The Land

It think I mentioned it in my daily prayers video the other day, this connection with the land that I feel somewhere deep inside. It comes out when I drive across the prairies and it shows itself strong when I am standing at an open grave on a cold overcast winters day. 

My family came to this prairie place in 1875 and were put into reserves. They were farmers and school teachers, and pastors it seems. But they made their way in rural settings, always living close to the land.  I feel a connection with them when I think of the prairies and whenever we have some bad weather days.

But I have been learning more with those who were here before then. The First Nations, natives, had such a strong connection with the land. It fed them and cared for them long before the Europeans ever came. They created treaty's with the growing numbers of people of Europeans, to help keep some of that connection with the land and to figure out how to live together in the blessed spaces. It's not all a clean history that is certain, and there is much to own in our history. But that sense of connection to the land is a shared value. 

It seems even more real these days when I remember that in 1875 there was no more room for many families, including mine, in the Southeastern part of Ukraine where they came from over a hundred and forty seven years ago.

Anyway, all this has been stirring in me more with these passing years. 

I realize that all our kids are blessed enough to own land on the prairies. When I see pictures of Johanna and Nate's little farm there in Saskatchewan and the seasons change, it stirs in me. It is raw and not built up. People have been walking or riding over that land for hundreds and thousands of years, and thats just a cool thing.

The history on these prairies goes way back. The arrowhead I have from this land reminds me that this was here a long time before me and will be here a long time after. That is if we don't blow it all up or God calls a break.

Just owning some of my feelings I guess.

Carry on.