Author Archives: Sara McKeefer

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About Sara McKeefer

I am a dreamer and a realist, a fan of all creatures great and small (except spiders), an optimist, a mother and grandmother, and a Christ-follower. I am a believer in the value of predictability, as my father, who farmed from the time he was a young boy until he passed away at 70 years old, was. Most influenced by his gentle ways and love for the land, I am an advocate of family-run farms, including respectful stewardship of the land and compassionate care of farm animals. The loves of my life are my son, my two daughters and their husbands, my three grandsons, the changing seasons, and the early morning stillness as I listen to the Voice within.

He is faithful.

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Hard to believe it’s been six years since I wrote this. How my world has changed, but that’s another story for another time.

Feb. 22, 2010
So this a.m. in the midst of checking out the news online before getting started on the multitude of writing I have to do this week, my mouse quits working … splat! nada! no mouse trails when I move it back and forth or in circles, nothing! So being the techie cretan I am, I wake my son Darin up (and I feel bad about it too!), but he groans a couple of times and emerges from his man cave to help his panicked mother, who by this time has managed to push ctrl-alt-del and has that weird screen up but can’t shut down the computer and is further panicked.

Darin sits down to undo my failed attempts at making this contraption work but this time, can’t do it … it’s stuck and won’t go anywhere, but he does manage to get the computer to shut down and disappears back into the darkness where, hopefully, his mother won’t disturb him again.

I fix myself another cup of coffee and wait patiently in front of the computer while it comes back up but, of course, with me at the helm the mouse is still dead. I manage to push ‘mail’ on my keyboard, but Outlook, not Yahoo comes up, and naturally, I am stumped.

Then I hear his door open and listen as he rummages in the junk drawer in the kitchen before returning to his mother, who is telling him that it still won’t work and she is going to have to go to Staples (in this bad weather, I’m thinking) and get another mouse … as he picks up the mouse, opens the battery compartment, inserts a new battery and brings my mouse back from the grave.

As I continue apologizing to him for not thinking of the battery, Darin pats me on the head and says “That’s okay, mom — it took me awhile for my fuzzy brain to work too” and disappears once more to the other end of the house.

So you’re probably wondering why, with all the work I have to do, that I’m taking the time to write all this down to email to you. Here’s why… there are a couple of lessons for all of us in this. The most obvious lesson is never to overlook the obvious, which means you first have to identify the obvious.

How many times do we do this? Yes, I had asked God in the midst of my panic to help me, but it seemed that He hadn’t, because I had jumped to worrying about having to drive in this weather to Staples! It took God nudging Darin with the obvious when I was too busy worrying to even think of the obvious.

The second lesson is I need to be more like Darin. He was willing to wake up from a deep sleep to try to help, and he knew he didn’t have to either. He could have stayed in bed, and I would have just waited until 9 and driven up to Staples to explain my mouse problem to some young guy, who would have wisecracked, “Did you check the battery?”

But Darin responded to my apologetic plea, because, well, that’s just in his nature. And, even when he himself was stumped and returned to his room, he was still thinking about my problem.

So, I’m going to get back to my writing, and you’re going to get on with your day, and God probably is going to personalize all this to your life, if He hasn’t already done so.

He is faithful … wow, is He faithful! And He loves us with an everlasting love! Did you hear that? An everlasting love! It will not end! We are caught up in His arms at the moment we believe and He never lets go!

We may squirm to free ourselves from His grasp to do things our way. We may even forget He has a hold on us. We may get so wrapped up in ourselves and our own troubles that we don’t hear His voice. We may even think He doesn’t care … or worse, has failed us, but, Praise His Holy Name, He holds on to us, waiting for the moment we will realize with the clarity that only He can give, that we are there, safe and secure, in His arms!

Hallelujah, He is Lord! And He’s waiting.

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I posted this on my Facebook page this morning:  Pray for Brussels, for those injured by the attacks, for the families of those who lost their lives, for the rest of Europe, which is on high alert because of the possibility of other attacks, and for our own country that seems to have grown complacent.

And then I got to thinking about 2 Chronicles 7:14, which is the scripture Christians seem to use the most to call the Church to pray for our country. But have you ever read it in context?

