Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Flower Communion

Reflection: Blue-eyed grass
Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern

Religion tells us to do two different things about the world around us: to change it and to live in harmony with it. Some things in our surroundings need changing. They are poisonous, like cruelty, unfairness, pollution, and war. So a part of religion is to notice those and do something about them.

The other part of religion is accepting that we are a part of the rest of the world and letting it work on us as it will. Not changing it or ignoring it or wishing it was different, but living harmoniously within the limits it sets. A famous long-ago Unitarian some of you might have learned about this winter, Margaret Fuller, once said, “I accept the universe!” There was a man who clearly thought she was a little full of herself, because he replied, “By God, she’d better!” I think he was saying that the universe is just going to be the universe whether we accept it or not. And he’s right, but I think I know what Fuller meant, because I know how hard it is to accept the universe, and how few of us really do, most of the time. Personally, I put much too much energy into worrying about things I can’t change, when I could use all that energy for other things if I just accepted that the universe is going to throw some inconveniences in my path, and I flowed along with it.

It’s like choosing whether to swim upstream or downstream. If you really, really have to get to someplace upstream, then of course you should go against the current. But if it isn’t a matter of life and death, you could stop fighting the current and see where the river is going to take you.

That’s why I brought blue-eyed grass for today’s communion. Blue-eyed grass is native to northern California: it thrives here, in this climate and this soil. It grew here before there were any people living here. Blue-eyed grass is not only beautiful, but it belongs; it’s in harmony with its environment.

We have other plants in our home garden as well, guests that we welcome and give special care, like oranges and lemons that need us to water them during our long dry summers.

But most of the flowers in our garden are natives: they are in harmony with their environment just the way it is.

Blue-eyed grass likes rain in the winter — it’s in the right place! When summer comes, it thrives with our many months without rain. So I don’t have to use precious water to keep it blooming.

It likes the soil I have in my garden, as long as I add some compost from my worm bin now and then. So I don’t have to buy fertilizer to change the soil, or bring peat moss all the way from the bogs of the East Coast or Ireland, in order for it to get all the nutrients it needs.

And because it fits in so well with this ecosystem, it also plays an important role in it. It attracts lots of hummingbirds and butterflies, who are also native species and who need its nectar.

That makes me think of the way people need each other. We give to each other and receive from each other. When we are not in harmony with our environment, when we are always resisting things that inconvenience us and complaining about our small problems, we not only don’t have much energy to give to the real problems, we also don’t have much to give other people. When we accept our environment and go with the flow, we have all sorts of energy to give other people.

For countless years, blue-eyed grass and hummingbirds and butterflies have all helped each other out that way. The different species evolved together as part of one interdependent web. If my garden had no native plants, it might have nothing that the birds and butterflies here can eat. But with this flower growing in my garden, I’m helping other species stay here in northern California where they have always lived.

Last summer, when we had a special retreat to create sacred space at our church, and planted flowers on the strip along the street, we chose native plants: plants that belong here, on this little patch of the earth. We belong here too. When we accept our place in the universe, we not only thrive and spread like the grass, we also help other people thrive and bloom.

I bring this flower, blue-eyed grass, because it reminds me of the wonderful things that happen when I live in harmony with the world in which I’m planted.

 

Reflection: Lily
Alice

Camas lily
by Rev. Lynn Ungar

Consider the lilies of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the natives ground their bulbs
for flour, how the settlers' hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?

And you — what of your rushed and
useful life? Imagine setting it all down —
papers, plans, appointments, everything —
leaving only a note: “Gone
to the fields to be lovely. Be back
when I'm through with blooming.”

Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake. Of course
your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
Was not arrayed like one of these.

