Flower Communion: How Does Your Garden Grow?

Sunday Service, 7 July 2024

Led by Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall

Musical Prelude: The Chengdu Hibiscus by Shanti Jayasinha (performed by Abby Lorimier and George Ireland)

Opening Words: ‘A Sanctuary Where We Come to Grow’ by Jack Mendelsohn (adapted)

With our presence and intention we make this gathering a sanctuary;

a space of dreams and wisdom and beauty, where we come to grow,

to be healed, to stretch mind and heart, to be challenged, renewed;

to be helped in our own continuing struggles for meaning and for love;

to help build a world with more justice and mercy in it;

to be counted among the hopers and doers.

In the face of cynicism, shadows, and brutality around us and within,

we seek to align ourselves with a community that would affirm rather than despair,

that would think and act to bring about a better world rather than simply adjust and succumb.

Here we invite the spirit of our own humanity

and the healing powers under, around, through and beyond it,

to give us the nerve and grace, the toughness and sensitivity,

to search out the truth that frees, and the life that maketh all things new.

Words of Welcome and Introduction:

These opening words by Jack Mendelsohn welcome all who have gathered this morning for our Sunday service. Welcome to those of you who have gathered in-person at Essex Church, to all who are joining us via Zoom from far and wide, and anyone watching on YouTube or listening to the podcast at a later date. For anyone who doesn’t know me, I’m Jane Blackall, and I’m minister with Kensington Unitarians. I’m glad to be back with you again after a few weeks away.

This morning’s service is our annual flower communion – a uniquely Unitarian tradition which celebrates diversity in community – and also the give and take that is required to live alongside our fellow humans – the importance of valuing our varied gifts and acknowledging our particular needs. Norbert Čapek, the Czech Unitarian minister who first devised the flower communion 101 years ago, describe this uniquely Unitarian ritual as ‘a new experiment in symbolizing our liberty and unity… in which participants confess that we accept each other as brothers and sisters without regard to class, race, or other distinction, acknowledging everybody as our friend who… wants to be good.’

I’ve given today’s service the title ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ and we’re going to extend the symbolism a bit to reflect on the garden of our lives. The premise we’ll be exploring is the notion that we are each given a metaphorical plot of land to tend in life – we find ourselves in a particular place and time, embedded within a certain community, and its network of connections – and we have an opportunity to use our particular gifts to help make the world better – more beautiful. What does it take – what might be required of us – if the garden of our lives is to flourish?

Chalice Lighting: ‘For Faith, Hope, and Love’ by Jane Blackall

Let’s light our chalice flame now, as we do each week. It’s a moment for us to gather ourselves and remember why we’re here and what we came for; to set aside any agitation we came in carrying, to focus our attention, be fully present, as we co-create this sacred space together. This simple ritual connects us in solidarity with Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists the world over, and reminds us of the proud and historic progressive religious tradition of which this gathering is part.

(light chalice)

We light this chalice as a reminder of the tradition that holds us,

and the values and aspirations we share as a community:

our commitment to the common good,

and our yearning for a better world that’s yet to be,

where all may know true freedom, justice, equality, and peace.

May this small flame be for us a sign of faith, hope, and love.

Hymn 13 (purple): ‘Bring Flowers to Our Altar’

Let’s sing together. Our first hymn is number 13 in the purple book, ‘Bring Flowers to Our Altar’. For those joining via zoom the words will be up on screen. Feel free to stand or sit as you prefer.

Bring flowers to our altar to show nature’s beauty,

the harvest of goodness in earth, sky and sea.

Bring light to our altar to guide every nation

from hatred to love and to humanity.

Bring a dove to our altar its wings ever flying

in permanent quest for the peace all may share.

Bring bread to our altar the hungry supplying

and feeding the poor who depend on our care.

Bring hope to our altar in your gentle dreaming

of all the good things that will make your heart glad.

Bring love to our altar, a bright witness beaming

to all who are burdened, or lonely or sad.

Bring work to our altar to help every nation

and celebrate all that’s already achieved.

Come yourself to our altar in true dedication

to all the ideals we in common believe.

Candles of Joy and Concern:

Each week when we gather together, we share a simple ritual of candles of joy and concern, an opportunity to light a candle and share something that is in our heart with the community. So we’ve an opportunity now, for anyone who would like to do so, to light a candle and say a few words about what it represents. We’ll go to the people in the building first, then to Zoom.

