Keys to the Kingdom By Carolyn Tucker

Dionne Warwick received her first Grammy Award in 1968 for her mega-hit, “Do You Know the Way to San Jose.”

As a child growing up in East Orange, New Jersey, she began singing in church. As a teenager, Dionne and her sister started their own gospel group, The Gospelaires. Later known as the artist who “bridged the gap,” Warwick’s soulful blend of gospel, pop, and R&B cut across race, culture, and musical boundaries.

Burt Bacharach and Hal David co-wrote the song and pitched it to Dionne, who didn‘t want to sing it, because she thought it was a silly song. But the two gentlemen talked her into recording it and she later giggled all the way to the bank. Warwick earned the nickname, “Princess of Pop,” and “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” became one of her most-successful international hits. After 54 years, this clever song title, catchy tune, and upbeat tempo still plays in my internal jukebox.

Whether it’s about a career choice, who to marry, which church to attend, or which route to travel on vacation, people all over the globe are wanting to know which direction to go. There’s four choices: up, down, or one side or the other. God will always lead believers up (forward). “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it’” (Isaiah 30:21 NIV). God’s powerful  direction for His children is always active, opening new ways forward.

In the Old Testament, the Israelites relied on a priest, judge, or prophet to give them directions. When Saul and his friend were searching for the lost donkeys and couldn‘t find them anywhere, the friend said, “…Behold, there is a man of God [Samuel] in this city, and he is a man who is held in honor; all that he says comes true. So now let us go there. Perhaps he can tell us the way we should go” (1 Samuel 9:6 ESV).

New Testament believers have the Holy Spirit living inside us to tell us the way we should go. We’re never left to our own devices in decision making, but often we neglect to ask for direction. And sometimes when we receive it, we shrug off the Holy Spirit’s  promptings or ignore His  leadings — which is when we fall off the log. The Christian’s life is like walking on a log that’s laying across a creek. If we get distracted and lose our balance we’ll fall off. There’s also a chance of being knocked off by a tree branch we didn’t see, but the solution is still the same. Get back up on the log and go at it again. We’ll eventually get to the other side even though we’re wet and bruised up a bit.

Recently, I was watching someone sketch a property map and I was having trouble visualizing it. I asked an important question, “Which way is north?” With the answer, I was able to get my bearings and make sense of the map. The Holy Spirit is the believer’s internal compass who keeps us heading due north toward God. There’ll be a few bumpy detours, but keep following the map (Bible), listening to the GPS (Holy Spirit) and we’ll find our way up for every day. Jesus said, “My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27 NLT). Jesus clearly states that He knows us, He speaks to us, and then it’s our responsibility to listen to Him and follow (obey) Him. Jesus also said, “Anyone who belongs to God listens gladly to the words of God“ (John 8:47 NLT).

The Key: Following the Holy Spirit’s direction will never take you the wrong way.

I have reported in earlier columns that Bourbon County and the other 16 counties that make up SEK are all shrinking; every one of us lost population between the 2010 and the 2020 census.  The final count for Bourbon County was an 813 person drop from 15,173 to 14,360, a 5.4% decrease.  Another way to think about it is that we lose about 81 people a year.

Who are these people?  Are we losing the rich or the poor, the young or the old, the employed or the unemployed?  These are important questions to answer, because those of us who want to stay are faced with an ever increasing tax burden, especially if those leaving are wage earners, property owners and those with a higher income.  Let’s take a look at what the numbers say:

The good news is that we are holding our own on percentage of young people, and the number of impoverished residents of our county declined significantly in the last 10 years; let’s hope they earned their way past the poverty line rather than moving away.  The trend that hurts is the drop in the number of working age adults, which is almost exactly the net number that moved away.  Yes, some of those people stayed here and account for much of the increase in the over 64 population (present company included), but either way, it means less wages earners paying taxes in Bourbon County.

How do these trends compare with the four counties around us?  I reported last week that we are the county with the lowest percentage of working age adults and the highest in average income.  Looking at 2019 poverty statistics, four of the five counties experienced declining poverty; Crawford was the exception with a slight increase.  Linn County has the lowest poverty rate by a wide margin at 12.0%; we are a distant second.  All five of the counties considered have a higher poverty rate than the State of Kansas as a whole.

Who cares about this?  Governments and businesses need this data for planning.  Site selectors from corporations considering another location find this information invaluable.  These are numbers that heavily influence decision-makers and have a large say in our future prosperity.

In the short run, schools need to plan for declining enrollment.  Governments need to consider that there are fewer taxpayers in their jurisdiction when they consider levies and spending.  Strategies need to be considered on a comprehensive basis as to how to reverse these trends.  Most importantly, those strategies need to be formulated and executed across jurisdictional lines.  Now is not the time for emotional parochialism.

We have many positives we can leverage.  We need to play economic development offense and administrative cost defense.  Let’s decide to put aside our petty differences and work together on solutions.