated a lot of gang membership and competition for who controlled ‘your turf,’ the block you lived on. I went from being known individually, valued as a child being raised and measured for a future, to being put up with, a neighborhood kid in the way and a dot on the landscape of survival.
Circumstance shapes you, gets you to thinking. Can I get out of here and when? That’s what kept me going. So many people are trapped in the confines of what they feel secure in, what they are willing to put up with and accept as limits for them. They never get outside of who they think they are as defined by where they are and who they know.
Three significant brush strokes crossed the canvass of my experience opening the door to a horizon beyond the city streets. The first I shared in the last writing, exposure to a world of mountains, forests, wildlife and the expansive universe. Add to this my earlier Carolina small town social security blanket. There’s another world out there, the courts for the heart God has created for this world to let us look beyond to see the ones He has in His Kingdom.
Second, I had the benefit of an incredible high school education that gave me the academic foundation that later carried me through college and seminary. But also I found great music, great art and great thinking as another set of ‘courts’ in this world to be discovered. While not becoming proficient in any of them they became centers for my appreciation and admiration for those who found their passion in them. More courts of the heart for this world but bridges into more.
Third, and most significant was finding my self in a church way outside my neighborhood where people actually liked me, I liked them and the atmosphere was a total reversal of the grubby brownstone East Harlem flavor I lived in with its fear ridden ‘tough guy’ maneuvering. This third opening gave me something more that would reshape everything from that point on though, at the time, I was not really, as they say, ‘into it.’ It was the beginning of my discovery of the ‘courts’ of the Lord. I was introduced to ‘church,’ the liturgy, membership and belonging to something spiritual and social and something unseen drawing me. These would set my course for something beyond that years later would make heart sense, mind sense and sense out of who I was and what I was here for. It was my safe haven, my retreat from the world, my escape from where I lived.
The courts of the world I had been dragged into were temporary, fear-laced and ‘tents of the wicked’ put up along the way for social survival. They were those that promised acceptance and recognition defined by ethnic, physical, social and local standards demanding loyalty to the group and its leaders that made those definitions. They were the immediate securers of pride and lasted only as long as you lived there. Fear was the driving force behind all that. I found the courts of world promise were fueled by pride and fear demanding constant attention to details like appearance, language and reinforcing one another’s approval of fake toughness. There was a distinct difference between the ‘courts’ of my neighborhood and the ‘courts’ I found in church.
“You have not handed me over to the enemy.
You have put me in a wide and safe place (Ps.31:8).”
More on ‘courts’ as we move from the secular to the spiritual……..stay tuned.
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