So I invite some of you here in person to come and light a candle and then if you wish to tell us briefly who or what you light your candle for. Please do get up close to the microphone as that will help everyone hear (including the people at home). You can take the microphone out of the stand if it’s not at a good height and have it microphone pointing right at your mouth. And if you can’t get to the microphone give me a wave and I’ll bring it over to you. Thank you.

(in person candles)

And if that’s everyone in the room we’ll go over to the people on Zoom next – you might like to switch to gallery view at this stage – just unmute yourselves when you are ready and speak out – and we should be able to hear you and see you up on the big screen here in the church.

(zoom candles)

And I’m going to light one more candle, as we often do, to represent all those joys and concerns that we hold in our hearts this day, but which we don’t feel able to speak out loud. (light candle)

Time of Prayer & Reflection: based on words by Bruce Southworth

Let’s take those joys and concerns into an extended time of prayer. This prayer is based on some words by Bruce Southworth. You might first want to adjust your position for comfort, close your eyes, or soften your gaze. There might be a posture that helps you feel more prayerful. Whatever works for you. Do whatever you need to do to get into the right state of body and mind for us to pray together – to be fully present here and now, in this sacred time and space – with ourselves, with each other, and with that which is both within us and beyond us. (pause)

Spirit of Life, God of All Love, in whom we live and move and have our being,

we turn our full attention to you, the light within and without,

as we tune in to the depths of this life, and the greater wisdom

to which – and through which – we are all intimately connected.

Be with us now as we allow ourselves to drop into the

silence and stillness at the very centre of our being. (pause)

This morning, let us give thanks for all of nature’s many gifts.

Let us give thanks for caring friends and compassionate neighbours.

Let us give thanks for those little shoots of hope we might sense in a turbulent world.

Let us give thanks for the communion of those who seek to serve others and the common good.

Each of us carries our private griefs and burdens.

Sometimes we can share these, be vulnerable with others,

and for the open hearts which respond in kindness we are grateful.

Sometimes the world bears heavily upon us;

we struggle alone, search the depths and long for healing,

for renewed hope, for strength, which give their grace and peace.

May we be strengthened in efforts to be of service, and may each of us be mindful

of any aspects of privilege and comfort we benefit from, that many others are denied.

May our prayer be that we always see clearly and keep before us the commandment to care;

and may we try always to be inclusive and open—to seek connection and understanding.

On this day and every day, may we give thanks, but let us also be dissatisfied

with the world as it is for a new and better world is waiting to be realized.

May our spirits and bodies be nourished and nurtured as we give thanks

in praise of all that sustains, heals and holds—all that is holy (short pause)

And in a few moments of shared silence and stillness now,

may we speak inwardly some of those deepest prayers of our hearts —

the joys and sorrows we came in carrying –

in our own lives and the lives of the wider world.

Let us each lift up whatever is on our heart this day,

and ask for what we most need. (long pause)

Spirit of Life – God of all Love – as this time of prayer comes to a close, we offer up

our joys and concerns, our hopes and fears, our beauty and brokenness,

and we call on you for insight, healing, and renewal.

As we look forward now to the coming week,

help us to live well each day and be our best selves;

using our unique gifts in the service of love, justice and peace. Amen

Offering and Consecration of Our Flowers:

As I mentioned at the top of the service, the Flower Communion was created by Czech Unitarian minister Norbert Čapek just over a hundred years ago, as a celebration of unity in diversity, and the power of giving and receiving in community according to our diverse gifts and needs. We hold a flower communion service every summer, as it is a uniquely Unitarian ritual and a beautiful symbol of one of our most cherished values, so quite a few of you will have been to many such services (and last year we celebrated the centenary of the flower communion and reflected on its origins in more detail; if you’d like to know more, or to refresh your memory, I’ve printed ‘A Short History of Flower Communion’ on the back of the order of service for you to take away, and that’s also included with the text of the service on the church website if you’re online, see below). In this ritual we are each invited to bring a flower to our common vase – representing the diverse gifts we each contribute to this community (and to the world) – and at the very end of the service you’ll be invited to choose a different flower to take away with you as a reminder of the give and take of living in community – a very tangible sign that we have something beautiful to take away as a result of another’s offering.

So I thought we could proceed in a prayerful spirit, and as Abby and George play a tune for us, actually previewing the tune of our next hymn, I invite you to come up and silently, reverently, place your flower into this vase (and if you didn’t bring one there are some spares by the door, just choose one to bring as your offering). If you’re online and you have a flower please hold it up while the music is playing (and if you don’t have one write the flower you would have brought in the chat). And when the flowers are all gathered in I will offer words of consecration from Norbert Čapek himself.

