Its 10:56 pm and I am in a big bed in a cold basement room in a farm house in eastern Saskatchewan. The howling Prairie wind outside is making itself heard and felt.
My only light comes from my bedside lamp. It highlights the white ceiling with its 12 inch squares. The walls are a familiar brown paneling, with a matching trim where they meet the ceiling.
The curtains are unmatched towels, and the door is a brown, hollow wood type made in the early 1970'S.
The ceiling has the familiar brown rectangle vent for the absent warm air to flow through. And the prerequisite chuckwagon lamp sits atop a blanket covered shelf.
My small radio crackles the classical CBC am station that comforts in a way you only understand when you've listened to radio on the prairies.
Though it's my first time on this farm, I've been in this room a thousand times before. At my Grandparents place, or my parents place. At a friends home, or another place like this, billeted out to hospitable prairie people.
I think it's true you know, that if you haven't been to the prairies, you haven't experienced true hospitality from real people.
And so begins my stay here. It's nice and quiet and God seems in a mood to be heard.
And I,
I'm listening.
Blessings from a place ten kilometers west of Norquay.
Thinking of all of you as the wind howls here as well, toppling signs, flipping poor robins around as they try to make their way from one tree to the next, pelting bits of gravel on my cheeks as I frantically seek the car door handle (which happens to be locked!!!)....and the clouds roar and roll by on their way east.....to Norquay. I trust the Son will shine on you tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteHooray for the prairies and prairie hospitality!
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