Body, Mind, Spirit ...

Winnipeg feeds all three for me:


Bistrot by Basil: Basil's used to be my favourite restaurant when I came to Winnipeg more frequently. Then in 2009 I arrived to barricaded doors and the intelligence that the place had sustained a severe flood. In 2010 I checked back again: still closed. 


Last Wednesday night I arrived at the airport late, exhausted, hungry. The plane from Calgary had been delayed, as was the one from Edmonton. On my way to my hotel I swerved left and found myself in front of Basil's - and it was open!


As I approached the restaurant there was a guy sleeping it off on the side walk and one of the doors was nailed up. There was an arrow pointing to the other door, however, and so I pushed it open and went inside.









The thing about Basil's is the secret garden patio that you reach after you walk through the bistro. A person eating alone can be anonymous out there, and unselfconscious. I asked if there was seating available; and voilà! there was a tiny table tucked away in a corner, under a lamp that would permit me to read should I care to linger long enough. Lingering seems to be encouraged at Basil's, should you be so inclined ...


The food was wonderful: roasted eggplant and vegetable spread, accompanied by warm, tender little pita wedges, followed by lamb chops, braised on the outside and faintly pink on the inside. 

I savoured every morsel of lamb and succulent roast vegetables, my tiredness slipping off my shoulders a little bit more with each bite. As I settled more deeply into my chair I could hear snippets of conversations around me. I reached into my bag and drew out the book my Dad had given me, Naomi Zacharias's The Scent of Water, and read until I thought I had better track down my hotel for the night before my heart overflowed. I reluctantly said goodbye to my third-favourite spot in Winnipeg, delighted that it is up and running again and that I will be welcomed back as often as I want to visit ... 

McNally Robinson: All book stores are not created equal. On Thursday I had an hour and a half free, so I slipped over to this book store just down the road from where I was working. I walked into a muted hum of people looking for books, giftware, dessert, a helping hand, a friendly greeting. I was looking for a book whose author I couldn't remember except for her first name; I didn't even know any of the words in the title of the book; I did know that the author was from Winnipeg, however. And the wonderful man at the information desk, after asking a couple of questions, deduced that I was looking for author and performer Charlene Diehl, and he led me directly to her book Out of Grief, Singing. He also recommended another author he thought I might enjoy, elaborating intelligently on her virtues and shortcomings. 

I needed lunch so I slipped into Prairie Ink, the cafe and patisserie attached to each McNally Robinson. I ordered Earl Grey tea and a lemon tart, and I slid my book out of my handbag again. No one disturbed me or rushed me; as a matter of fact, many people were reading, either alone or in companionable groups huddled at various tables. I was quickly absorbed once again with Naomi's fascinating story, her compassion, her unvarnished truth. This time I finished the book, but not without a couple of silent tears of recognition escaping the corners of my eyes at certain moments, or without a few chuckles of heartfelt appreciation at others. I felt that Naomi somehow knew me. And after reading this book, I know that my Dad does!


One of the gifts of a few blissful moments in McNally Robinson is that everyone in there gets it: they are all readers too and they understand the joy of discovering a book that draws you in and holds you in its thrall. One senior lady actually patted my shoulder as she walked by me. 


It still saddens me to think Calgary couldn't sustain the branch that opened so optimistically some years ago on the Stephen Avenue Mall. I spent many, many absorbing hours there and was crushed when they closed. Fellow book lovers, please support independent book sellers and encourage them by purchasing from them when you can, even if it may cost a little bit more at the time. If all the independent book stores close, it may cost you a lot more than just the couple of dollars you would save by shopping at one of the national book seller's many locations.  And - who knows? - you might discover someone who loves the same kinds of reads you do ...

Dinner at Muriel's: I was anticipating with great pleasure my dinner that evening: my friend Muriel had invited me over to her home. Muriel was one of the librarians at the local law school until she retired a couple of months back. She and I have grown to know and care for each other over the years and her whimsical, enchanted home is my favourite spot in Winnipeg.