(people to come up and put their flowers in vase as music plays)

‘For the Consecration of the Flowers’ by Norbert Čapek

Infinite Spirit of Life, we ask thy blessing on these, thy messengers of fellowship and love.

May they remind us, amid diversities of knowledge and of gifts,

to be one in desire and affection, and devotion to thy holy will.

May they also remind us of the value of comradeship, of doing and sharing alike.

May we cherish friendship as one of thy most precious gifts.

May we not let awareness of another’s talents discourage us,

or sully our relationship, but may we realize that, whatever we can do,

great or small, the efforts of all of us are needed to do thy work in this world. Amen.

Bonus Material: ‘A Short History of Flower Communion’ by Evan Keely (adapted)

This founding minister of the Religious Society of Czech Unitarians, the Rev. Dr. Norbert Čapek, created a ritual that is celebrated by Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists all over the world to this day: Flower Communion. Čapek described the ceremony in a 1923 letter to Samuel Atkins Eliot II, president of the American Unitarian Association:

‘We have made a new experiment in symbolizing our Liberty and Brotherhood in a service which was so powerful and impressive that I never experienced anything like it… On that very Sunday… everybody was supposed to bring with them a flower. In the middle of the big hall was a suitable table with a big vase where everybody put their flower… in my sermon I put emphasis on the individual character of each “member-flower,” on our liberty as a foundation of our fellowship. Then I emphasized our common cause, our belonging together as one spiritual community… And when they go home, each is to take one flower just as it comes without making any distinction where it came from and whom it represents, to confess that we accept each other as brothers and sisters without regard to class, race, or other distinction, acknowledging everybody as our friend who is a human and wants to be good.’

The marvellous natural beauty of the flowers that are brought to these ceremonies is certainly inspiring, but it is of the utmost importance that we continue to learn the broader and deeper lesson this rite teaches. The idea that we should accept one another, with all our differences, and that we should even celebrate one another’s uniqueness, is a radical notion in any age, but in Europe in the 1920s it was downright dangerous; it became ever more so, of course, in the decades that followed, especially as Czechoslovakia found itself among the first nations to succumb to the opportunistic infection that was Nazism. The Nazis, of course, represent the polar opposite of Čapek’s ideals. Flower Communion is a defiant No! in the face of the brutal racism of Hitler and of the fascists’ craving to erect towering, horrific empires upon pediments of subjugation and terror, and it is a joyous Yes! to diversity, equality, and liberty.

As Unitarians all over the world celebrate Flower Communion, as so many of us do at this season of the year, we do well to consider what it is that we are saying No! to, and where our joyous Yes! is. [Do we continue to defy the forces of intolerance that seek to deny equal rights to all; which persecute minority groups, and make scapegoats of ‘outsiders’, in order to ‘divide and conquer’?] Do we stand together clutching bouquets of righteousness and justice in our hearts as we persevere in demanding compassion for immigrants, for labourers, and for the poor? Do we say Yes! to a future for our planet in which we will coexist with all life harmoniously?

Arrested by the Nazis for the “crime” of listening to foreign radio broadcasts, Čapek spent 14 weeks at Dachau before being martyred in October 1942 in a Nazi gas chamber. He is remembered around the world for how he died, but more so for what died for — and what he lived for.

Hymn (on sheet): ‘Bring a Flower’

Our next hymn is on your hymn sheet – it’s one written specially for flower communion services – ‘Bring a Flower’. Hopefully the tune will be in your head by now as it’s the one we just heard! The words will also be up on screen. As usual, feel free to stand or sit as you prefer as we sing.

Bring a flower. Take a flower.

There are flowers here for all,

Full of beauty for our senses,

Round and narrow, large and small.

Share your blessings. Lean on others.

Help your neighbour, then receive.

Feed the hungry. Tend the hurting.

We’ll be with you when you grieve.

As we labour, as we wonder,

As we heed the justice call,

Bring a flower. Take a flower.

There are flowers here for all.

Responsive Reading: ‘May Our Lives Bloom Like the Flowers’ by Amy Zucker Morgenstern (read by Patricia)

This is a responsive reading by Amy Zucker Morgenstern. If you’d like to join in the response is very simple: (and it’s the title of the piece): ‘may our lives bloom like the flowers’.

Each of us is a flower, with a delicate beauty uniquely our own.

