By Cathy Hird
Planning the route for a road trip used to mean sitting down with a map opened wide, identifiying the start and finish, and choosing the roads in between.

For those who use computer, we started to use one of the sites that will list the roads from here to there and give us the travel time. We get a print out of specific instructions: go out your road to the left; turn left on the next street, take the highway so many miles, shift lanes and turn.... It could take a couple pages, but it had exactly what you needed.

For some, the ideal is a GPS. You put in the destination, and it figures out where you are starting all by itself. The voice will tell you go straight, then when you approach a corner where you have to turn, it will tell you to change lanes and "turn right now." My daughter uses her phone as a GPS and when it is giving me directions, I hate it. I like the previous two methods because I want to see the whole picture. I like knowing where I am going. With her GPS, I drive along with no idea what I am supposed to do after I go straight for 4.3 kilometers.

For a road trip, we get to choose the planning style we prefer. For life, it's more complicated.

The problem with the computer printout is that we can run into road closures, accidents and construction. A traveller needs the paper map in order to make adjustments. In life, we start each day with a habitual pattern, and a to-do list. We may have a wish list too, but what the day actually brings is often not on the list at all. We need to be flexible, to adjust our plans as we go.

We also need to keep in mind where we hope to end up. It helps to have a vision of our destination.

For example, I am committed to living with respect in creation, to a greener lifestyle. But when I go shopping, I enter the store with a list, and a set amount of time and money I have to spend. Most days, I don't walk into the store with an economic or environmental vision at the front of my brain. Even though I know that buying local and organic is healthy for the me, the community, and the environment, the list in my hand says "milk." It is in the store I have to take the time to figure out which is healthiest.

One of my habits is to buy local cheese because I used to work near Pine River. With that regular purchase, I buy local, supporting Southern Ontario dairy farmers and workers.

But I like a green salad every day even in winter: I buy lettuce and spinach that have travelled. With apples, I get lucky and buy Ontario often, but I do not study the tomatoes to make sure I get ones that have not travelled across the continent.

With potatoes, up until this time of year, I get organic local, from my garden, but from now until September, I will only get local ones if I choose where I shop or if I take my time to check labels.

If I turn on the vision of a healthy environment every time I need groceries, I will make better choices. But if I just go by the list I have in my hand, it won't happen.

Whether we talk about car pooling to save gas or switching to LEDs, we have to remember our goal of lessing our footprint. We have to remember our goal of inclusive community, or we won't challenge the jokes people make or open ourselves to different cultural patterns. The vision we have for what the world needs to be lived every day each step of the way, and that means keeping our sense of destination in mind.

It would be easier if there was a road map for getting from here to where we dream of. But the vision of peace, justice, compassionate community is more like a GPS: the vision can tell us when to stop, when to turn as long as we keep it turned on, right in the front of our minds.
Cathy Hird is a farmer, minister and writer living near Walter's falls