The Lord Gives Solomon a Promise and a Warning
After Solomon finished building the Lord’s temple and the royal palace, and accomplished all his plans for the Lord’s temple and his royal palace, the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him: “I have answered your prayer and chosen this place to be my temple where sacrifices are to be made. When I close up the sky so that it doesn’t rain, or command locusts to devour the land’s vegetation, or send a plague among my people, if my people, who belong to me, humble themselves, pray, seek to please me, and repudiate their sinful practices, then I will respond from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. Now I will be attentive and responsive to the prayers offered in this place. Now I have chosen and consecrated this temple by making it my permanent home; I will be constantly present there. You must serve me as your father David did. Do everything I commanded and obey my rules and regulations. Then I will establish your dynasty, just as I promised your father David, ‘You will not fail to have a successor ruling over Israel.’

“But if you people ever turn away from me, fail to obey the regulations and rules I instructed you to keep, and decide to serve and worship other gods, then I will remove you from my land I have given you, I will abandon this temple I have consecrated with my presence, and I will make you an object of mockery and ridicule among all the nations. As for this temple, which was once majestic, everyone who passes by it will be shocked and say, ‘Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?’ Others will then answer, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord God of their ancestors, who led them out of Egypt. They embraced other gods whom they worshiped and served. That is why he brought all this disaster down on them.’”

The message is sobering. I don’t think the majority of Americans appreciate ‘sobering’ messages. It’s just not in our DNA, which is more about the good guy winning, getting the pretty girl, and riding off happily into the sunset.

I used to think like a lot of Christians do that America isn’t mentioned in the Book of Revelation, until I read about the church in Laodicea in the 3rd chapter.

“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write the following: “This is the solemn pronouncement of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the originator of God’s creation: ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot! So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth! Because you say, “I am rich and have acquired great wealth, and need nothing,” but do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked, take my advice and buy gold from me refined by fire so you can become rich! Buy from me white clothing so you can be clothed and your shameful nakedness will not be exposed, and buy eye salve to put on your eyes so you can see! All those I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent! Listen! I am standing at the door and knocking! If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into his home and share a meal with him, and he with me. I will grant the one who conquers permission to sit with me on my throne, just as I too conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

Hmm… If John was referencing the present-day Church, particularly in America, then, at the very least, we’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do! And even if he wasn’t specifically talking about the Church today, John’s description should be a little too close for comfort!

Seriously, is there any question as to whether or not the Church in America has grown soft? We ARE the Church! Look around you, and don’t forget to look within too. Have we become as self-obsessed as the society we live in, only concerned about what affects us personally and/or our churches corporately? Do we as individuals and as organized groups of Christians have poor and unhealthy behaviors and attitudes, which, by the way, is the very definition of dysfunctional? Is that perhaps why so many groups of believers have become ineffectual, no longer able to attract people to fill the pews, much less want to know the One who died for them?

Are we more concerned about how we look to the world on the outside than how we look to God on the inside? Are we buying into the lie that looking thinner, younger, prettier/handsomer, wealthier, and even more spiritual—is what’s really important in this life?

For the record, our priorities do matter to God. It really does all comes down to what our primary focus is. What do we put first? Knowing God or knowing others? Hearing from Him or hearing from others? Talking to Him or talking to others? Looking good for Him or looking good for others?

We talk a lot about what we’re sick and tired of these days, but I find myself wondering what God might be sick and tired of. I think His list has little to do with ours and is a whole lot longer too. Do you suppose God might be sick and tired of us—so sick of our self-obsession that He’s about ‘to vomit us out of His mouth’? Personally, I think He might be getting close.

There’s only one way to win, to overcome, and it will come when, individually, we Christ-followers are willing to humble ourselves before God, confessing and repenting of our sin, and seeking to please God instead of self or others. It is then and only then, when the spirit of humility invades our hearts that He will forgive us and heal our land.

It’s not as easy as it sounds, because “to whom much is given, much is required.” (Luke 12:48) Are you up for it, every single day of your life and not just for a few hours each week? If you are, this would be a good time to read 1 Timothy 4, especially verses 11-16, because Paul pretty well sets out what we have to do.

