Tree of Life UU Congregation Finds New Home in Ridgefield

The historic Ridgefield/Crystal Lake Presbyterian Church is welcoming Tree of Life UU Congregation to share its facilities, TOLUUC will worship in the modern addition on the right at the same time the host holds their service in the sanctuary of the old church. 

Two of the oldest congregations in McHenry County will share space and fellowship starting this Sunday, May 10 at 10 am at 8505 Church Street in Ridgefield.  The Ridgefield/Crystal Lake Presbyterian Church (RCLPC) was organized in 1839 and has occupied their classic New England-style meeting house since 1872.  The First Congregational Church of Woodstock was organized in 1866 and built a church near the Square.  A new brick building on the same site opened in 1906.  Through various name changes the congregation evolved and moved to McHenry in 2013 and became the Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation (TOLUUC).

When TOLUUC decided they needed to sell the McHenry property, the Congregation began a search for potential partners with which to share worship space.  RCLPC was clearly the best match and was eager to move forward.  The building in McHenry on Bull Valley Road will be continuing its role as a religious gathering place as Sikh group, Gurdwara Kukh Nivaran Sahib bought the building and anticipate holding their first service in August 2026. 

At the last service in the McHenry building on April 26 members made a symbolic recessional behind the Chalice, pulpit banners, and other Congregational symbols.

The Congregation will also be joining the McHenry County Jewish Congregation (MCJC) who's former synagogue was located less than a mile away in Ridgefield and who shared TOLUUC's worship space for a year.  

A banner at Ridgefield/Crystal Lake Presbyterian proclaims the new partnership.

This is not a merger or consolidation.  TOLUUC service will be held in the Fellowship Hall while the RCLPC congregation will have their worship service upstairs in their sanctuary. We plan to gather after service to enjoy a combined fellowship hour with coffee and treats.  While Tree of Life, RCLPC and MCJC will all offer their own worship services, programs, identities, and governance we are looking forward to supporting each other around projects and causes we share in common. 

Flower Communion in McHenry.

Tree of Life's first service in the new facility this Sunday will celebrate the multi-congregational shared church building with Rev. Matthew Johnson, Congregational Life Consultant from UUA MidAmerica Region.  Chaplain Dave Becker will officiate with an observance of Flower Communion, originated over 100 years ago in Czechoslovakia and cherished by UU congregations around the world, celebrating the beauty of our uniqueness and diversity, interconnectedness, life, and community.  Members and friends are invited to bring a flower or two from their yard, garden, local florist, nearby field or store to share with all in the multigenerational ceremony.  It will also commemorate Mother's Day.

After the service everyone is invited for a social hour shared by our new friends from Ridgefield/ Crystal Lake Presbyterian Church.

The service will be shared on Zoom.  Join from Zoom Workplace app - Zoom or from your bowser. 

  

Walking the Walk—An Action Calendar for McHenry County October 25 2025

Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation Chaplin Dave Becker took part in a UU led witness/protest ar the  Broadviewl CE facility last Friday which thankfully was not attacked like previous faith  events.

Look for new opportunities for action, education, community, and solidarity here every week 

Anti-ICE and Military Occupation Protests.  The massive No Kings events thankfully unfolded across the region without Federal harassment or confrontations, but ICE raids have grown and spread creating daily chaos and community clashes as the Feds continue to ignore or openly violate numerous court orders.  While the National Guard remains blocked from deployment in the streets and the Broadview receiving/detention center was forced to remove illegal fencing from the streets, access if still limited by the village and enforced by the Illinois State Police protests continue daily.  Chaplain Dave Becker and Sue McCowan took part in Unitarian Universalist led witness/protest in Broadview last Friday which thankfully was not attacked like previous faith  events.  A Federal judge has called to heel the Broader Patrol chief who was caught on cameras tossing a tear gas canister into an crowd and will require him to report personally every evening with all body cam footage of clashes with the community.  Despite this there are fears that the Feds will use Halloween trick or treating or Day of the Dead observances as "threatening" to kidnap squads.  Be aware of local alerts from the McHenry County Rapid Response team.

Indivisible McHenry County, the local lead organizers of the highly successful No Kings Day even on October 18 in McHenry will meet on on Saturday, November 1st at 1 p.m at the First United Methodist Church in McHenry, 3717 Main Street in McHenry.

Walking the Walk—An Action Calendar for McHenry County October 24 2025

      

Look for new opportunities for action, education, community, and solidarity here every week.

Anti-ICE and Military Occupation Protests.  The massive No Kings events thankfully unfolded across the region without Federal harassment or confrontations, but ICE raids have grown and spread creating daily chaos and community clashes as the Feds continue to ignore or openly violate numerous court orders.  This week’s kidnappings spread across the region and the Latinx heart of the city Little Village was especially hard hit this week.  While the National Guard remains blocked from deployment in the streets and the Broadview receiving/detention center was forced to remove illegal fencing from the streets, access if still limited by the village and enforced by the Illinois State Police protests continue daily. 

Special Flower Communion Ceremony at the Broadview Detention Center, Lexington and Beach Streets this Friday at 8 am.  Unitarian Universalist clergy and lay people have been regulars and have been gassed, targeted by non-lethal ammo, and assaulted.  This Friday they will take their turn as the lead religious faith leading the resistance.  Ministers including Tree of Life’s Chaplain Dave Becker will lead a Flower Communion service.  Please note that tear gas, pepper balls, and pepper spray have been used indiscriminately at this site. If you do decide that you want to come, consider having a buddy system. It is highly recommended that you bring googles and a good quality respirator or gas mask as well as flowers for the ceremony.  Also be prepared to document any confrontations with cell phones.

   

Unitarian Flower Communion—A Right of Spring Centennial with Murfin Verse

Today we 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 rip off from somebody else’s tradition.  It is also the 100th anniversary of the first such service held in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

These Days the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) encourages folks to call the service a Flower Ceremony in deference to the denomination’s most hard core humanists/atheists/agnostics who break out in hives at any suggestion of Christian practice.

The 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.

 

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 than the lighting of the Chalice, the most widely observed Unitarian Universalist ritual.

I have been participating in this tradition now for more than 30 years with this congregation through four name changes, six ministers called or interim, three intern ministers, and two buildings.  It is a highlight of the church year.

This is the latest Tree of Life has ever celebrated.  Most congregations have the service sometime in the Spring when flowers begin to bloom, usually in April or May.

Tree of Life youth gathering flowers from the baskets for distribution a few years ago.

In 2016 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 damned

            you know, churchy and Christian,

            the Flower Service—

like FTD delivery

 

But don’t worry,

you know 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 workout 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 them out again.

 

But at our place we defy order

            and occasional attempts

            to impose it—

                        the poseys 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

 

The happy chaos.