Sunday, March 31, 2013
Today's Flower Ceremony
“A Mixed Bouquet”
by Rev. Meghan Conrad
May 6, 2007
UUCM
You may already know that the Flower Communion is one of the
most popular rituals celebrated by Unitarian Universalist congregations across
the continent. Yet, very few of us know much about the remarkable man who
created our annual “Flower Communion”.
Norbert Capek was his name. He was a Czechoslovakian
ex-Catholic, ex-Baptist liberal religious heretic – who finally found his home
as a Unitarian minister. He is our most recent true Unitarian martyr. He dreamt
of a new religion, unheard of in his country, founded not on dogmas, but as he
put it “on the divine spark, which is in each person’s, own soul”.
His life story, and depth of spirit captured my heart. The
message of hope and freedom and joy he brought to his people in a time of
orthodoxy, intolerance and oppression is one we need to hear now. Especially in
this climate of increasing religious fundamentalism and political fascism.
Norbert Capek’s parents were not well educated and didn’t have much money. He was sent to live with hisuncle and aunt in Vienna when he was fourteen and worked as a tailor until he was eighteen. When his relatives discovered that he no longer practiced Catholicism and even worse, had been secretly baptized, they kicked him out. But instead of going back to his parents, Capek, with a fire in his soul, became a missionary for the Baptists.
At the time the state-religion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
was Catholicism. Anyone practicing another form of religion was subject to
harassment and often violent attacks - while the police looked the other way. “Baptist”
was not even recognized as a religion to check off on official forms. Even
within the Baptist tradition Capek’s ideas became progressively more liberal –
so much so that the Catholics and Evangelicals were hinting at heresy. The Austrian
censors increasingly refused to print his articles. It came to a head when even
his Baptist colleagues and members of his congregation turned on him and began
to question his orthodoxy. In 1914 a friendly police commissioner tipped Capek off
that he was on the Austrian blacklist and suggested he get out before he was
taken to jail.
At this point he was at the end of his rope – he and his
family were often sick due to lack of food. So he and his wife and nine
children left Bohemia, grateful for an offer to serve a small Baptist church in
New York City. But Capek did not escape trouble with the Baptist church by
coming to the United States. Later that year he was forced to stand heresy
trial - though he was exonerated. Five years later he left the Baptist ministry.
He concluded in his diary, "I cannot be a Baptist any more, even in
compromise. The fire of new desires, new worlds, is burning inside me."
More than once Capek was told that his extreme liberal views were really Unitarian.
After leaving the Baptist church, to earn a living for his family,
he became a journalist. As the editor of various journals, Capek continued to
be quite outspoken in his anti-clericalism. In order to find a new spiritual
home, Norbert and his wife Maja sent their kids out, like scouts, to explore
the different churches in the neighborhood. The kids would come home and tell
their parents what they learned in Sunday school. When Maja and Norbert finally
liked what they heard they decided to check out the church for themselves. That
church they then ended up joining was the Unitarian Church in Orange, New
Jersey in 1921.
The minister of the church introduced them to the American
Unitarian Association president, Samuel A.Eliot. Capek convinced Elliot that
Eastern Europe was hungry for the good news of liberal religion. With financial
backing from the AUA the family went backto Prague and started a Unitarian congregation.
In just twenty years the Prague church became the largest Unitarian congregation
in the world - with 3200 members.
Like our congregations today the people in that congregation
were spiritual refugees from many different backgrounds. Theologically they
formed a very liberal humanist (yet theistic) congregation who tended to
distrust religious language and didn’t like ritual. (sound familiar?) Capek
believed it was important to have some kind of a ritual to celebrate this
diverse community. He created what he called the Flower Festival and held the
first Flower Festival Service in 1923.
Capek felt that orthodox Christianity’s doctrine of human
depravity was itself sinful. In a sermon
he called the human soul “the spark of God”. He writes:
“There is in every
soul a thirst for something that is higher and greater than all science and all
art…. We call it by different names but in essence it is nothing other than a
hidden cry for…harmony with the Infinite. God is…the soul of our soul and the
life of our life…Closer than breath and one’s heartbeat is [God]… Every person
is an embodiment of God and in every one of us God struggles for a higher
expression…. We light the spark of God within ourselves when we serve others
and bring a bit of glow and joy to other people’s lives.”
"Religion," he said, "can never die because
human beings cannot but be religious regardless of the form of [their]
religion."
