This year has been one of change for the Mitton crew. Transition. Everything got up ended and turned around. I’m not complaining, just making an observation. It continued this week when I finally dyed my hair with that streak of purple. My family hates it. I don’t care though, because it was for me and not for them. We come to a point in our lives where we get old enough to not care anymore what people may think. As long as you and God are good, and your choices are wise and Biblical… a little colour in your hair is not a big deal. Right?! Check out this post if you want to here the back story on the purple hair thing, though.

Anyway, purple hair was not my muse this week. A lot has been swirling around in my head, and some family stuff has been going on, and I’m throwing out resumes in hopes for some employment. Christmas will be here soon and it is supposed to snow today. I still have a few boxes to do and my plans for the house have fallen into disarray as old habits and boredom creep back in with the cooler weather. However – I am pushing forward – slowly – and trying to keep my days full and meaningful.

I got the chance to catch up with an old friend this week. We met halfway between us, in a little town’s main street diner for lunch and a good, long chat! Something about greasy onion rings and good company can fill my heart. Yet, it was the drive home that struck the muse for this week. It’s about a half hour trek home from the diner along the country roads, which are now mostly barren of autumn colour. The last of the harvests are happening and there seems to be endless fields of browns and dull yellows with the occasional green forests. Even the farmhouses along the route seem dull, their whitewashed barn board sidings and dried up gardens blend in with the horizon.

Still, one of the remarkable landscape features I have discovered since moving east are the rolling hills. In fact, the route from the diner passes a small ski hill and at one point the car peaks at the top and cascades down. The view of the countryside is fabulous – even in its dull estate. I drove this hill a few days before in the utter darkness. And although I am not afraid of country roads in the dark, I am thankful for high beams and my GPS. It’s black out there. And the ski hill does not seem to have a bottom, so you pump the breaks and hope you get to where you want to be. Ice and snow is going to be fabulous.

One of the criteria in moving was “enough land”. We’ve been blessed with a bit more than asking, and I love it. We are hedged in by mature cedars and our view from the front porch captivates everyone who visits. However, the land means work. It means maintenance and upkeep and planning. For us, it is a change from our postage stamp sized lot in the city. I wouldn’t change it for the world, but it’s different. We have to drive more. We travel through the rolling hills and wonder who’s land belongs to who? Is this open space or property? What lies behind that group of trees? Even our little century home is visible now from the turn — our lonely streetlight illuminating our wrap around porch through the now barren trees along the roadside. It looks like a postcard – and I am grateful.

Our country stretches almost 6000 km east to west. It’s huge, but did you know that about 80% of Canada is uninhabited. Okay, we got snow and ice up north, which is why most of us are along the U.S/Canadian boarder, but 80% of barren land is phenomenal. My rolling hills are nothing. I wonder if that statistic includes owned land without housing – like farmer fields and the like, or if it is truly “empty”? Just ice floats in the frozen north?

We were discussing the story of Abraham and Sarah on Sunday and I began to wonder about Genesis chapter 12. God tells Abram to leave everything he knows and go to “the land that I will show you”. Adam and Eve were given the garden to look after, too. How many times do we see and hear God saying go here or there? Even in Revelation do we hear about a new earth. The Bible is full of discussions about land. God made this earth and its vast pockets of land for us to enjoy. In fact, He promised it to most of us. It’s work. I wonder how we will fair at clearing our brush and maintaining our gardens next year. Then there’s Abraham and Lot who got promised a whole nation!

How we have failed to take care of our blessings. We’ve poisoned so much of our good land. Not only with pollution and environmental disasters, but our human nature has ravished Earth with war and destruction. Winter makes my neighbourhood dull. I cannot imagine raising my children in bombed out buildings and charred streets scattered with broken glass. Or cesspools of filth where poverty is so evident. I don’t think it’s the way God designed it to be. No, not at all.

And so, as I make my daily drives from here to there along the rolling hills of countryside, I must take time to pray for those whose view is not so pretty. The ones who have been given land and abused it. Or those who are trying to brighten it with gardens and wildflowers. Or those who work tirelessly to provide my food. Have you ever stopped to think about the land beneath your toes? Mine is about to be covered with a layer of snow. Whitewashed clean to make me think: “How pretty!” Until I curse the pile and pull out the new snowblower to give it a test run.