UUCPA Flower Communion 2018

Jack Owicki shared his thoughts on UUCPA’s May 13, 2018 Flower Communion Service:

Between the wars, Norbert Capek, brother of playwright Karel Capek of R.U.R. fame, was the minister of a large Unitarian church in Prague.

Seeking a ritual that was not based on Christian or Jewish tradition, he instituted what he called a Flower Ceremony: Each person in the congregation brought a flower to the service, and each left with a flower that somebody else had brought.

While his wife Maja was in the U.S. raising money to help refugees, the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia and arrested Capek; he later died in a concentration camp. Maja spread the flower ceremony, now called a flower communion, throughout Unitarian (now Unitarian Universalist) churches in the U.S.

My church, the UU Church of Palo Alto, held the flower communion last Sunday. I think it’s a wonderful ritual, emphasizing the strands of beauty that connect us all.