CALGARY: When you want to relax or take a much-needed vacation, do you search for the solace of a pristine lake or secluded cabin — or do you head for the city? Does your city, like nature, have a soul?

These were the questions posed by Bill Phipps, a retired reverend from Calgary who was in Victoria this weekend, speaking at the Epiphany Explorations conference, a five-day annual event hosted by First Metropolitan United Church.

His workshop, called Soul of the City, focused on whether people are willing to appreciate the city they live in and accept it as a part of nature.

Sunday evening, Chung Hyun Kyung, a professor and lay theologian of the Presbyterian Church of Korea, spoke about her year-long pilgrimage to 17 Muslim countries, during which she found out first-hand about the beliefs and attitudes of 200 Muslim women.

What she found is that there are profound misconceptions about women and Islam on the part of the Western world, namely that Muslim women are oppressed and that the Quran is the source of that oppression.

“The women’s liberation movement ... is based on the Quran and their commitment to faith,” Chung said in an interview before her talk, adding that wearing a hijab holds different meanings for different women and should not be solely viewed as a sign of inequality.