We may be like sunflowers, turning always towards the light.

May our lives bloom like the flowers.

We may be like night-blooming plants,

only displaying our fragrant petals when

it is dark and we think no one else can see.

May our lives bloom like the flowers.

We may be hothouse flowers, far from our lands of origin,

cautiously tended within a harsh and unfamiliar climate.

May our lives bloom like the flowers.

We may be grey-headed like dandelions, eager to launch the new

generation with the first strong gust of wind: past our own bright youth,

but ready to pass our wisdom onward in precious gossamer-carried seeds.

May our lives bloom like the flowers.

Some of us, sometimes, spring up overnight and fade in the hot glare.

May our lives bloom like the flowers.

Some of us, sometimes, are roses,

slowly assembling petal after tightly-wrapped petal,

and revealing our full glory only when everything is in place.

May our lives bloom like the flowers.

Sometimes we are roadside weeds, wild loveliness

bursting improbably from the dust and debris.

May our lives bloom like the flowers.

May we offer our beauty with the simplicity of flowers,

expecting no recognition, hoping for nothing,

giving out of what we are, and knowing it is enough.

May our lives bloom like the flowers. Amen.

Meditation: ‘The Garden of Our Life’

Thanks Patricia. We’re moving into a time of meditation now. To take us into silence I’m going to share a very short quote from Wayne Muller – printed on the front of your order of service – and available with the rest of the service text on our website for those who are watching online. And in the three minutes of silence that follow I will invite you to reflect on ‘the garden of your life’. Each of us has our metaphorical ‘plot of land to tend’ in this live we’ve been given – the work that is ours to do – our sphere of influence – the people and places and communities in which we are situated. So I invite you to ponder this ‘garden of your life’. The time of silence will end with the sound of a bell. Then we’ll hear some music for our continued meditation. Let’s do what we need to do to get comfortable – maybe adjust your position – put your feet flat on the floor to ground yourself – close your eyes. As we always say, the words are an offering, use this time to meditate in your own way.

Wayne Muller wrote:

‘We must plant what we love in the garden of our life.

As the Tao Te Ching insists, our centre will heal us.

When we attend to what is loving and beautiful,

we are brought forward into our most exquisite manifestation.’

(read it again)

In this time of silence I invite you to meditate on ‘the garden of your life’.

Period of Silence and Stillness (~3 minutes) – end with a bell

Interlude: Where the Heather Grows by Katherine Colledge (performed by Abby Lorimier and George Ireland)

Reflection: ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ by Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall

Over the last few weeks – on those rare days when the weather’s been neither too hot nor too wet – I’ve been engaging in quite a bit of therapeutic gardening. As many of you know, the first half of this year has been quite full-on for me, and as a result my little garden has been sadly neglected – just at the time of year when it’s most important to keep on top of things. Everything was growing away so vigorously in springtime – and I didn’t have the capacity to give it the care and attention it needed – after a winter and spring of unusually wet weather the growth was especially rampant.

So, I found myself standing at the back door a few weeks ago, surveying the scene, and asking myself: where do I begin!? It was a bit of a mess. So many of my favourite plants were smothered in bindweed and looking very sorry for themselves. Others had been lost to frost, or waterlogged through the cold, rainy, winter months. An old hosepipe and a broken ladder had been left laying on the ‘lawn’ (I had to put ‘lawn’ in inverted commas as it has long consisted more of weeds than grass) and the grass had grown right over them. There were snails and slugs as far as the eye could see.

At first glance, it was all too easy to fixate on what was wrong with the garden, to feel somewhat overwhelmed with the scale of the task in hand, if I was going to get back on top of things. And I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here – I’m not even aiming for a tidy, manicured garden – that was my dad’s preferred style, but he mostly conceded to my preferences at the point when I took over the lion’s share of maintenance, some years ago now. My garden is managed for wildlife – and tomatoes, of course – and though the local foxes seemed happy that my absence left them with a comfortable hideout, I feel I was letting the frogs, grasshoppers, bees, moths, and butterflies down. The little pond had silted up, and all my carefully-selected plants for pollinators were overgrown.

This is the little plot of land I’ve been given to tend. And as I said earlier in the service – even if we aren’t lucky enough to have a physical garden of our own – we each have our own metaphorical ‘plot of land to tend’ – as Wayne Muller put it, ‘the garden of our life’. In this life we’ve been given, we find ourselves situated in a particular time and place, we have a certain sphere of influence, a setting in which we might just have some power to make a difference. When we look at the big picture, the state of the world these days, we can so easily feel disheartened or even hopeless. The problems facing humanity (and indeed all the other forms of life with whom we share this planet) seem quite overwhelming. There are so many issues for us to care about; it doesn’t seem possible to fully engage with them all at once and give all these worthy causes the attention they deserve.

