This Place
A Few Notes from Home
Margie Haack
9781941106204
240 pages
Square Halo Books
Overview
Scripture-and fairy tales -tell us that it is in the ordinary where we can be surprised by meaning and significance. If we have eyes to see, then we might catch sight of subtle signs pointing to a deeper reality that transcends the narrow confines of the here and now. In this view lost binoculars occasion hints of the divine, and everything from Sudoku, sun-dried cotton sheets, piles of trash and garter snakes loose in the house mysteriously provide glimmers of hope in a broken world. For 33 years Margie lived with her husband and children in an American Gothic Foursquare in Minnesota that their children christened "Toad Hall." During those years, Margie's eyes were finely tuned by the ancient wisdom of biblical seers and the everyday trials and challenges of life to see past the surface of things. Through her reflections, and with warmth and humor, she gifts us with reflections from her years in Toad Hall so that we, too, might see deeper layers of meaning. And when we learn to see the sacred in the ordinary, our pilgrimage begins to shine with expectation.
Author Bio
Margie Haack was born in Warroad, Minnesota and grew up in rural Lake of the Woods County. When she graduated from high school, she entered the University of Minnesota as a pre-med student. That was where she met and married her husband, Denis Haack. They moved to New Mexico where they lived in a commune for several years, served on the staff of a church, ran a small janitorial service and did other clever things that allowed them to eat pinto beans and green chile every day. In 1981 they moved to Rochester, MN, where they were mentored by Francis and Edith Schaeffer at L'Abri. Margie and Denis co-direct Ransom Fellowship, a ministry devoted to helping Christians thoughtfully love and engage the world. Margie has three adult children and nine grandchildren.
Margie thinks that leaving her home of 35 years and moving to a place with bedroom and bath on the main floor means the next move will be to the Home she’d always dreamed of with an Italian espresso machine and a daybed on the porch.
She writes a quarterly newsletter “Letters from the House Between” containing personal essays about being ordinary in a world that loves the sensational and the historic. You can also find her blogging about “what’s funny, what’s holy, what’s suffering” at Toads Drink Coffee.
