More Scenes of Winnipeg

The view of St. Boniface Cathedral from the river. The church was gutted by a fire in the '60s and a much smaller church was built inside the walls of the old church. Both are beautiful in very different ways.
Salisbury House is a Winnipeg institution. The burgers are called 'nips'and breakfast is served all day. Here is their version of a Rueben - another Winnipeg institution.
There is a Sals in the middle of the new bridge they built over the Red River. I ate there tonight with the GD and her family. This was the view from our table.

Lesson for the day. It would appear that the coffee place in town that isn't Starbucks uses tap water to make their coffee. Winnipeg tap water. See post below. My latte went down the drain when I realized that the bad taste in my drink was algae. I found the nearest Starbucks for relief.

Reasons not to love Winnipeg

#1 water that tastes like it came out of your fish tank
#2 restaurants that don't serve filtered water, and don't sell bottled water, and who make their iced tea with tap water
#3 showering in the morning in water that smells like the Gimli harbor
#4 the mosquitos (they aren't that bad but you'd protest if they weren't listed)
#5 the winters (ditto)
#6 did I mention the water - worse now than Regina's ever was

Reasons to love Winnipeg

#1 friends
#2 neat old houses
#3 five people can eat six dishes, steamed rice, tea, soup, and egg rolls for $63 at the Shaing Bo
#4 McNally Robinson bookstore
#5 Assiniboine Park
#6 the Forks
#7 Gunn's bakery - especially the onion bagels
#8 interesting politics
#9 St. Boniface
#10 the Goldeye (the baseball team, not the smoked fish)
#11 Gimli (the biggest icelandic community outside Iceland)
#12 no Hummers on the streets
#13 the Warehouse District (it used to be seedy - now it is funky)
#14 Homemade Music (great folk music record store)
#15 Folklorama (two weeks of ethnic celebration)
#16 the Manitoba Opera Association
#17 the Winnipeg symphony
#18 the Winnipeg folk festival
#19 the Royal Winnipeg Ballet
#20 free jazz concerts outside in the summer
#21 Manitoba Theatre Centre
#22 all the other theatre and folk music and choral music in the city

Images of Winnipeg

Winnipeg's Citizen Walk of Fame in the park. Sybill Shack was my jr. high school principal.
Carl Ridd was my first Religious Studies prof.

Cricketers in Assiniboine Park.
Toboggan slides at the park.
Wilfred ever vigilant.
Brian, Lesley and me after a yummy Chinese dinner at the Shaing Bo.

This will surprise the teenagers in my life

Pilgrimage to Dog River

Got the pictures downloaded and here they are - holy Canadian shrines:






We turned off the #1 onto a gravel road because I thought I saw a small Rouleau sign. We drove on faith because it seemed like we were heading to nowhere and then we came to a paved road with a sign saying Rouleau. We drove a little way further and saw all the cars parked by the side of the road. I felt a little goofy hanging out with the tourists taking photos of the Corner Gas set but it was fun. There was a woman standing there handing out postcards and a map of the town with the other buildings marked. We then did a tour of the town and took more photos before heading to the Dog River police station which is an ice cream bar and gift shop. They didn't have a big selection but we bought some gifts and signed our names on the wall with thousands of other pilgrims. Then it was back in the car and up to Regina, all on paved roads this time. After grabbing lunch I went into Starbucks to get a latte for the road and who was sitting there but Brent Butt and Nancy Robertson. On the Corner Gas website Brent writes: “I love what I do,” Brent says. “It’s just like having coffee – only now it’s with a thousand or so people at a time.” Well there he was having coffee surrounded by a couple dozen folks who were being polite Canadians and ignoring them. I wouldn't let my GD go in unless she could promise not to make a fuss and she couldn't promise. It felt pretty cool to see them right after visiting Dog River but I was glad I wasn't wearing a Corner Gas ball cap or something really goofy like that. I'm sure they didn't see the discrete little Ruby pin I have pinned to my MEC bag.

Altar Calls

I've driven the GD out to Winnipeg to return her to the bosom of her family and have much to write of the trip through Saskatchewan and our holy pilgrimage to Rouleau but I want to download my pictures first....so later.

On the trip I spent some time thinking about the service we had Sunday in Coaldale. It was Settlers'Days last weekend and is our custom all the churches organize a joint service for the Sunday. It was in the field behind the Sportsplex and about six different churches had representatives involved. It was a nice service with some good music lead by a praise band from one of the Mennonite churches. I really enjoy our ministerial when I get to it and they had done all the work organizing the service. All I had to do was show up and do the final blessing.

I don't really remember our conversations about what the theme would be other than that it was good for us as Christians to gather together. I had to chuckle though when much of what was said was a kind of altar call. The guest preacher told the story of his own conversion, of how he was raised in a good home and thought he was a Christian until a young woman he was interested in told him he wasn't. He was drinking and brawling and she told him he wasn't living like a Christian and six months later he fell down on his knees and gave his life to Christ. Now we might think we are Christians but maybe aren't and need to give our lives to him.

Looking around the congregation of folks meeting on a beautiful July morning in a field in the middle of town I thought it rather unlikely that there going to be many people there who would respond to such an altar call. It seemed likely most of them probably think that they are Christians. They might struggle with faith, they might anguish over their sinfulness, but I think they probably understand themselves to be Christians involved in this struggle. Sanctification was probably more of an issue than justification.

But maybe I'm wrong and someone was responding in their heart to his words. My problem is that I've never found altar calls all that moving. Years ago I attended a friend's Pentecostal church with her and they had a visiting preacher who was determined to convert that congregation. He preached an altar call that was still going on after two hours when we slipped out that door. He was determined that people were going to come up and give their lives to Jesus but he really was preaching to the converted.

The sermons that have grabbed me heart and mind are not the ones that raise doubts about whether I've actually 'given my life to Jesus' because isn't the point that we are always 'justified and yet still sinners'? I know that my following of Jesus is fraught with moments of doubt, looking back, distraction, losing my way. I give and then I try to take it back all the time. The times that call my attention back to what I have set my heart on are the times when I see others following Jesus and I realize I'm going off in the wrong direction. The preacher told us that when he was drinking and brawling he wasn't really a Christian and after he prayed in a particular way he was. Maybe. But his story sounded a lot more to me like the story of the prodigal son who had lost his way and then came to his senses and started home again. I wished he had told us more about what it was like when the father welcomed him home. I wanted to hear more about what it is like for him to be a follower of Jesus. It is always the lives of saints that convict me of my shortcoming and spur me on to a new commitment.