Prairie Lands, Private Landscapes

We are a people who have thrived on the flat corners of the earth. Our journey has taken us from the lowlands of Flanders, the Vistula valley in Poland, across the steppes of Ukraine, and last of all, to the American prairies. We are devoted to the land, and the land has returned our dedication more than tenfold. At each new location, the flatlands have nourished us, fashioned the duties of each day, shaped our communities, and solidified our identity. We could not escape the hold the land had on our worldview, and neither, until recently, did we attempt to escape its grip. The land and weather held dominion over us; we were tillers of the soil. With roots that dug deep into the earth, we formed our communities, modes of expression, sense of humor, and basic lessons in faith and faithfulness. It was the world we understood, and we knew no other. We rose with the sun, gazed across the unblemished horizon, herded, plowed, and cultivated according to the rhythm of the weather. These factors were entwined with the opportunities handed to us or scratched from the hard earth. We were adept at providing the provisions for living—nothing more, just the essentials. At dusk, we fixed our eyes on the horizon again and rested from the burdens of the day by huddling around evening fires. Thus, our lives were shaped by the revolutions of the sun, the abundance or shortage of land and the mysteries of the night. These routines were occasionally disrupted by unpredictable winds, droughts, floods, and other catastrophes that could come without warning and create alarm and harm for any man, woman, child, crop, animal, building and frequently to all the above. The temporal damage was to materials; the permanent damage afflicted the soul. The howling winds across the plains were frequently stronger than humans could endure. The stratum beneath this flat earth remained the great unknown although it yielded water, minerals, gems and a variety of serpents, rodents and insects that swarmed in and out of each field, home, crevice, and cranny. There was always a glimmer of hope that even this subterranean realm might be conquered someday if the appropriate methods could be discovered. Someday, even the deep will surrender its mysteries. Ever since the medieval era, when the first dikes pushed back the sea in the lowlands of Northern Europe, progress meant increasing our dominion over the earth. No one questioned those beliefs then, too few do so today. The heavens above, as is plain to any observer, are neither flat nor spherical. The skies are undefined, unlimited and without any visible end. The earth and all that dwells thereon is finite, and the heavens are infinite. The winds reigned above all that was below and possessed strength that could destroy everything in its path. Life itself was vulnerable to nature’s whims. At least so it seemed. These powerful forces above the horizon suggested that a stronger, transcendent presence may well be managing and observing all that unfolds below. It seemed so obvious that on earth all things are temporal and above this sphere, resides the eternal. If the earth around us were the sphere of physical realities, the realm above was invested with metaphysical truths; no one doubted that, at least not openly. And so, the labors of the days, weeks and years were routinely interrupted as homage had to be paid to the Divine who, with love, grace, judgment, and redemption, sustained a people who had suffered so greatly over many centuries and only occasionally prospered in rare and unusual circumstances. Those inter sections of divergent streams of thought on faith, land, history, family legacies and work form the contents of this volume. If I were to enumerate what this book is not, the list would be rather extensive: not history, not a memoir, not anthropology, not biography, not documentary, not autobiography, not a family chronicle and so forth. Yet in many ways the narrative includes information that enlightens each of these areas while never conforming to any of those literary forms. It is an expedition into my life, youth, and the memories located there. While looking back into history, the eye may see selectively and sometimes with a new focal point. Thus, the past is often illuminated by current realities; the present is made meaningful by reflection on the past.