“Command and teach these things. Let no one look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in your speech, conduct, love, faithfulness, and purity. Until I come, give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the spiritual gift you have, given to you and confirmed by prophetic words when the elders laid hands on you. Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that everyone will see your progress. Be conscientious about how you live and what you teach. Persevere in this, because by doing so you will save both yourself and those who listen to you.”

Therein lies the test questions for each of us:
* Am I setting an example for other believers in my speech, conduct, love, faithfulness and purity?
* Am I studying the Word of God and encouraging and teaching others about Christ?
* Am I neglecting the spiritual gifts God has given me?
* Am I focused on what God wants me to do to the extent others notice and want to do the same?
* Am I conscientious about how I live and what that says about my relationship with Christ?
* Am I ‘at it’ for God and ‘in it’ until the end?

We can do nothing without God, but with Him, we can change the world, because with God, all things are possible.

Mark 10:23-27 reads: Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were astonished at these words. But again Jesus said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” They were even more astonished and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and replied, “This is impossible for mere humans, but not for God; all things are possible for God.”

I am assuming that you, too, would like to see our world, and particularly our country, change for the good. It won’t happen by electing a new president. We should know by now what putting one’s hope in a man who promises hope and change produces. The kind of change we really need will only happen as we humble ourselves and put our faith in the Person of Jesus Christ.

It really is up to us.

If you wonder how to be ‘at it’ for God and don’t know who to ask, you will find what you need to begin pursuing the only life worth living at this website: http://www.gospelway.com/christianlife/change_yourself.php

However, please don’t stop there. Ask God to bring Christ-followers into your life who are taking seriously the Great Commission that Jesus gave us in Matthew 28:18-20: Then Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

I am…

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Wow, this is SO me! Oh, yeah, I wrote it! Ha-ha!

Sara McKeefer's avatarIn the stillness...

I am a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, raised in a Quaker family where I heard the merits of the love, joy, and peace of Jesus every Sunday and most Wednesdays for the first 18 years of my life.

I am peace-loving, inclusive, thoughtful because of the gentle people who influenced my life the most. I do not see the world in black and white but in the myriad of colors of those around the world I pray for–the children, mainly, for once I was lost but now I am found.

I am wise to the deceptions of this world, for I have seen them up close and personal in valleys where I came to know the One who loves me like no other. The naivete of childhood was never a luxury I enjoyed because of battles fought to find the child I really was.

I expect from no one but God…

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My brother, Ronnie…

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Leaves set free by rustling winds float down through blue sky to the green carpet below, splashed with crumpled bits of gold, red and brown. Whirlpool-swirls form and just as quickly blow themselves out, adding further evidence of autumn’s glory to the scene outside my window….

I am a child running down the steep hill at Francis Slocum State Park, my papoose doll flying as fast as I can run in a vain attempt to keep up with the ragged rush of pretend-Indian children fleeing from the settlers who are making their way up the other side of the hill–cap pistols drawn, stick rifles raised in anticipation of the Miami Indians lying in wait for them.

My brother runs out and grabs me, pushing me behind the sassafras seedlings where the warriors, along with their women and children, are waiting to ambush the enemy now cresting the hill. Heart pounding, I press myself to the carpet of leaves, head raised just enough to peer through the tribe’s tangle of skinny legs to see the settlers advancing from tree to tree in a fruitless effort to see and not be seen. Blue jays scream overhead as they move into the small clearing, blind to the pounding hearts that wait, concealed from their searching eyes.

A sudden rustling from off to the side, and they turn as one to see an almost unheard of spectacle–a large doe crashing through the brush across the hill. Laughing in relief, the settlers do not hear the low bird-call signal before the blood-curdling war-cries of jean-clad boys with bandanna loin cloths who surround them, merrily snatching their guns in the gathering darkness.

A call, accompanied by another and another and another echoes up through the woods. “Ronnie Lee… Carolann… Sara… Tommy… Sam… Rita… Time to go!”

“Race ya’,” someone yells. “Last one to the parking lot is a rotten egg!”

