Out beyond the pavement.  Past the gravel roads.  Follow the old, overgrown two track to the rotted bridge.  A few more miles over reclaimed farmland.  That is where I sit.  Alone.  On a small rise.  With a beautiful view of the surrounding countryside.  This is my lonely outpost.   I am showing my age now.  The paint is peeling and sand blasted by the brutal prairie winds.  My roof line is just beginning to sag.  Rot has set into the belfry.  My bell is tarnished and the clacker is hanging by a single strand of moldering leather.  The front doors are warped and swollen closed.  The side door is hanging by a hinge.  My only tenants these days are mice that roam among the abandoned pews and swallows that nest under my eves.  But I still have life in me.  I still have to watch over my flock.  They lie next to me.  Six feet down.  Stones marking their place of rest.  Most standing, covered by lichen.  Many worn by time and weather.  A few toppled over.  These are who I watch over.  They took care of me and now I care for them.  I stand as a sentinel, watching, guarding my flock.  Remembering.   I remember the day the minister consecrated the ground on which I was built.  Reciting the prayer in the language of the old country.  Settler families gathered around observe the creation of hallowed ground.  It did not take long for the flooring, walls and roof to be erected.  The wood was hauled by wagon from far off to this treeless hill.  The sweat of the community was pooled over a weekend to erect a focal point.  A meeting area.  A place of worship.  Prayer. Remembrance.  The travelling minister provided the cross and the first service.  The families came together in prayer, remembering the way they came together in the old country.   My first death.  Jules Iverson.  Breaking the prairie was hard work.  A buried stone caught his plow blade which snapped a cross spar.  He fell forward and impaled himself.  The spar tore into his stomach and did terrible damage.  He staggered, then crawled, then dragged himself back home leaving a crimson streak through the crisp dry grass.  He died in his wife's arms.  People from all over the country came to attend the funeral.  The widows tears fell on the rough hewn floor.  A trace of the salt still there after all these years.  Jules was not hear long enough to get to know him but I watch over him.  The script on his stone is so faint that it is barely visible.  But I remember.   Erica Gunderson.  She was my first baptism.  Her screams echoed through my rafters, drowning out the howling winter winds.  Her rosy cheeks glistening with her tears as holy water was sprinkled.  She was so cute in her clothing.  Gaudy bright colors the contrasted with the grey sky and the white blanket outside.  She grew up so fast.  I liked to watch her play with her friends after sunday sermons.  First chasing around her parents' legs.  Then wandering farther away.  Running through the tall grasses.  Her screams and giggles a refreshing contrast to the solemn service just moments before.  Her first kiss.  Out beyond the cemetery.  Her cheeks were even brighter than when she was baptised.  She wound up marrying that boy.  She was so beautiful in her wedding dress.  So proud when she baptised her own children.  Her faltering steps as her knees began to betray her.  She lies there to.  My first child.   Marriages, births, deaths.  Joy and sorrow.  Also non-religious events.  My hall was used for meetings and gatherings.  Bake sales.  Solitary moments of reflection.  Sanctuary.  There was that blizzard.  Oh, it was while I was still young.  The snow blanketing the prairie.  Piling behind hills.  Burying houses.  Many fled to me for the safety in numbers.  My bell ringing, calling out, serving as a beacon.  Two families.  Six.  Ten.  Twenty.  Filling my floor.  Little ones crying as fingers and toes and noses thawed.  The press of bodies creating more warmth than the small woodstove.  A humid, dank smell as wool steamed.  Those who came through the doors survived.  Johnny Axely didn't.  He tried.  Wading through the drifts waist deep.  Trying to answer the call of the bell.  I rang and rang, trying to encourage him.  Then the wind hit him.  Knocked him down.  I rang louder trying to get him up.  Get him moving.  He struggled to his knees.  But that was it.  He went no more.  The snow quickly buried him.  The pealing of my bell mourning his passing.  One hundred feet from my door, sanctuary.  One hundred feet too far.  It was spring before the snow released him.  But I watched over him through that winter.  Just as I watch over him now.   The World Wars.  So hard.  So much damage.  I remember the bitter arguments before.  To fight or stay out.  My people were always so peaceful.  When the time came though, they went.  Young men off for adventure, glory, mystery.  They always said they would be home by Christmas.  One was.  He lies there too.  He died so far from home.  In so much pain.  His family never knew how he really died.  But I could see his body, his soul.  War tore him apart.  He saw too much.  Too many dying next to him.  And then he died.  Slowly and painfully.  But now he is at peace.  No more war.  And I protect him now.  Five more by 1918.  Five young men out of a population of 100.  Twenty by 1945.  Twenty young men from 250 people.  Such a loss.  A waste.  And not just the men who died.  The boys who came back broken.  Spiritually, physically.  I remember Roger Folgers.  He lies out there as well.  His body torn and damaged by war but he lived another 30 years.  Such haunted memories.  He only shared them with me because he did not think I could listen but I did.  Now he rests.   Then they started to leave.  The young men and women first.  Looking for new jobs, new places, more money.  With no young adults, there were less children.  I knew that with fewer children, the congregation was dying.  It was a slow painful death.  A reverse cancer.  Growing smaller, sucking away the life.  The final note was the school closing its doors.  Not enough kids to justify a teacher.  Ivana Gustafson was the last one.  She was the last one to push open my doors.  Bless her soul.  She sat on the worn, scarred pews and cried.  She apologized.  Her kids wanted her near them.  I held her that day.  That blustery fall day.  I wrapped her in the warmth of all who came before her.  I did not cry.  She was there for me for years and now I was there for her in her moment of need.  On her way out, she softly stroked the door frame.  The latch softly clicked shut.  I watched her drive off.  The wheels from her car flattening the overgrown road.   The years have rolled by.  Paint peeled.  Glass cracked.  Roofing tiles flew off.  Time has not been kind to my facade.  The northern prairie does not take kindly to neglect.  Yet I have remained at my post.  Through the tornado that took down the oak that was planted at my birth.  Through the prairie fire that blackened the tombstones but left my dry walls unscathed.  Luck or divine intervention appears to want me here.   I stand here alone on the prairie.  When the wind blows just right, the bell softly tolls for those I watch over.  The wind howling around my eves a mournful reminder of those I watch over.  I have a few more years left.  My flock still needs me and it has not yet been my time.  Until it is and I am recalled, I will stand and remember.  That is least I can do for those below.  So my solitary watch continues.  Alone but not lonely.    Sadly this church burned this year.  Both Quill's and my church burned within a month of each other. © Copyright 2002 -Used with Permission All rights retained by original author You may not use this without express written permission © 2003 Wooden Hearth-to be used on Billie's Help Page For Pain Understanding Backgrounds ©2003/2006 by Shorty.    Permission given to us by Quill to use his Prairie Sentinel with a link to Connors site.  Gif of the church and linkware from Connors site.  Thanks to Shorty for putting this page together for us.       Last update:  02/18/06