Slow Food

Prelude - Westwood's choir: Harmonia

Welcome, Introductions and Announcements

Deidra: Good morning and welcome to Westwood Unitarian Congregation, one of many Unitarian Universalist congregations across the continent and around the world. We are a community of individuals on unique spiritual journeys. We welcome all persons of goodwill whatever their culture, colour, class, religion, gender, wealth, the direction of their affections or whom they wish to marry. We are a lay led congregation. We are a non-creedal congregation, but we agree deeply on the vital and holy importance of the practice of the democratic principle in religion. We invite you to share in our processes, differences, decisions, risks - and mistakes - our celebrations, rituals, responsibilities, joys and sorrows. Those who find themselves compelled by Unitarian Universalism and who wish to share it, do so by signing our membership book. We promise that this will NOT save your soul; we promise further that it WILL open you to requests for attention, work, money, argument, challenge and involvement. We will not simplify your life with simplistic answers. If you think you have all the answers, we will find questions for you. We may well complicate your life in a wholesome and life-giving way.

Dean: To visitors and newcomers, we offer special greetings; we are honoured that you found us, whatever the reason for your coming, whatever you seek or bring, we welcome you to our church. You may find people of many persuasions among we Unitarian Universalists: Buddhists, Humanists, Pagans, Christians, atheists and a healthy sprinkling of agnostics. You will find vegetarians, feminists, environmentalists, activists - chances are, with a few exceptions, "you name it, we've got it!" However, whatever our stance or spiritual path we all affirm the 7 principles you can see on the poster just beside the door and on the front of your order of service.

I urge you to ask us questions after the service when we are having coffee and tea. We may not have all the answers to your life questions, but we definitely will have questions for your answers. I invite you to sign the guest book at the back of the sanctuary. We will send you our newsletter for three months and you are welcome to attend any of the activities you see there. Come again, the service will not be the same as this one!

My name is Dean Chan…

Deidra: And my name is Deidra Helmig, we will be your lay leaders this morning, as well as the speakers. We are so lucky to have Harmonia, providing us with the music today. Harmonia is Westwood's own choir, directed by Jacqueline Willette and accompanied by Rebecca Patterson. Our choir is open to anyone who loves to sing. If you like what you hear and want to join them, they practice every Tuesday evening. You can talk to anyone of the choir members after today's service and they can fill you in on the details. I'd also like you to take note of our other volunteers that have helped us to put today's service together.

Please read the announcements included in your order of service. If there are any more announcements please come to the front and use the microphone.

Opening Words

Deidra: Welcome to this common, sacred space.
Common, because we are all welcome.
Sacred, because here we transform the ordinary
and attend to the profound.
We carry with us our regrets, doubts, fears, stories, laughter;
may they inspire our worship.
Above all, may we each meet what we need most to find,
On this day, in this common, sacred space.

Chalice Lighting
Deidra: Amelia, will you come and light the chalice for us?

Dean helps Amelia light the chalice

Deidra: We light the flame of knowledge;
May understanding be with us.
We light the flame of love;
May caring be among us.
We light the flame of holiness;
May the unifying spirit be within us.

Hymn
Deidra: Please join us as we sing hymn #94, "What is this life". That's hymn #94. Please stand as you are willing and able.

Candles of Concern & Celebration
Dean: The lighting of candles of celebration and concern is a cherished tradition in many UU congregations. It allows us to understand each other's worlds a little better, enabling us to share the joys and offer comfort to those with concerns. It helps us to be a true community. I invite you now to light candles of concern or celebration. If you prefer, you are welcome to light a candle in silence.

Deidra & Amelia hold the candles for everyone

When everyone is finished Deidra & Amelia light the last candle.

Dean: We light this candle for all those joys and concerns that remain unspoken.

Affirmation
Dean: Please read the affirmation that is in your order of service:

Dean, Deidra & Congregation:
May the light of these candles
Inspire us to heal and not to harm
to help and not to hinder
to serve the spirit of truth
In loving affection and trusting hope.

Story for all ages
Dean: I invite the children and the young at heart to come and sit at the front. Kath, our Children's Religious Education Director, will read us a story.

Kath comes up to front; reads a story.

Dean: Let's sing the children down with 'This Little Light of Mine'

Offertory
Dean: Our offerings of money and volunteer service are the essential elements that sustain our congregation and this place of worship. Some donate on Sundays, others on a monthly basis. We invite you to add your contributions now.

Offertory music - Harmonia sings while the greeter passes the plates around.

When Harmonia is done their song, the congregation sings:
From you I receive, to you I give
Together we share, and from this we live.

Deidra collects plates from greeter.

Hymn
Dean: Please join us as we sing hymn #128, 'For All That Is Our Life'. That's hymn #128. Please stand as you are willing and able.

Sermon

Deidra: We've all heard of fast food. It's become a household phrase. But what about slow food? Maybe a better question is "Why slow food?"

Slow food takes a step back from today's fast food pace and celebrates the benefits of making good food a part of everyday life. One way that I have heard slow food defined is if something is allowed to ripen before it's harvested, prepared by hand using time-honoured methods, and enjoyed among friends, it's slow food.

Dean: The slow food movement started in Italy originally to help farmers and food artisans preserve a traditional way of life, rather than move to the cities for work, as many were doing. The slow food movement gained international attention when, in 1986, McDonald's announced plans to open an outlet (I refuse to call it a restaurant) in Rome. The slow food movement is the anti-thesis of everything McDonald's is and they saw the opening of the McDonald's as a warning, and acted accordingly. The slow food movement exploded and became a world wide phenomenon.