Out-distanced, I slow down to walk the last gentle slope and grab the hand of my brother, who is waiting for me.

Ronnie's keepsakesSmall bits of a life gone way too soon decorate a shelf in my bookcase, and it seems so odd to have only these mementos plus a fully complete Erector set that still looks ‘too good to play with’ some 60+ years later as the only physical reminders of my brother. But then I do have the wealth of memories of the kindred spirit I built stone dams with and swam beside in the rain-swollen creek, returning again and again to catch bluegill and catfish at the deep fishing hole in the woods.

Every inch of the farm was our playground. The haymow where every summer we built a hidden fort of bales, secret to everyone but Daddy; the long chain swings in the mulberry trees where we played ‘what if’ on long summer afternoons; the basement where we played roller skate tag in the winter, the bins in the granary where we developed our circus act by walking on the edges of the bins, whether full or empty. We believed in each other’s dreams of traveling as far as it would take to find the families who gave us away and the brothers and sisters we imagined we might have.

My brother would have been 74 today. It’s been 44 years since a crazed wife he moved halfway across the country to get away from hunted him down and shot him. Yes, shot him and then got off scot-free because charges were never filed, even though the authorities thought it should have been otherwise. Perhaps if Daddy had been alive, it would have been different. The news came three days after Christmas that my brother would come home one last time.

The news of his death did make it back to our hometown–despite no announcement, no wake, no funereal words of comfort, just clicking tongues and a prayer before we followed the hearse to the cemetery and watched his casket descend into the earth he loved. I will never forget that day because of the stark reality of my anger because no one there had ever bothered to know the little boy who came to live with us at four years old–a package deal along with me because he needed a home where he would be safe from foster parents who left scars on his head.

So he came to live with us and left this world just 30 years later with no scars that anyone could see. I don’t know what my brother might have been one day; but then I don’t need to, because he’ll always remain the brilliant, kind, savvy boy, with the wry sense of humor and slow smile that he had always had, like that day and many others when we roamed Francis Slocum’s hills.

My favorite thing to do as a child…

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My favorite thing to do when I was a child was to read. During the school year, we had chores to do after we got home from school. My brother and I gathered the eggs and filled the feeders and waterers. I cleaned and cased eggs every other afternoon, and practiced my flute and piano on the alternate ones. We raised as many as a thousand laying hens each year and sold the eggs to Kroger’s, so there was a LOT of eggs to process by hand.

Because I demonstrated early on that I was pretty much hopeless in the kitchen—mainly on purpose because I much preferred being outside—my sister, who didn’t like outside work, helped Mother in the house. That included fixing a hearty meal and getting it on the table by 6 o’clock in the winter or taking it to the field during planting and harvest.

After supper when there was no field work to do, Dad would read the paper at the kitchen table, while we did our lessons. I rarely had much homework, because I would hurry and get most of it finished at school so I could read before going to bed. My favorite place at school was the library. The one at Converse School was a tiny one, tucked into a little alcove above the principal’s office. I think I read practically every book and most of them multiple times! At the beginning of my sophomore year, the new, consolidated school at Oak Hill was finished, and the library was huge. The reading selection had swelled, but I missed the hominess of the little library and knowing where every book’s place was.

In the summer, my usual well of books dried up, as Mother almost never bought books for us and only took us to the library in Converse when she had to research something for a talk for one of the clubs she belonged to. I loved going there with her even though I knew I wouldn’t be bringing any books home with me. I remember thinking it very odd that my mother was an English teacher yet we couldn’t check out books from the library. I realized as I got older that Mother was not anti-reading–she was just pro-work! However, I learned to ‘make do’!

For quite a few years, Grandma Powell bought us a book for our birthday—Bobbsey Twins for me, Nancy Drew mysteries for my sister, and Hardy Boys for my brother, but we all read each others’. I confess I also regularly raided the bookshelves in our living room, which were off limits, because Mother wanted the books to remain new looking. By slipping an old book into one of the new jackets, I could squirrel the book away until I had read it and returned it to its shelf.