She greeted me with a warm hug and a lime cordiale and we sat in her parlour and caught up with the happenings of the past year. After a while she led me to the dining table, which she had laid with her finest china, silverware and crystal. She had even made place names - and all just because she knew I would love and appreciate an elegant table! She struck a match and as she was holding it to the candle I was thinking - by no means for the first time! - what a gift this woman's presence in my life is. We can talk about work, play, God, feminism, kindness of strangers, kindness of friends. We can comment tongue in cheek about particularly amusing instances in the world of academia; and we can commiserate about particularly sobering instances in the real world. 

It was Muriel who, a few years back, told me about Rosie the Riveter and "We Can Do it!" We were standing outside a restaurant on Broadway at about 11 o'clock on a February evening. It was Winnipeg, of course, so it was beyond frigidly cold. We had been talking at dinner about an unexpected zag in the zig of my life and I had been feeling pretty low. Just after we said goodnight, Muriel suddenly spun around, flung her arms around me and proclaimed in a booming voice quite unlike her normal tone, "WE CAN DO IT!"


"Do what?" I asked, a little dazed.


"You know! Rosie!"


"Muriel?"


"Rosie the Riveter, of course! She could do it and so can you! So can all of us!"


I had to confess I had never heard of Rosie, which ignorance she kindly excused on account of my growing up on the other side of the world. As we shivered on the sidewalk she told me the story of the symbolic woman and concluded with words to this effect: "You also are a strong woman, Karyn. You have come through a lot and you will come through this too. You can do it!"


And with that she swirled off into the crystal night. But a couple of years later I received through Canada Post a book bag, picked up at the Smithsonian, with - you guessed it - Rosie the Riveter and her rallying cry imprinted on it. Muriel hadn't forgotten and had sent me a reminder that she was thinking of me and rooting for me.


Muriel's just like that.


As she put the finishing touches on dinner I walked into her back yard and breathed deeply the serenity and the grace that are imbued in this place.

My friend has had her share of battles and hardships over the years; but her faith, her personal resolve, her acute understanding of justice, and her wicked sense of humour have held her in good stead and have brought her to where she is now. She seeks to bring out the best in people and strives to build them up. She is a dreamer and an eminently practical woman at the same time. She thrives in an atmosphere of beauty and she is unafraid of the work it takes to achieve balance and harmony in her daily life. She had invited me over to her home for dinner, she said, because there had been several occasions in the past when we had eaten working dinners together at one restaurant or another. I would use my food allowance for the day to treat her. Now that she was retired, she said she wanted to be given the opportunity to return the gesture.

As we sat down to a fresh, flavourful feast, she raised her crystal goblet, filled with lemon-infused water, and said, "I propose a toast. In the past we raised our glass of thanks to Carswell's Lord [Baron Thomson of Fleet]; this evening, we give thanks to the real Lord!"

And here's a toast to you, my beautiful friend. Thank you for demonstrating courage and calm, determination and decorum, grit and graciousness.


Thank you for taking the time to explain the ropes of an academic law library to a timid newbie.


Thank you for your laughter and light, spilling into the corners of my life for almost a decade now, touching my soul, showing me how we can do it!


And, most of all, thank you for believing I can.

Church in the Valley in the Wildwood

Does anyone remember this song?

There's a church in the valley in the wildwood

No lovelier spot in the dale

No place is so dear to my childhood

As the little brown church in the vale.

(William S. Pitts, 1857)

I am occasionally asked to go to a little church in the tiny town of Big Valley, about 70 or so kilometres away from Three Hills, to play the piano for them on a Sunday morning. I can't tell you how much I look forward to the sheer beauty of the drive; the anticipation of the warmth and care of the people who attend ("the family here" is how Kevin, the song leader puts it in his prayer); the joy of resting my fingers lightly on the beaten-up, out-of-tune piano; the complete sense of fellowship and blessing I receive just by being there.


The drive there is magnificent - plunging into valleys and soaring up hills, it's a cliché but somehow not:

The song starts playing in my head at the first glimpse of the bridge (single lane traffic only; stop if an oncoming vehicle is on the bridge ...)

Then, just when I always wonder if in my trance-like state at all this beauty I have driven too far, I come across this sign:

And I know I'm almost there ...

Drive to the elevator and turn left ...

 Take your first right and you'll catch a glimpse of the steeple:

...followed almost immediately by the little church building. And on any given Sunday you'll see people chatting before the service, catching up with each other's lives.