So what happens if we draw back?  If we accept we can’t do it all – we can’t save the world single-handed – let’s consider what is uniquely ours to do… What is contained in our ‘plot of land to tend’? What is included in ‘the garden of our life’? What work are we called to do? What issues are we going to actively engage with? What community are we committed to showing up for, and nurturing? Who are the people that are ours to love? To echo our weekly prayers: How are we going to use our unique gifts in the service of love, justice, and peace?

I wonder if we might learn from drawing a few parallels between literal and metaphorical gardens.

First off: I feel lucky to have a garden at all – it’s only a little plot behind my small terraced council house in East London – but I realise what a gift it is to have a garden at all in this city, especially in social housing, and to have a little bit of free time in which to nurture it. I don’t want to waste that gift. I really want to make the most of the opportunity I’ve been given – to create something beautiful. And what about our metaphorical garden – the garden of our lives? Well, I reckon it does us good to remember that life itself is a gift, and an opportunity, and ground ourselves in a practice of gratitude. Perhaps it will help us to switch from a focus on life’s burdens, and the heaviness of responsibility, towards a feeling of openness and possibility. Here we are – we’ve been given this one wild and precious life – and none of us know how long we’ve got left – so what are we going to do with it?

Another thing we need to consider, when we stand at the back door and look out on our garden, survey our little ‘plot of land’, is that there’s a kind-of ‘givenness’ or ‘thrownness’ to it. We have to take it as we find it. We are rarely working with a blank canvas. Generally, we will have inherited our garden from someone else and, unless the previous tenant was Alan Titchmarsh or Carol Klein, it’s unlikely to come to us in tip-top condition. Maybe there are established plants that someone else left behind – that could be quite promising – or perhaps the soil is riddled with bindweed roots – oh dear.  If you have moved into a new build the soil might be poor or altogether absent – just a yard full of builders’ rubble or rock-hard clay – in which case you’ll need to do some groundwork, and improve the soil, though it might take time. Some things we can change. But some – like the aspect of our garden, the way it faces – we cannot. And the same goes for the garden of our lives. We were born into conditions we did not choose. Somehow we have to work with the situation in which we find ourselves. Hopefully, over the long haul, we’ll be able to make things better, incrementally improving our lot. I wonder what small step you might be able to take, right now, to improve the conditions in the garden of your life to help it flourish? (As an aside, I can’t help thinking of our new government, and the garden that they have inherited… I hope they are asking themselves some of these same questions about our collective flourishing).

A further consideration is that gardeners have choices to make – discernment about what will and won’t be included in your little plot of land – and, disappointingly, I can confirm that there are only so many plants you can fit in to your garden, no matter how hard you wish it was otherwise. There’s a gardener’s saying about the importance of choosing ‘the right plant for the right place’ – some thrive in sun and some in shade – some need good drainage and others ‘need their feet wet’. Similarly, we need to make wise choices about the garden of our lives. We are finite creatures. There are only so many hours in the day. We can’t do it all. So we have to ask ourselves: Where will we put our energy? What causes or projects will we take on? Which relationships will we invest in? This is likely to require some hard decisions as there will be causes, projects, and people we care about but haven’t got the capacity to engage with. They’re outside the boundaries of our garden. And that phrase ‘the right plant in the right place’ is helpful here, for me, as it suggests the need to play to our strengths. It is wise to honour the diversity of our characteristics – our gifts and needs – our attractions and aversions. What is ‘right’ for me might not be ‘right’ for you (and vice versa). And that harks back to the message of our flower communion, doesn’t it? In community we can appreciate and celebrate that every one of us makes our own unique and beautiful contribution.

There’s one last parallel I want to draw. Gardens typically take a lot of consistent attention and care to maintain – there’s always watering, feeding, staking, and pruning to be done – and you must be responsive to wild weather conditions, rampaging weeds, creeping fungus, marauding slugs. And – as I discovered this spring – if you are waylaid for a few months it can all get away from you. A garden is not a static thing. It evolves and transforms through the seasons and over the years. Part of the fun of gardening is to try out new things to see what thrives (and what does not). And so it is with the garden of our life, this plot of land that is ours to tend, for all too brief a time. If we consistently give our time, attention, and care to those things that matter most, then there’s every chance that by our living we will have added to the sum total of beauty and goodness in this world. We will have done our bit, however modest it might seem, and this planet will be a better place for us having lived on it.

