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Today
we will hold our annual Flower Communion
at the Tree of Life Unitarian
Universalist Congregation in McHenry. It is a Unitarian Universalist tradition, one of the few original ones that we didn’t inherit from our more conventional Christian roots or simply appropriate from somebody else’s.
The Rev. Norbert Capek of the Prague Unitarian Church invented the
Flower Service for his diverse congregation of former Catholics and
Protestants, Jews, and humanist agnostics. After his death at the
hands of the Nazis his widow Maja introduced it to American Unitarians.
It is now, other than the lighting of the Chalice, the most widely
observed Unitarian Universalist ritual.
The
Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA)
explains it thusly:
The Flower Ceremony, sometimes referred to
as Flower Communion or Flower Festival,
is an annual ritual that celebrates
beauty, human uniqueness, diversity, and community.
Originally created
in 1923 by Unitarian minister Norbert
Capek of Prague, Czechoslovakia,
the Flower Ceremony was introduced to the United
States by Rev. Maya Capek, Norbert’s
widow. [Capek died in a Nazi concentration camp.]
In this
ceremony, everyone in the congregation brings a flower. Each person places a
flower on the altar or in a shared vase. The congregation and minister bless the flowers, and they’re
redistributed. Each person brings home a different flower than the one they brought.
I
have described it in the past more simply as the symbolic giving and receiving of
spiritual gifts in community, each flower representing the uniqueness of each
individual.
I have
been participating in this tradition now for about 30 years with this
congregation through four name changes,
five ministers called, interim, or on contract three intern
ministers, in two buildings. Between ministers we just did it all by
ourselves relying on muscle memory
and hymn book readings to get it right. No matter, it is always a highlight of the church year.
Tree of Life youth gathering flowers from the baskets for distribution.
Three
years ago as I watched it unfold again, I began to scratch a note in my Order of Service.
Flower Communion
Tree
of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation
April
17, 2016
Those Unitarians
have a thing,
a ritual if you will—
yeah, I know, hard to
imagine.
They call it
Flower Communion
or if that gives the congregation
hives
for sounding too damned
you know, churchy and Christian,
the Flower Service—
like FTD
delivery
But don’t worry,
The details are
fuzzy
and it will be
different everywhere
you know—
no Pope or Book of Common Prayer
to set the rules just so.
They can’t even
agree on a date
though most of ‘em do it in the
Spring
sometime around when,
if you’re lucky,
it has been warm long enough
to pluck some blossom
from your yard—
If you have one.
Where I have
parked my ass
on Sunday mornings
these last several years,
Spring cheated us
unless you planted daffodils
or are unashamed
by a handful of dandelions.
The supermarket
flower wagons
got a work out this year
I’m guessing
by the bright look
of the vases and baskets
on the table by the Chalice.
In some churches
they try
For proper liturgy—
prayers
or meditations
if they are
queasy,
songs and
blessings.
Folks file
orderly
to lay their blooms in baskets
or fill lovely vases
and then some tidy system
is employed to deal they out again.
But at our place
we defy order
and occasional attempts
to impose it—
the posies are supposed
to go in the baskets
before the bell is rung.
But a lot of us
are late
or left the bouquets in the car,
wander in
and add their
nosegays
to haphazard
piles
after things a
have started.
The timid and
confused
have to be called up
for last moment deposits.
Then the
Children and the Youth
are beckoned from their seats
toddlers and
teens
grab fistfuls and
plunge randomly
among the seats
offering flowers
and bouncing off
each other
like bumper cars
until everyone
has a flower—
or three or four
and the kids
can’t find
anymore takers.
Ah, the happy
chaos.
—Patrick
Murfin
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The happy chaos.
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