Now to the question of "Why is slow food important?" It's a valid question. What's wrong with having toaster waffles for breakfast, a Big Mac for lunch and a frozen pizza for dinner? We certainly can't claim to not be guilty of visiting the Golden Arches or ordering a pizza to eat while sitting in front of the TV. And if you snooped through our cupboards you would find boxes of macaroni and cheese and canned soup. And really, that's OK, as long as meals like that are the exception and not the norm.

We celebrate diversity at Westwood, we're open to all races, genders, sexual orientations, incomes and abilities, but to step into the culinary kingdom, we should not only celebrate diversity, but help to preserve it. Slow food does just that. Think about the McDonald's slogan "One World, One Taste"-Slow food is the opposite of that.

Deidra: To paraphrase one of our principles "we are all interconnected" when we practice slow food; we buy from local producers, local artisans. By supporting these local producers, we support their way of life, helping to ensure others, as well as future generations can enjoy their produce, cheese, bread, etc. I like that I am teaching Amelia about where our food comes from, that she sees the people that make the bread, grow the vegetables and pick the fruit that we eat. I think Community Shared Agriculture, in which families buy shares in a farm and help to grow and harvest the produce that they get to bring home, is a wonderful lesson, teaching us how sacred food is, how much work goes into the production of it, how the earth provides all the nutrition we need.

Dean: I love cooking with my wife, I love going to the Old Strathcona Farmers' Market every Saturday. The trip through the market is itself a slow food exercise. We buy our organic vegetables from a variety of vendors, sometimes Vriends, sometimes the Helbigs. We buy non-sprayed fruit from the vendors in the south-west corner. I don't know their names, but if you are market regular you know who we are referring to. As a treat we buy handmade squares and cookies, and sometimes we visit the wonderful woman at the Happy Camel to buy Red Lentil Dip and Baba Ganouj. We always buy our cheese at the market; originally we always bought it through Crystal Springs Farm, but now we buy it through the Cheese Factory. The older couple who were the owners and operators of Crystal Springs have retired, and haven't yet found anyone to take over their operation. This makes me sad, because we are losing one of our local food artisans. It would be much easier and quicker to go to a big box supermarket to buy all of our groceries, but that would mean giving us the diversity of the Farmers' Market.

When we practice slow food, we take these products and we take the time to prepare them and enjoy them as a family or with friends. Slow food puts a very strong emphasis not just on the product, but an emphasis on enjoying the product, and enjoying the time and effort it takes to prepare the product. Our daughter, Amelia, at 3, is now taking a strong interest in helping out in the kitchen, and loves to knead bread dough and roll out homemade pita bread. I hope one day she can teach her children how to make pita bread.

Deidra: I love getting together with friends for a feast, even if there is nothing to celebrate but the fact that we have a full table and friends to share it with. I love cooking with Dean and I love cooking with friends. Often the event is not the meal, but the preparation of the meal. Friends of ours from Toronto spend their winter holidays in Alberta. When they are here we have our annual solstice feast. We often spend the entire day preparing for the meal, going to the Farmers' Market in the morning for the ingredients, spending the afternoon leisurely preparing the food and setting the table, and then sitting down at the table with our children and other friends that we have invited to celebrate everything that the earth has to offer us, even in the middle of winter. This day is one of my favorite days of the year. And it truly incorporates all aspects of slow food.

A lot of you probably celebrate slow food without even realizing it. We do it at Westwood all the time. When sometime brings, unasked, muffins or cookies to share with everyone during the coffee hour after Sunday service; when we have our spinning the web dinners; when committees get together for a potluck supper before their monthly meeting; when there is a congregational meeting, or a workshop, and Miguel comes to cook us a feast. This is slow food.

Dean: Do you want to support local, independent producers and help preserve a way of life? Do you want to spend time with friends and family enjoying good food? Or would you rather see chain restaurants on every corner and big box supermarkets as your only food choices?

Eat fresh, eat locally, and most of all, enjoy the eating experience. That's slow food.

Meditation Deidra: We will now have a meditation. I am going to read a piece called 'Table Sharing'. After I am finished we will have 2 minutes of silent meditation and then a Rebecca will play a short piece of music to slowly bring us out of the meditation. Use the meditation time to ponder the words that I am going to read.

Table sharing in itself is a special language.
A table with candle light and a quiet dinner for two says, "Here we share with love and are at home together."
A table with a birthday cake says, "Life is precious. We celebrate this day the brith and growth of a person in whose presence we rejoice."
A table with places set for friends or new neighbors says, "Welcome! We would share with you the bread and wine of ourselves."

The Communion Table says, "Now you are one. There are no strangers here."
The Eucharistic Table says, "We are grateful to Mother Earth and to those who have sown, harvested, transported and prepared this food. We are grateful to the source of all sustenance."
The table which has become an alter through caring and sharing, where bread is blessed and broken and the cup is passed, says, "Partake thoughtfully and with great respect."

2 minutes of silence, then Rebecca plays for about 2 minutes

Hymn
Deidra: Please join us as we sing hymn #407, 'We're Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table'. That's hymn #407. Please stand as you are willing and able.

Extinguishing of Candles
And now we take our leave.
Before we gather here again --
may each of us bring happiness into another's life;
may we each be surprised by the gifts that surround us;
may each of us be enlivened by constant curiosity --
And may we remain together in spirit
til the hour we meet again.

Closing words
Dean: And to close, here are a couple of words from great people that I admire:
Julia Child once said, "Non-cooks think it's silly to invest two hours' work in two minutes enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet."
And Charles Maurice de Talleyrand says, "Show me another pleasure like dinner which comes every day and lasts an hour."

Thank you for joining us this morning. After the postlude join us for fair trade coffee and tea, home baked goodies (made with help from Amelia), and great conversation.

Postlude - Harmonia

added May 17, 2007.