The Icelandic Canadian - 01.08.2006, Síða 8

50
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 60 #2
sient mix of souls, including old-timers
from the town, cottagers from the various
communities along the lake, and visitors
from Winnipeg and points beyond.
Increasingly, there is something of a
“homecoming” feeling at these Sunday
morning gatherings, as former Manitobans
return each year, from places as distant as
Ohio and Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and
even Africa, making a stop at the Unitarian
church part of their annual pilgrimage
home. Every summer, one of the services,
at least, pays homage to Icelandic roots of
the church, but the congregation has
branched out far beyond its roots. We cel-
ebrate our past but we do not dwell in it.
Over time, some of the institutions
that were first established by Icelandic
immigrants or their descendents have
become part of the heritage of the larger
community. Islendingadagurinn is a good
example of this: what was once a distinctly
Icelandic celebration has become a festival
cherished by people of all backgrounds,
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which leads participants to exclaim, “We
are all Icelanders!” Our literary heritage is
another case in point: Stephan G.
Stephansson and Lara Goodman Salverson
are loved by readers across ethnic groups
and languages, for their words speak to the
immigrant experience of all those
Canadians and Americans who have come
from other places. And the Icelandic
churches are yet another example:
Unitarians and Lutherans alike have
reached across the ethnic divide to wel-
come a diversity of people from various
backgrounds into their pews, while
remembering those Icelandic pioneers who
first established their congregations.
The experience of the Gimli Unitarian
Church reminds us that we need to rein-
vent our cherished institutions in each suc-
cessive generation - or risk losing them.
There is nothing on earth that will not per-
ish without careful tending. There is no
institution that can survive on the legacy of
its founders only, without adding to that
legacy in each successive generation.
Likewise, there is nothing that cannot be
rejuvenated through the efforts of imagina-
tive people who have a vision for the future
to match their love of the past.
Editor’s Note: Kenneth L. Patton, the
author of the verse at the beginning of this
article, was a prominent Unitarian
Universalist minister in the United States
who was an occasional visitor to the
Hnausa Unitarian Camp, where he led
camp programs in the 1940s and 1950s,
while taking time to write poetry and prose
there.