Flower Communion - June 2011.
INTRODUCTION TO FLOWER COMMUNION:
In the city of Prague, in the land of Czechoslovakia, in the year nineteen hundred and twenty three, there was a church. But the building did not look much like a church. It had no bells, no spires, no stained glass windows. It had no organ to make beautiful music. It didn’t even have a piano. It had no carvings of wood or statues of stone. It had no candles or chalices. It had no flowers.
The church did have some things. It had four walls and a ceiling and a floor. It had a door and a few windows. It had some wooden chairs. But that was all, plain and simple.
Except… the church also had people who came to it every Sunday. It had a minister, and his name was Norbert Capek (pronounced CHAH-peck). He had been the minister at the plain and simple church for two years. Every Sunday, Minister Capek went to church, and he spoke to the people while they listened, sitting quietly and still in those hard wooden chairs. When he was done speaking, the people talked a little bit among themselves, and then they went home. And that was all—no music, no candles, no food. Not even coffee or doughnuts.
Springtime came to the city of Prague and Norbert Capek went out for a stroll. The rains had come, the birds were singing, and flowers were blooming all over the land. The world was beautiful.
Then an idea came to him, simple and clear, plain as day. The next Sunday, he asked all the people in the church to bring a flower or a budding branch, or even a twig. Each person was to bring one.
“What kind?” they asked. “What color? What size?”
“You choose,” he said. “Each of you choose what you like.”
And so, on the next Sunday, which was the first day of summer, the people came with flowers of all different colors and sizes and kinds. There were yellow daisies and red roses. There were white lilies and blue asters, dark-eyed pansies and light green leaves. Pink and purple, orange and gold—there were all those colors and more. Flowers filled all the vases, and the church wasn’t so plain and simple anymore.
Minister Capek spoke to the people while they listened, sitting quiet and still in those hard wooden chairs. “These flowers are like ourselves,” he said. “Different colors and different shapes, and different sizes, each needing different kinds of care—but each beautiful, each important and special, in its own way.”
When he was done speaking, the people talked a little bit among themselves, and then they each chose a different flower from the vases before they went home. And that was all—and it was beautiful, plain and simple as the day.
And so Dr. Capek turned to the native beauty of their countryside for elements of a communion which would be genuine to them. This simple service was the result. It was such a success that it was repeated every year.
Dr. Capek was arrested by the Nazis and killed in Dachau concentration on October 1942. He was charged with listening to radio broadcasts and “high treason.†As is the case so many times in human affairs his treason was reaching out to his fellow citizens and helping them be their highest selves as the world was closing in on them.
The following paragraph was written by Sy Safransky, editor of The Sun magazine. It appeared in this year’s March issue.
“I don’t know what’s harder to fathom: the atrocities committed by the Nazis, or a prayer found written on a piece of wrapping paper in Ravensbruck, the largest concentration camp for women in Nazi Germany. The prayer asks God to remember ‘not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted on us. Remember the fruits borne of this suffering: the loyalty, the humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of this. And when they come to judgment, let all the fruits which we have been borne be their forgiveness.'”
Like most Unitarians Dr. Capek’s spiritual journey took him through various religious traditions. As WWI ignited and his religious views became increasingly liberal, the threat of arrest by the authorities made it necessary for him to move to the United States.
Before Dr. Capek and his new wife Maja returned to Czechoslovakia in 1921, they were introduced to Unitarianism by two of his children. Upon their return to a now independent Czechoslovakia, Capek established The Prague Congregation of Religious Fellowship. Nine years later this congregation would get a new name: The Unitarian Church of Czechoslovakia and official recognition by the Czech government.
From the pulpit Dr. Capek encouraged his fellow citizens to have courage in the face of the growing Nazi madness: “We are today†he said in 1938, “the only nation in the whole of Europe that is ready to resist oppression…. Confronting our descendants, we will never have to feel ashamed of the fact that as a small nation in the middle of Europe we were ready to defend human dignity, freedom and justice from violence, lies and lawlessness.†And as certain as death, his speaking out against blind and murderous power cost him his life.
On March 28, 1941 Norbert Capek, the Minister of the Unitarian Church of Czechoslovakia and his youngest daughter Zora were arrested by the Nazi Gestapo. They were charged and convicted of listening to foreign radio broadcasts. This was not a made up charge, it was a crime in his country at that time to try to find out the truth.
Capek was sentenced to a year in prison, and eleven months that he had already been confined while waiting for trail were to be counted in the sentence. Unfortunately, at that time the German official in charge of the occupied Czechoslovakia was killed, and Dr. Capek became a victim of German retaliation for his murder.
Capek spent a year is Dresden Prison before being sent to Dachau where he met his death.
Flower Processional:
By exchanging flowers in this service, we will follow the example of Norbert Capek. He believed that each of us is different and unique and when we gather together to worship or learn, we create a bouquet of beautiful people.
Today, we have placed our flowers in a common vase, remembering we are all individuals but we are also people of a common faith.
The communion we are about to celebrate has taken place all over the world in Unitarian Universalist churches since 1923. Norbert Capek started this ritual to celebrate the beauty of our faith and the people in it. In each flower, Capek saw hope for humanity, even though he would later die because of his beliefs. Let us remember him and his principles and dreams.
Let’s share in flower communion. Each of you will come up in silence and choose a flower brought by another. Hold it with care. It is a gift someone else has brought for you with love.
(Have participants silently line up to go up to the altar to find a flower.)
(pause for reflection)
READING
The following are three verses from “For the Flowers Have the Gift of Language,†which I obtained from a service by Reginald Zottoli.
For the Flowers Have the Gift of Language
The flowers have the gift of language.
In the dark depths of a death camp
They speak the light of life.
In the face of cruelty
They speak of courage.
In the experience of ugliness
They bespeak the persistence of beauty….
For the flowers have the gift of language:
They transport the human voice on winds of beauty;
They lift the melody of song to our ears;
They paint through the eye and hand of the artist;
Their fragrance binds us to sweet-smelling earth.
May the blessing of the flowers be upon you.
May their beauty beckon to you each morning.
And their loveliness lure you each day,
And their tenderness caress you each night.
May their delicate petals make you gentle,
And their eyes make you aware.
May their stems make you sturdy,
And their reaching make you care.
READING
composed in Dresden Prison in 1941, shortly before he was transferred to Dachau concentration camp, where he died in October, 1942
It is worthwhile to live and fight courageously for sacred ideals.
O blow ye evil winds into my body’s fire my soul you’ll never unravel.
Even though disappointed a thousand times or fallen in the fight and everything would worthless seem,
I have lived amidst eternity — Be grateful, my soul — My life was worth living.
He who was pressed from all sides but remained victorious in spirit is welcomed into the choir of heroes.
He who overcame the fetters giving wings to his mind is entering into the golden age of the victorious.