Hier stehe ich

 My husband, seeing how things are going in these United States, has, for some time been suggesting we emigrate, just as our own Protestant forebears did when they, having been pronounced anathema by the Catholic Church, which proceeded to burn their confrères alive, bolted out of Europe running fast, breathing hard and sweating copious.

I was half inclined to agree with him, maybe more than half, and thinking we'd better get going soon, while the kids are young enough to adapt to a new country.  But then...then...I started looking through some photos I took back east a few years ago when I attended a family reunion, visiting Pennsylvania and nearby states, where I became acquainted with distant relatives who had lived in the same area for literally hundreds of years, some on land granted to them for service in the Revolution, others living on farmland their ancestors had purchased from the Lenni Lenape Indians in the 17th century.

I thought about Salathiel Goff, through whom I am a Daughter of the American Revolution, what he went through to create this country in his short life, crossing the river when he was 43.  And how did he die? Indians.  A Shawnee raiding party attacked his homestead and he died defending it and his family.  

So am I, part of his family's centuries-long generational diaspora across America, to turn yellow and abandon the country he fought to create because things are not looking so good right now?

I don't think so.