In this day and age, we often forget about the simple pleasures in life. The picnics in the park, the hikes, the movies, we forget to enjoy life, enjoy the moment. I remember a while back I had a lot of homework for the week. Every night I would cry because I as so stressed out. The next week I had just as much homework. Everyday after school, I would go for a walk, or do some recreational activity. I would also do this in between doing homework assignments. I finished all my homework two days early, and had time to do an extra credit project. I remembered that it’s important to take time for myself. Many people forget this, and end up being over stressed, or over busy. Remember to take a moment everyday to think about yourself. Go to a movie, talk to a friend, do something special, and have fun!

“Gone to the fields to be lovely. Be back when I’m through with blooming.”

I bring this camas lily because it reminds me to stop and enjoy life.

 

Reflection: Rose
Karen

In 1838, 14,000 members of seven Cherokee tribes were forced by the government and the U.S. Army to move out of their homelands into “Indian Territory,” which is now Oklahoma, traveling over 1, 200 miles. About 4,000 people died of hunger, cold, and disease on the trail. There is a Cherokee myth that says that the mothers of the tribes were so sad that they couldn’t help their children survive the long, hard journey. The elders and chiefs prayed for a sign to lift the mothers’ spirits and give them the ability to carry on with the journey, to be able to care for their children again. Soon, every time one of the mothers cried, a beautiful flower grew where each tear fell to the ground. These flowers were beautiful white roses. The white symbolized the mothers’ tears, and the hope for a better life. There were seven leaves on each stem; one for each of the seven Cherokee tribes, and the golden center represents the gold taken from the Cherokee homelands. The wild Cherokee Rose still prospers along the Trail of Tears, up into eastern Oklahoma, a reminder of the pain and grief the Cherokee mothers went through on their long journey.

I bring this Cherokee Rose, bringing memories of grief and thoughts of hope for something better.

 

Reflection: Lotus
Rev. Darcey Laine

Have you ever seen a lotus blossom? It’s white and pink, and has many stiff petals that come to a point at the end, curling upward like a canoe. A lotus floats on the surface of the muddy ponds where it lives surrounded by its green leaves. It grows naturally in Asia, and there it is one of the most important symbols of spiritual beauty and perfection.

It is a beautiful flower, yes, but the reason it is a symbol of the unfolding soul, is because you always see it, beautiful and clean and reflecting the sun, floating on dark muddy waters. It reminds us that beautiful things can come out of the slimiest mud, and that one of the qualities of our soul is that it has the capacity to be apart from that mud, and to blossom.

One of my favorite books growing up was Alexander and the terrible horrible No Good Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. You know the kind of day — when you wake up with gum in your hair, everyone gets a toy in their cereal box except you, and the dentist finds a cavity and things just get worse from there. The Hindu and Buddhist traditions teach that we should try to be like the lotus flower on those days, that we should not be attached to finding a toy in our cereal, and that we should not let the muddy bad feelings about a cavity stick to us, but let it slide back off into the water, while we drift on the water, radiating our own inner beauty. This is, of course, very hard to do. Even after practicing for many years, sometimes the mud still sticks.

So let’s practice for a moment: Imagine something annoying that happened to you today, or last week. Don’t pick the hardest thing at first; it’s good to start small. Now imagine that that annoying thing, and all your feelings about it are like mud covering you. Imagine that you are a flower with smooth, shiny white-and-pink petals, and that the mud slowly slides off you back into the water on which you float, and your beautiful shining self emerges, calm and serene.

I bring this Lotus, because it reminds me that it is possible to bloom even in the mud.

 

Flower Communion Prayer
by Norbert F. Capek

In the name of Providence, which implants in the seed the future of the flower and in our hearts the longing for people to live in harmony;

In the name of the highest, in whom we move and who makes the mother and father, the brother and sister, lover and longer what they are;

In the name of sages and great religious leaders, who sacrificed their lives to hasten the coming of the age of mutual respect —

Let us renew our resolution — sincerely to be real brothers and sisters regardless of any kind of bar which estranges us from each other.

In this holy resolve may we be strengthened knowing that we are God’s family; that one spirit, the spirit of love, unites us; and endeavor for a more perfect and more joyful life.

Amen