On special occasions one of the kids gets to ring the bell, which is connected to a rope that is tucked away just to the right of the foyer as you enter. This occasion was Mother's Day. The light was cool, mysterious, hearkening back to days of yore. The kid pulling on the rope was cheered on by some of the men.


When I enter the sanctuary, the first thing I always check for is the piano. The first time I got to play it was the first time Dad was asked to be "pulpit supply" and we got there early because we weren't sure how long it would take. There was Kevin and a guitar player, and Kevin was trying to teach the guitarist a "new" hymn. Kevin looks a bit like an Indiana Jones and is the kind of guy you feel you could count on in an emergency; but singing is not one of his primary talents, as he freely admits. After I sat watching and listening to the agony, I spoke up. "I know that song. Shall I play it for you on the piano?"


They both turned to me like shell-shocked travelers who have just spotted an oasis but are not really sure if it will turn out to be a mirage.  

I walked over to the piano and opened it up. Not horribly out of tune. Sweet tone that had been designed to encourage, not to dominate, the worship at a little country church. I fell in love with it.

The guitarist nailed down the song in a couple of minutes, and then they asked me if I would play with them for the service. How could I refuse?


The last time I played was yesterday. Kevin had his wife, Sandy, with him at the pulpit and the singing was sweet.


Once I'm ensconced at the piano, the next thing my eyes go to involuntarily is the cross at the front of the church. The modest little panels of stained glass just to the left of it splinter the otherwise golden light of the church building. They remind me that it was not an easy, happy start to Christianity. It involved unspeakable pain. It cost the life of One who was blameless, the One who offered His life up as a sacrifice for the rest of us who fall so short of the purity that God demands from those who would be His followers. As I look at that cross while I warm up the piano, I am reminded of my own failings and imperfections, which are legion. Each of them takes a turn at presenting itself to me one by one, like criminals awaiting their day in court. 


But then I notice what garnishes that rough-hewn cross: it's a coronet of thorns, looped over the top post of the cross. I am reminded that just before Jesus died He spoke the words, "It is finished!" The root words have to do with the fulfilment of a contract, and goes back all the way to the garden of Eden when humankind's defying God's one explicit commandment first separated us from God. That day God promised Adam and Eve that satan would "bruise [their] heel" - in other words, cause trouble and difficulties and pain on this earth - but that there would be one who would "bruise his head" - crush and defeat satan. This was Jesus on the cross, Himself the payment price of the promise. 


Right now this church is in transition. They are looking for a pastor, as so many little country churches are these days. They have an interim pastor, Dale, who is helping them with the process during the week and preaching faithfully in the pulpit come Sunday.


He has been talking about the start of the Christian church from the book of Acts in the Bible. He recapped last week's sermon, saying that the early Christian Church had what he liked to think of as the four Ts:


Truth - we talk a lot about our truth, Dale said. (I couldn't help but smile inwardly when I thought of the word coined by Stephen Colbert a few years ago  that ended up being Oxford's Word of the Year - "truthiness"). The truth that's important, however, is God's truth from God's Word.


Tie - the fellowship of the church: living life together, lifting each other up, being there for each other.


Table - eating together in community, yes; but, even more so, gathering together as a body of fellow Christ-followers about the communion table that commemorates the last supper Jesus held with His disciples. He knew, although they did not yet, that He was about to be crucified in a few short hours. It was at this supper that He told them as often as they eat the bread and drink the wine in this way, they would be remembering His death. He told them - and by turn us as His followers today - to do this until He returns.


Throne - this signifies the importance of prayer in the Christian's life individually, but also in the church corporately. Without prayer - coming to the throne of God, as it is sometimes called - the earliest church literally could not have survived. And in the nuttiness and the disorder that life these days can tend to lurch toward, we too are utterly dependent on prayer, on committing ourselves and our church and our world to God's care; of our talking with God and of knowing that He hears.


Pastor Dale pointed out that the earliest church members' focus was not on themselves but on the Lord Jesus Christ and on each other. He said that what the church today needs are people who simply care about each other and love each other and reach others for God.  


And then he paused, and he looked out at the little congregation. With great kindness, he said, "And this is what I see here, at this church. There is something about this place that is winsome and attracts people. This is how you live. You really care for each other and uplift each other and want to draw others closer to God."

