Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire

 

 

June 10, 2007

 

 

“Flowers of Hope”

 

 

Rev. Kathy Duhon

 

 

Grace Note:  The Capeks’ Flower Communion

 

 

The Capeks’ Flower Communion

 

 

                 Two 20th century Czech Unitarians, Norbert and Maja Capek, invented and developed the flower communion in Prague, and then Maja brought it over to near here, the suburbs of Boston, a ceremony which Unitarian Universalists practice today all over the world.  Norbert was the minister of the largest Unitarian congregation in the world in Prague, in the years before World War II.  It was a diverse congregation, with former Protestants, Catholics and Jews together in one place.  The flower communion was designed to be meaningful for that diverse group. 

                 Norbert was a man of action and integrity and Maja, his wife, was his energetic and creative assistant in the ministry.  In 1940 she came over to the U.S. to lecture and raise money for the Prague church, but was unable to return because of the war.  On Norbert’s last Sunday in the Prague pulpit in March of 1941, he criticized Hitler, despite knowing that there were Nazis in the pews.  He was taken to prison and later to Dachau, where he was killed in 1942.

                 Maja brought the flower communion to the United States, and introduced it at the First Parish Church in Cambridge.  Later, she said that her husband’s motivation in creating the flower communion “was to stress and bring about brotherhood.  As a symbol he used flowers because in the name of a flower… no wars were waged, as was the case with the cross or the chalice.”  Maja continued, “The flowers are used as symbols of the gifts which each person can make to the church and through the church to other persons.  The exchange of flowers means that I shall walk, without reservation, with anyone, regardless of social status or former religious affiliation, as long as he is ready and willing to go along in search of truth and service.”  Maja Capek carried on the ministry in this country, and the flower communion spread.

                 The flower communion symbolizes the beauty of each individual, the strength and power of the bouquet of us all together, and the gifts of peace and hope we give to each other.

Flowers of Hope

 

            Flowers are harbingers of hope.  The original flower communion was designed with the hope that we could know unity in diversity, that we could bring peace to a world where divisiveness is common, and that we could give to each other and receive from each other gifts of the heart, whether flowers or freedom or our love.

            Flowers accompany all of our wondrous life events – births, accomplishments, rites of passage, weddings, birthdays, illnesses, anniversaries, celebrations, graduations, and funerals – and always they speak to us special messages:  “Hope is possible.”  “Love is here.”  “Suffering is accompanied.”  “Beauty and joy are shared.”  “You are not alone.”  Flowers remind us that we will continue to blossom and unfold, with hope and with love, in ways that are as varied and lovely and unique and amazing as flowers.

            Ah, but did you stop at the mention of funerals or illnesses, and wonder, “Where is hope in the hard times?”  The most profuse flower displays in our culture are the ones that overflow at funerals, memorial services, and the sites of awful deaths, and are probably seconded in amount by the bouquets which crowd the windows in hospital rooms.  How can flowers symbolize hope in a time of death or pain?  Flowers bring the hope of ongoing life for the grieving and the suffering, who are embraced by the love of their family and friends, by folks who come bearing flowers, reminders of the light of life.  Even the dying themselves have hope of a good end, and perhaps of another beginning, whatever that may mean.

            Someone once told me that at a hospice program they are associated with, one of the initial questions they ask the dying is, “What do you hope for?”  If you are in hospice, you are not hoping for a cure.  What do the dying hope for?  And since we are all dying, sooner or later, what do we hope for, deep down?  If you knew you were quite likely to die in 6 months, which is what hospice patients know, what would you hope for? . . . . Peace of mind and heart and soul, surely.  And, people to journey with us who care about us and whom we care about.  Perhaps we hope for a legacy to be left behind, some sense that our lives mattered while we lived them. 

            Langston Hughes wrote a beautiful poem about accompaniment, and hope in the midst, called “Mother to Son”.  I read it at the funeral of a lovely young woman who died of cancer at age 18.  She loved the poem, and her Mom wanted it read.  It goes like this:

                        Well, son, I’ll tell you:

                        Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

                        It’s had tacks in it,

                        And splinters,

                        And boards torn up,

                        And places with no carpet on the floor –

                        Bare.

                        But all the time

                        I’se been a-climbin’ on,

                        And reachin’ landin’s,

                        And turnin’ corners,

                        And sometimes goin’ in the dark

                        Where there ain’t been no light.

                        So boy, don’t you turn back.

                        Don’t you set down on the steps

                        ‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

                        Don’t you fall now –

                        For I’se still goin’, honey,

                        I’se still climbin’,

                        And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

            You can hear the mother calling for her son to keep up hope, no matter how hard, for she has kept going, despite it all.  Mothers know that life is hard, and they also know that flowers of hope will still bloom.  Not just mothers know this, but those of us who know that hope is as present and persistent as flowers in the spring, have to keep helping others to find this special wisdom.  Maya Angelou said that hope comes in the worst of times, “like a seed, like a bulb splitting” to reveal the tendril which becomes the lily.

            Hope springs eternal and so do the flowers, which each spring, return to remind us that life is good.  Whether the dependable ones that come back every year, maybe for a hundred springs, like the peonies, without any attention from us, or else the fragile ones, changing to seed almost before our eyes, fading with the twilight – the flowers return; our hope returns.  Some flowers are wild and free, the first tangible gift that most children ever give – behold, a toddler’s fistful of dandelions, the sign of hope that they will return the love given them.  Some flowers are from the cultivated garden, the product of hard work, sweat, and artistry, the reminder of the blessing of hope which is a process, a struggle, and requires all of our creativity.  Whether wild or planted, the flowers of hope arrive in profuse variety and extraordinary beauty, and we are amazed again. 

            With William Blake, we realize,

                        To see the world in a grain of sand,

                                    And a heaven in a wild flower;

                        Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

                                    And eternity in an hour.

 

            Flowers are a little bit of heaven here in our midst.  They are not the symbol of war nor division; they are not the bastion of despair nor suffering.  Flowers are a reminder of the eternal possibility of hope. 

            The Unitarian Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “The Amen! of Nature is always a flower.”  Amen.