05/25/2026
Memorial Day asks something difficult of us...
Not celebration alone, and certainly not politics.
It asks for remembrance. Across generations, Americans have left behind families, homes, plans, and futures to serve something larger than themselves. Some never returned. Others returned carrying burdens few of us can fully understand. Today, we pause because freedom, stability, and community are not self-sustaining things. They are preserved by sacrifice.
Here in Lancaster County, and across the Commonwealth, we are surrounded by ordinary people who quietly serve others every day. Veterans, military families, first responders, volunteers, and neighbors. Memorial Day reminds us that citizenship is not simply what we are owed. It is also what we owe one another.
I often speak about neighbors because community is not an abstract idea. It is the person beside you. The family across the street. The veteran sitting quietly at the edge of the ceremony who rarely speaks about what they carried home with them.
The fallen entrusted us with unfinished work: to build communities worthy of their sacrifice. Communities marked by service, decency, courage, and care for one another.
May we remember them with gratitude.
May we honor them through how we live.
May we never treat lightly the cost of the freedoms we inherit.