Now, in case you think I was deprived, I did have The Farm Journal, the Prairie Farmer, McCall’s and Life magazines and the Saturday Evening Post to read, in addition to the Marion Chronicle and Peru Tribune. And read them I did!

I confess I’ve downloaded a few e-books, but I found the actual reading of them a somewhat disconcerting experience, since more than once I reached for the upper right corner in an effort to turn the page! So, from time to time, I shop the online, used bookstores and delight in purchasing five books for less than the price of one at Amazon. I do have a healthy collection of bookmarks just begging to be used, and, really, what else can you do with a bookmark other than put it in a book?

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll just remain ‘old school’ when it comes to my favorite pastime. There’s just something about the aesthetics of a book in hand that cannot be duplicated by anything other than a real book with real pages–and preferably a biographical novel or series that bears reading more than once.

Note: The Converse Library is one of 3,500 in the US funded by the Scottish-American businessman Andrew Carnegie. The community has always been very proud of its library, which is in the neo-classical style. Carnegie’s story at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library is really interesting, especially the symbolism of the stairs and lamppost common to the libraries. The list of Indiana’s Carnegie libraries—and pictures of many of them at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Carnegie_libraries_in_Indiana reveal the dates and amount of the grant awarded for each town’s library. I find it sad that a good number of them have been demolished.

You died for me…

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You died for me,
I whisper into this silent morning,
You died for me.
You took my sins on your shoulders
and paid the ransom
that I might walk free.
I scarce can take it in,
Your sacrifice
intentional
without measure
irrevocable
unending.
I look at my horizon
concealed by clouds
and wonder at what You did
willingly, for me.
You could have called 10,000 angels
but you looked at me.
You saw me.
You knew me
and said “It is finished.”
Three days you were there
for me.
There is no way to pay you back.
Oh but there is, I hear You say.
“Go and do likewise,
go into all your world,
make disciples
teaching them to obey my commandments
and I will be there with you
until the end of the age and beyond.”

06-09-2015

Sometimes, God…

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Sometimes, God has to take us beyond our four walls and put us in a place where our path crosses someone else’s who, like Peter, has been unshackled from man’s constraints by a quake of such spiritual magnitude that the very walls that are obstacles to freedom are leveled by the uncompromising Word that proceeds from his mouth.

I have heard Kyle Lance Martin speak before thousands, and I have heard him ignite–with as much passion–the dying embers of hope in a solitary person. I have seen the passion of this man, who leaves home and wife and children to go into all the world where people are bound by unbelief, tradition, misinformation.

    • I have heard him offer hope to a woman who learned to pray as a child while hiding from an abusive father and now flees from an abusive husband.
    • I have seen him show up and give a woman a reason to believe again in a God who loves her despite the ill-chosen words of her desperate plea just hours before.
    • I have seen him lead with humility those who lead others, purposely sharing the vision of bringing revival to their community, their area, their state–not through one man, one church or one denomination but through the Body of Christ working together.
    • I have seen that his passion for souls is not diminished one iota by someone spitting expletives at him.

Sometimes, God even says to look beyond the Peters of this world and just be one.

Note to reader: Check out http://www.reviveindiana.org/ and be encouraged.

It’s time to grow up…

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How many more mornings do we have before the curtain drops and another ascends,
before life as we know it is no more, and things that are not are called into being?
How many sunny days are left before threatening clouds materialize on the horizon,
their advance as much a certainty as the Book lying here beside me foretells?
How many more nights before we have breathed our last on this good green earth
that has sheltered, nurtured, and given us much more than we ever dreamed?
How many mornings are left to praise Him for the beauty of the dawn?
How many days remain to love others as He loves us?
How many nights will there be before there are no more?

It’s time to grow up, I hear Him say,
to lay aside the video-game mentality and just grow up!
I wonder what the result would be if every Christ-follower
would work as diligently winning others to Christ,
as they do in playing meaningless games that do not add
but, instead, drain meaning from their lives.
I know what would happen.
They would bear the incorruptible fruit that no fire could touch.
Yes, it’s time to grow beyond the desensitizing appetites of this life
and mean it when we pray, “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done!”