In the back corner, across the door from the bell pull is a map of the world showing the missionaries that this tiny church prays for and supports. I think that whoever chose that spot and put it up there in the beginning knew what Pastor Dale was talking about yesterday. They knew that the church can be a sanctuary, a "sort of club," as he mentioned. But as we leave this place, the map is a powerful reminder to me that we are going out there to love other people too, to encourage and to help them, to listen to them, to care.

As a daughter of missionaries myself, how could my heart not be warmed by this board? I know first-hand how much the letters and cards from people not out in India with us meant to my parents and came to mean to me as well. It told us we were not alone; that there was an army of people behind the scenes pulling for us, praying for us, supporting us.


As the service came to an end, Pastor Dale challenged everyone to shake the hand of eight people they had not spoken to that morning. People were out of their seats almost before he had finished speaking.

Just because of the way the course of my life has run, I am a bit of a nomad when it comes to church involvement. I tend to go where I am asked to play the piano, or where my Dad is speaking. 


But this church ... this little church in the country ... tugs at my heart like no other church has. To that point, I even asked one of my other sisters to drive Dad to Hanna yesterday morning so that I could go to the Big Valley church and play the piano - I have NEVER done this for any other church before!


Pastor Dale and the leaders of the church have struck a committee to get down to the nitty gritty of finding a pastor who loves God and loves His Word and loves people. They have carefully selected a committee, including people from all walks of life and even including youth. If you think about it, please say a little prayer for Arny, Chantall, Connie, Don, Ed, Eldon, Kevin, Kyle, Winnie and, of course, Dale as they meet for the first time this week.


And lastly, in honour of Andy Griffith, who passed away just a few days ago and whose whole public persona at least would have felt right at home in this church, here is the song  sung by him and his great friend Don Knotts:





I guess how I can sum up this little church in the Valley is that when I drive up to it on a Sunday morning, I feel like it is saying to me, "Welcome Home ..."

Happy Birthday!

She was let out of the hospital yesterday, her birthday. She had been transferred back to the Three Hills hospital from Red Deer on Sunday afternoon.

Breakfast of Champions: Sharon brought the
yogurt; I supplied fruit and coffee and
we smuggled it in each morning ...

I was the privileged one who got to drive her home late this morning.

She is still experiencing a headache and her hearing has been sporadically affected. The doctor cautioned that it would take three months for full healing of her skull.

I love that she is my neighbour and that I will be able to see her quite a bit over the next few days.

I love that at the end of her prayer in the hospital she would say, "... and thank you for my Karyn!" while squeezing my hand.

I am so glad she's home.

Happy Birthday, Neighbour! I love you dearly.

O Canada!

O Canada!

Our home and native land!

True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,

The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. 

 O Canada! Where pines and maples grow.

Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow.

How dear to us thy broad domain,

From East to Western sea.

Thou land of hope for all who toil!

Thou True North, strong and free!

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies
May stalwart sons, and gentle maidens rise,

James Park / The Ottawa Citizen

To keep thee steadfast through the years

From East to Western sea.

Our own beloved native land!

Our True North, strong and free!

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Ruler supreme, who hearest humble prayer,

Hold our Dominion in thy loving care;

Help us to find, O God, in thee

A lasting, rich reward, 

As waiting for the better Day,

We ever stand on guard.

Chris Roussakis / QMI Agency

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

The Tea House Sweetheart

She is one of our most loyal customers and one of our dearest friends. She is a senior woman who is a warrior, physically, mentally, spiritually. She has been there for me so many times in the past nine years. I love her as though she were a member of my own family.


She endures pain every moment of her life. But there was only one occurrence in all this time that I caught a glimpse of just what a vicious companion she lives with. Normally she musters up a smile on even the worst days and offers a word of encouragement and wisdom. That afternoon her face was almost frozen, with tears rolling down her cheeks.


This evening she sustained a freak fall that resulted in my seeing that dreadful expression again. She was rushed off in the ambulance to a major centre nearby where the hospital can offer her a better chance of treatment; our local hospital assessed her and ambulanced her on.


I can't give you more details at this time. But RtLers, please, please pray for my beautiful friend wherever you are in the world. Pray that she will experience in a very real way "the everlasting arms" cushioning her, giving her the reprieve of sleep in these frighteningly dark hours before dawn..