Travels
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve blogged, and most of that time I’ve been away. On Friday the 18th (well, actually, in the wee hours of the 19th), Tim Gallant, Jamie Soles, and Alex Barendregt descended on my house like a herd of locusts (okay, a rather small herd). On Saturday, we drove down to Moscow, Idaho, for the 2002 Christ Church Ministerial Conference.
I greatly enjoyed all of the lectures. Peter Leithart‘s talks continued to whet my appetite for his doctoral dissertation (forthcoming sometime soon, right, Jon?). On the Tuesday evening we were there, Duck Schuler‘s choir sang Bach’s “Jesu, Meine Freude.”
But perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the conference was the chance to visit with a lot of friends, old and new — which happened in all the breaks and lunches, at the few times I was able to stop by Bucer’s Coffeehouse Pub, in the evenings (mainly spent watching movies or hanging out with my friend Chip), and especially during the glorious long Sunday afternoon and evening spent with a crowd of people at the Leithart’s.
On the 24th, we drove back to Lethbridge. Tim, Jamie, and Alex left for Grande Prairie early the next morning. That afternoon, I drove up to Red Deer, where I stayed overnight at my parents’ place. On Saturday, I travelled to Edmonton, shopped a while at The Book Outlet in the West Edmonton Mall (discount books!), and then headed over to a friend’s house for the night.
On Sunday, I preached in the morning and evening at the Orthodox Reformed Church. In between, I visited with Rev. Jakob Kits, one of the retired ministers in that congregation, who mentioned that there’s a Cornelis VanderWaal webpage (which must be this one, though alas it’s all in Dutch).
On Monday, I went to The King’s University College to visit my friend, Arlette Zinck, who teaches English there. Arlette wasn’t there when I arrived, so I stopped by Douglas Harink‘s office and had a chat about his concerns with N. T. Wright’s “supersessionism.” Arlette showed up later and we had a good (albeit brief) visit.
The drive home, however, wasn’t so pleasant. The snow started around Olds, an hour or so north of Calgary. I hit Calgary at rush hour and crawled slowly through the city on wet and soon-to-be-icy streets. I finally stopped for supper to give the traffic a chance to thin out before I headed south into the night. The highway between Calgary and Fort Macleod (150 km), as the road report people like to say, was in poor winter driving condition. To make matters worse, I was pretty tired and had a pounding headache. The last half-hour or so to Lethbridge was much better, but I was exceedingly glad to be home again.
And now I’m getting back to my regular routine — part of which includes the customary noticing that it’s past midnight and that Colin Dexter’s delightful The Way Through the Woods is still awaiting me. (Well, maybe a couple of chapters anyway before I head to bed.)