Norbert’s wife Maja was always a partner the work and in
1926 was herself formally ordained a Unitarian minister. In 1939 she came to
the United States to lecture and raise money for the fledgling Czech Unitarian
network. It was then that she introduced the flower communion here, at the
First Unitarian parish in Cambridge. When
the war broke out she couldn’t go back to Europe, so she stayed in the United
States and served as a minister in several congregations in New England. I
imagine it must have been heart-wrenching for her to have been cut off from any
news about what was happening at home.
Frederick May Eliot invited Norbert Capek, along with his
daughter and son-in-law to come to the United States as a ministers-at-large
for the AUA. They declined, choosing instead to minister to their people in those
terrible times.
Back home, the Germans were moving in. The Gestapo was now
closely monitoring Capek - sitting in on his church services and listening to
his sermons. At his seventieth birthday party Capek’s congregation gave him a
radio. It was a capital crime to listen to foreign broadcasts, but Capek did
anyway. Every evening in secret, he would tune into the BBC for news of the
war. He shared what he learned with his congregation in the subtle form of
parables and stories – things the Czechs would understand but the two Gestapo
officers wouldn’t catch on to. In this way he was able to continue to preach
against oppression and minister to his congregation.
He did eventually get caught. He and his daughter were both
arrested for listening and spreading news of the war. Capek was sent to Dresden
for 11 months and then, just when his term was almost up, Hitler cracked down -
and orders came to send him to “Dakaow” his papers were stamped “return
unwanted”. UU minister Richard Gilbert writes:
“While [Capek] was in “Dakaow” his courage in the face of
torture and starvation was a source of inspiration to his fellow prisoners. While
in the camp he led (his companions) in worship, using the Flower Communion
ceremony as the ritual. Each prisoner brought what flowers they could find in
the camp to a service. At the end they took with them a different flower than the one they brought, to
symbolize their sense of community. After
the war, survivors testified that the Unitarian minister could not have been
sent to a place where he was more needed." His inspirational presence
encouraged the others in the camp to endure. One survivor wrote: “If it hadn’t
been for Capek I probably wouldn’t be alive now, nor would others who
survived.”
Norbert Capek was executed on October 12, 1942. Before he
was put to death, he wrote this prayer, reflecting on his own life and the
state of his spirit: It is worthwhile to live and fight courageously for sacred
ideals.
"Oh 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 welcome in the chorus of heroes. He who
overcame the fetters giving wing to the mind is entering into the golden age of
the victorious."
Norbert Capek created the Flower Festival ritual to bring
the people of his congregation together. His church, like most of ours, had
members from many different religious backgrounds. He wanted a spiritual celebration
that would not exclude anyone, but would
celebrate the whole community. Unitarian Universalism is a garden, wild
with theological diversity. Members come in many varieties: Humanists, Pagans,
Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Theists and Atheists and many combinations in
between.
We are most definitely not a monoculture garden – that is, a
garden made with only one kind of plant, stripped of its wild spirit. Most
gardeners will tell you that a “vast field of identical plants will always be
particularly vulnerable to insects, weeds, and disease” – that is, susceptible
to extinction. (Not to mention boring.)
It is in times of extreme religious conservatism that our liberal
religious community becomes all the more precious. As the German occupation
increased in Prague, Capek expected the numbers in church to dwindle. Instead
he found the attendance swelling. Many people walked sometimes for hours to the
Unitarian church on Sundays.
Indeed, the spiritual community becomes life-giving. So many
people I’ve talked with, especially when I was in the Midwest, testify to feelings
of relief and gratitude for having found Unitarian Universalism. In a sea of religious
fundamentalism - it is in this denomination that they are free to express and
discuss and grapple with their theological ideas without fear of judgment. In
that sense this little chapel with its tape on the walls and plastic garden
chairs does truly become a sanctuary.
There are some times when words cannot adequately capture
meaning. That becomes the time for symbolism, for ritual. I don’t think it is a
coincidence that the Flower Communion is one of the very few rituals that most
Unitarian Universalist congregations participate in annually. It is so simple –
and yet expresses so much about who we are as a community. A spray of many colors,
textures, shapes and sizes mixed up together yet held collectively by a common container.
