office@ralphconnor.ca by Thursday at 11:00 AM

Back to school reopening is set for this Monday. Our hopes and prayers are with all children, families, teachers and school staff, in your return to school this week. Have a wonderful, safe year of learning!

Due to pandemic protocols at Canmore General Hospital, their Tuck Shop has been closed for quite some time. We are pleased to host the Tuck Shop this Friday and Saturday, from 12:30-5:00 PM, in the front courtyard of RCMUC. Funds raised benefit our local Hospital.

When Italy’s first McDonald’s franchise opened in the heart of Rome in 1986, the opposition came from all sides. Thousands of people rallied outside the location in the Piazza di Spagna. The opening was huge, so big that teenagers nearly stormed the restaurant, stopping traffic and causing havoc in the streets and shutting down the restaurant. But McDonald’s persevered and fast eating became institutionalized in Italy as around the world.

 

Outside the launch one of the opponents, an Italian journalist named Carlo Petrini, took a novel approach by handing out plates of penne to the protesters. “I was alarmed by the culturally homogenizing nature of fast food.” He established the Slow Food association that year, aiming to protect traditional foods and advocating for agricultural biodiversity. Three years after the Big Mac franchise opened in Rome, representatives of 15 countries met in Paris to sign the Slow Food Manifesto, and the international Slow Food movement was born.

Today there are almost 600 McDonald’s restaurants, with 340 McDrives and 320 McCafés in Italy. In comparison the Slow Movement boasts more than 150,000 members across 150 countries. We balance between these two diametrically opposing perspectives in what, and how, we eat. And by extension how we choose to live, eating on the run is only a metaphor for how we scurry thru our days. COVID-19 slammed the brakes on our inclination to speed up; will we remember the lessons of slowness as the world reopens?

Carl Honore, a proponent of Slow Living, says: The great benefit of slowing down is reclaiming the time and tranquility to make meaningful connections--with people, with culture, with work, with nature, with our own bodies and minds. Everywhere, people are discovering that doing things more slowly often means doing them better and enjoying them more. It means living life instead of rushing through it. You can apply this to everything from food to parenting to work. And church…….

There are many lessons to be taken from the current crisis, not least of which is that there is profound wisdom in Indigenous teachings about the interconnectedness of all creation. Respecting this interconnectedness is critical for ecological and economic integrity, right relations with Indigenous peoples, and for a holistic, just recovery from the pandemic click here~.

  

Restoring Indigenous Rights is an exploration of how implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples can advance climate justice in Canada. Drawing on the invaluable insights of Indigenous activists it seeks to place the sovereign rights of Indigenous Peoples at the heart of CPJ's work for climate justice. click here~

Join Earthkeepers for an online panel discussion between Christine Boyle (Vancouver City Councillor and United Church Minister) and Karri Munn-Venn (Senior Policy Analyst for Citizens for Public Justice) that will explore why followers of Christ should pursue civic action for justice and how to best advocate for change in our churches and local communities. Wednesday, September 9 at 7:00 PM register here~.

Living with Uncertainty: Lessons from the Psalms  The Wisdom Centre is hosting a weekend retreat, September 18-20th, at Kingsfold Retreat Centre. COVID-19 has been a crash course in dealing with uncertainty that none of us was expecting. The Rev. Anna Greenwood-Lee, The Rev. Christine Conkin and Helen Barry will use the Psalms to help us look at the myriad emotions we are all feeling and the faith that will pull us through. With COVID precautions in place, this retreat is limited to 16 participants including the leaders. Kingsfold (click here~) has a beautiful location on the banks of the Ghost River with lots of space inside and out to physical distance.  All rooms have private bathrooms. Cost $480 for a single room and $380 for a double. For more information: click here~.

Slow and bluesy: This is a 1939 folk recording of Ace Johnson, an inmate at the Clemens State Prison Farm, in East Texas, doing a version of a blues tune that came out of the 1918 Spanish Flu, usually called “Influenza Blues,” but that he had updated for an influenza outbreak in Memphis in 1929. click here~. Here's another version of the 1919 Influenza Blues by Essie Jenkins click here~.

The time has come to challenge our obsession with doing everything more quickly.