So, by way of encouragement, I will repeat those words from Wayne Muller one last time.

‘We must plant what we love in the garden of our life.

As the Tao Te Ching insists, our centre will heal us.

When we attend to what is loving and beautiful,

we are brought forward into our most exquisite manifestation.’

May it be so for the greater good of all. Amen.

Hymn 32 (purple): ‘Earth Was Given as a Garden’

Time for our last hymn, it’s number 32 in your purple books, ‘Earth Was Given as a Garden’. A familiar tune I hope so let’s sing up as best we can for our closing hymn.

Earth was given as a garden,

cradle for humanity;

tree of life and tree of knowledge

placed for our discovery.

Here was home for all your creatures

born of land and sky and sea;

all created in your image,

all to live in harmony.

Show to us again the garden

where all life flows fresh and free.

Gently guide your sons and daughters

into full maturity.

Teach us how to trust each other,

how to use for good our power,

how to touch the earth with reverence.

Then once more will Eden flower.

Bless the earth and all your children.

One creation, make us whole,

interwoven, all connected,

planet wide and inmost soul.

Holy mother, life bestowing,

bid our waste and warfare cease.

Fill us all with grace o’erflowing.

Teach us how to live in peace.

Announcements:

Thanks to Ramona for tech-hosting. Thanks to Charlotte for co-hosting and welcoming everyone online. If you’re joining on Zoom please do hang on after the service for a chat. Thanks to Patricia for reading. Thanks to Abby and George for lovely music. Thanks to Liz for greeting and Patricia for making coffee. For those of you who are here in-person – please do stay for a cuppa and some apple and sultana cake after the service – that’ll be served in the hall next door.

Hannah’s offering community yoga today in the church at 12.30pm. I’ve heard great things about this and I know she will make it accessible for all who wish to join so please give it a go.

We also have our regular online ‘Heart & Soul’ Contemplative Spiritual Gathering tonight and Friday at 7pm and our theme this week is ‘Society’. We gather for sharing and prayer and it is a great way to get to know others on a deeper level. Sign up with me if you’d like the link.

Community singing is back this Wednesday at 7pm and that’s always good fun so do join us. And Sonya will be here as usual for her Nia dance classes at lunchtime on Friday. That’s the last Nia session before Sonya goes on summer break so do join her while you can.

Looking a bit further ahead: On Sunday 28th July the ‘Better World Book Club’ will be reading ‘Loving Our Own Bones’ by Rabbi Julia Belser. We’ve got a few copies of that in the church library if you’d like to borrow one. And looking even further ahead a date for your diary: there will be another tea dance coming up on Sunday 8th September.

Next Sunday we’ll be back here at 11am when I’ll be co-leading the service, titled ‘We All Stand Together’, with guest speaker Olivia Blanning from Citizens UK, and we’ll be pondering how we might work together with others in our community to bring about positive change.

Details of all our various activities are printed on the back of the order of service, for you to take away, and also in the Friday email. Please do sign up for the mailing list if you haven’t already. The congregation very much has a life beyond Sunday mornings; we encourage you to keep in touch, look out for each other, and do what you can to nurture supportive connections.

I think that’s everything. Just time for our closing words and closing music now. And at the end of the closing music I invite you to come up and choose a flower to take away with you (if you’re online perhaps you can visualise the flower you would choose and tell us in the chat).

Benediction: based on words by Sarah Movius Schurr

These flowers we have brought and shared,

They come in many shades and colours.

They come in many sizes and shapes.

They carry different scents.

Yet all were created by the same miracle.

The miracle, that these blossoms grow every year

Out of the divine mixing of water, soil, and sunshine.

And let us not forget: our lives are miracles as well.

Despite all the trials and disappointments we may face,

We come together every year to celebrate Flower Communion.

To be reminded that all of us have value

And all have a place in the beauty of the world.

To be reminded that where we came from

Is not as important as the fact that we are here now.

To be reminded that all are truly welcome,

And all may receive at the table of this church.

We all come to be a part of something greater than ourselves.

So, as we go our separate ways, may we each gladly and boldly

play our part in the flourishing of this world we share. Amen.

Closing Music: Herbstblume by August Nölck (performed by Abby Lorimier and George Ireland)

Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall

7th July 2024