I grew up on the Northside of Minneapolis, it no longer looks like the place I grew up. We no longer see groups of kids having pine cone fights, drinking from water hoses and listening for a distinct “whistle” indicating “mom needs us home” and we have about 2 minutes before things become violent on our back sides for taking too long to get home and help put the laundry on the line to dry.
Back in the hood we knew no distinctions aside from “Ohh you live over on Washburn” or “Ohh you are North of Dowling” or even “Ya you live on Broadway” or “Lyndale”… We identified by where we lived, the hood… as we got older, the “hood” expanded when we got bikes. Miles of freedom that took us to far away lands like “Brookdale Mall” or if you jumped on the 5 line and went to “City Center” to hang out. As we got older and driving entered into our lives we expanded even further. I remember crashing on couches of “Biker” houses and doing stupid stuff… AND I MEAN STUPID!!!
I was shown kindness by some, disdain from others and chased by those that wanted to do serious harm… I was a Gen X kid… latch key kid… forgotten, neglected and ignored. We drank from hoses, stayed outside until we had to go home and at the crack of dawn, we were back outside again… I never remember saying “I’m so bored” but I do remember MTV… I remember video games when they first came out and thinking “well, that was fun, lets sober up and do something” I remember pedalling my bike all day to visit a girl I met at the mall. I remember toting my canoe more than 20 blocks on my back, hiking to the Mississippi river, just to realize the water levels were dangerously high and I could only fish some of the backwaters.
Things were different, we had a 10pm PSA asking parents “Do you know where your children are?”
Different celebrities would appear and ask the same question…
Aside from a very abusive childhood, I would say It was great, freedom, no rules, no supervision, nobody cared. We figured it out and raised ourselves for the most part…
Now I look at my beloved city, I don’t recognize it, aside from being mostly burned to the ground, its fighting, unrest and the rules are different. Don’t get me wrong, we had our fights too. We had bad cops that would haul you down to the river and beat you up. We learned to stay clear of the 2nd precinct… We would never go looking for trouble (ok, maybe thats a lie)… but nowadays, it seems like everyone is looking for a fight.
I watch the news from my isolated garden home in the north woods of Minnesota, I talk to customers that have opinions but never had skin in the game. I see news reports from two sides and wonder “How can this event be the same event” two opinions of the same event and neither are even remotely similar to each other…. Then I stop, I think about how this narrative has been center field for thousands of years…
It’s the same old game… Satan wants everyone that is made in God’s image to fight each other and do evil to each other, and it seems like Satan is winning this battle ground, but it’s only temporary… God wins the war!
You see, the narrative is based on the same goals, the same outline, the same objective and the same player… It’s not BOOMERS VS MILLENIALS, or at least it shouldn’t be… it’s about good and evil. I see this battle everyday at Sam’s Place as well. The struggle to do what is right is so real, but how do we determine what is right? How can we say one thing is good and another is bad if all we do is choose whatever we want to be good and reject whatever we want and label it as bad… we need an objective view, we need something from outside ourselves as the marker of good and evil, WE NEED TRUTH!
The challenge we face is the struggle we have within our hearts when we say “Im a good person” back in the bible is a story of Adam choosing to be the source of right and wrong, it’s in Genesis 3… Adam decides to take the fruit of the tree of good and evil, he decides he wants to be that decision maker rather than trusting God, he decides to take charge… in that moment, Satan declared victory over God, but Satan was wrong…. The battle started, and Man’s pride is at the very center of it all, the fight… it’s real, but it’s not between ICE and ANTIFA… It’s not about ILLEGAL and UNDOCUMENTED… the fight is about man’s commitment to rejecting the truth of God and replacing it with whatever tickles man’s ears at that moment.
In the quiet of your heart, right now, stop and ask God to change your heart, ask him to change your rage into love… ask him to guide you to the truth. I need to do this every day… I need to reject the rage baiting “media”, I need to reject the deception and twisted narratives… I need to love people even more… I need to go back to the streets of Minneapolis, have a pinecone fight, drink from a garden hose and listen for moms whistle. I need to link arms with the kids of my neighborhood and find where my friends are really hanging out, before the street lights come on, the daily celebrity asks “do you know where your kids are” and before MTV signs off for the night.
The day is coming when we will be laying in bed or a ditch, wishing we spent more time loving each other and less time fighting.
Are you fighting against the Love of Christ today? Did you know: Only Jesus can set you free from the bonds of this world? Did you know there is life after and outside of this place of madness?
There are probably many more than just “two” sides of Minneapolis. Each person has a valuable story to tell, not everyone has a story from the hood, but every one has a story. I would love to hear your story. If you would like to share your story here, let me know, reach out and let’s talk.
Thank you, please share this blog, subscribe to this blog and help me spread the stories of those who read this blog… Blogging is my therapy and my desire is to share real stories of real people that are struggling now, in the past or just want to be heard someday.
God bless, C.