“Rituals of communion in all their many forms share a power and
blessedness that transcends words yet reveal the truth of who we are. And
that’s what we’re about today, noticing within a small ritual act something at the
very core of our being, of what we are and what we can be.” We put our little
flower in a vase, it gets mixed it up with flowers already placed there for
those who have forgotten or missed the announcement, or are visiting us today -
because that’s as it should be too - we always welcome new friends to join us.
Then we pick a different flower chosen carefully and brought by someone else
and we take it home. It is so simple…
But that’s the way it is, simple and complex at the same time.
We are all mixed up together. With all of our diversity of thought and belief
we find ourselves drawn together by the Unnamable Mystery. I have led the
flower communion several times now. I love the celebration of the beauty
inherent in diversity. Each time I participate I find myself at first simply marveling
at the splendor of the bouquet and how the ritual binds us one to another.
As it goes, once I begin to ponder the fact that UU congregations
all across the continent and even throughout the world also celebrate the
flower communion and I realize how amazing it is to be connected in this way to
Unitarian Universalists worldwide. And then I consider that the flower
communion has been celebrated by hundreds of congregations for over seventy
years. And that this simple ritual was life sustaining for people in a Nazi
concentration camp.
When we take a moment to contemplate all the people and all
the history involved, this ritual becomes so much more than a flower exchange.
It becomes a living vessel connecting us all through time.
So may it be!
That's "Sweet William", my UU buddy!
Saturday, March 30, 2013
What a Day!
AND
I'm pooped!
Enjoy the Smilebox Fun!
(Oh...this family photo was taken by Allison.)
(Oh...this family photo was taken by Allison.)
Friday, March 29, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Yum!
Sweet potatoes, onion, red bell pepper, black beans,
canned tomatoes, cumin, chili powder, salt & pepper.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Nienie's Story
TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 2013
A woman's story
{This is Jennifer Connelly posing for Shiseido ad. Jennifer is beautiful}
I was thumbing through my magazine a few weeks ago and came across this ad.
Its reads:
"A woman's skin tells her story. Where she's been.
How she's lived. What she's accomplished."
With Future Solution LX, your story will tell a radiant,
luminous and truly timeless one."
It really made me think.
Big news: no amount of that special cream could do
anything to help "tell" my story.
My face says it all.
I don't think any creams, medicines, or surgery's can replace the real
light or story in any of us- no matter what.
Don't get me wrong, I am SO thankful for the skilled plastic surgeons
who helped reshape and transform my face. But no matter how amazing they are,
there is only so much they can do and only so
much they can fix to make someone beautiful.
Real beauty- true beauty, comes from inside us.
Our hearts, our spirits, our light.
{March 2008}
{March 2009}
{March 2010}
{March 2011}
{March 2012}
{March 2013}
My skin really does tell my story, where I've been, how I've lived,
and what I have accomplished (or been through) and I am still alive
to tell the tale.
Amen.
Monday, March 25, 2013
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Sunday, March 24, 2013
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Celebrating Nowruz
Nowruz is the Persian New Year.
I celebrated with the Rasty family at the gathering sponsored
by the TTU Persian Student Association.
Big Sarah, Cameron & Laurie
Mrs. Rasty dancing with grandson Cameron
Traditional Dancers with Jahan
Haft Sīn
Brothers Sam & Jahan
Haft Sin or the 7 'S's is a major traditional table setting of Nowruz,
the traditional Iranian spring celebration.
The haft sin table includes 7 items starting with the letter 'S' or
Sin in the Persian alphabet. The Haft Sin items are:
sabzeh - wheat, barley or lentil sprouts growing in a dish,
symbolizing rebirth
samanu - a sweet pudding made from wheat germ,
symbolizing affluence
senjed - the dried fruit of the oleaster tree,
symbolizing love
sir - garlic, symbolizing medicine
sib - apples, symbolizing beauty and health
somaq - sumac berries, symbolizing the color of sunrise
serkeh - vinegar, symbolizing age and patience
the traditional Iranian spring celebration.
The haft sin table includes 7 items starting with the letter 'S' or
Sin in the Persian alphabet. The Haft Sin items are:
sabzeh - wheat, barley or lentil sprouts growing in a dish,
symbolizing rebirth
samanu - a sweet pudding made from wheat germ,
symbolizing affluence
senjed - the dried fruit of the oleaster tree,
symbolizing love
sir - garlic, symbolizing medicine
sib - apples, symbolizing beauty and health
somaq - sumac berries, symbolizing the color of sunrise
Friday, March 22, 2013
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