You have today…

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The blue white of winter’s early morning extends its comfort
like a monochrome blanket, protecting me from threatening elements
that have the power to maim and kill.
I am at once both life and death, alive to the potential before me,
dead to the spent behind me. Does it matter what transpired yesterday?
In God’s scheme of things, does it really?
Forget not the former days, its lessons learned in reality’s grip.
But do not hold on, let it go to Me, I hear You say.
You have today, a day of promise, unknown to you but known to Me.
Take from My hand all that you will.
Take from its bounty before you, until
the dawn of tomorrow breaks forth from My hand,
revealing the strength that allows you to stand.
Take from this day promise fulfilled.
Open your heart and let it be filled
with all that I am and forever will be,
Lord of your day for eternity.
Father, fill me this day with Your love unabated, that it cannot help
but spill over and onto the lives of those I touch.
Use me as a fountain to refresh the weary with life-giving water
that cannot be contained in the cistern of Your love.

02-17-2015

Snow, keep falling…

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It snowed all day today, but I’m not complaining. We’re supposed to get snow in Northern Indiana, especially in February, so in my mind we’re right on course. Yesterday, though, I was complaining. It was not about the 17 inches that fell Saturday night and Sunday but the condition of US 6 on Tuesday.

My daughter had warned me on Monday that the streets were pretty bad, but it was now 24 hours later, and SR 13 through town was mostly clear. However, that was not true of US 6, which was an integral part of what I considered to be the only sane route to Goshen yesterday, that is, unless you had 4-wheel drive, which I do not.

If you know me well, you know that somewhere in my DNA is the Emergency Preparedness gene, which is my explanation for being quite near if not over the top when it comes to preparing for virtually any life-threatening scenario, including snowstorms/blizzards, floods, tornadoes, electromagnetic pulses, and other catastrophes.

However, my son, as he will attest, has not one smidgen of the EP gene. Case in point, he informed me yesterday that he had just taken the last of his daily prescriptions that morning. So… I sucked it in and headed out to Goshen, sure that 6 from SR 13 over to 15 would be a breeze. I could not have been more wrong.

As I gingerly descended the slight hill to the intersection where I would turn left onto 6, my 69-year-old heart sank and my hands whitened as I instinctively gripped the wheel at 10 and 2. Stretching in both directions were lines of cars and trucks slowly rumbling over a washboard of snow as far as the eye could see.

The road for lack of a better term consisted of a frozen, inches-thick crust of ice and snow, eerily reminiscent of an Ice Road Truckers episode. Thinking that surely it had to get better, I turned anyway; and after what seemed like an interminable length of time during which it did not get better, we reached the blessed black top of SR 15, which was clear all the way to Goshen.

Did I complain? Did I ever! I went over every excuse under the sun that the highway department could possibly offer for US 6 being in such bad shape–wind out of the north, frigid temps, snow 1-2 inches/hour, not enough plows, not enough salt, drivers calling in sick, unnecessary stops at coffee/donut shops. As my litany progressed, my son had the good sense to intermittently agree, probably because my focus was on the highway department’s shortcomings and not his.

When I turned north onto 15, I was thanking God, Jesus, and my angels for getting us there without incident. Of course, at 20 mph, it would have been pretty difficult to have any kind of incident other than a healthy skid. The return trip was much easier, because at least we had a track that reached the pavement. I have to admit that the greatest improvement, though, was in me, as evidenced by unhindered praise all the way home.

All day today, as I’ve gone about my normal tasks, I’ve been glancing outside at gently falling snow, and more than once praising Him for engineering my circumstances yesterday to remind me today of just how blessed I am, especially to not have to go anywhere the rest of the week.

Snow, keep falling just outside my window
where birds flit and squirrels sit,
the red and blue of feathers and reddish-brown fur
the only splashes of color in this gentle landscape.
Snow, keep falling, taking me back perhaps
to forefathers’ memories of hearth and home
left behind to travel west to this fair land of lakes
where homesteads were carved from hardwood forests.
Snow, keep falling, we are still a hardy lot
who love this land that feeds the world,
yet no more than our souls, freshly inspired
by the sacrifices of those who’ve gone before.