On May 10th we celebrate our Flower Communion. It is spring, and we are celebrating good things. For the first time since I’ve been the senior minister, I’ve gone to a florist to arrange the elements of our flower communion, having done it myself up until now, having come from the background of the greenhouse and flower shop business. It was fun, and a little challenging, explaining to the staff member what it is we do and what it is we need. “We need a very large and tight round mound of greens with some other greens included in this old crock pot container that I brought; we use it for its size and stability and fluted shape.” The greens need to be thick to support all the flowers, and that’s why I remind people about pushing hard when they insert their flower stem.

And then for the flowers themselves, we will need “about 45-50 stems of a variety of flowers like carnations and snapdragons and roses and lilies and mums…what you have available.” As it is the week before Mother’s Day, I’m hoping it will be a good selection for us. I explained that if they’re all cut to the same length, it’s incredible how impressive the bouquet will be when it is finished, just having individuals choose their flower stem and stick it in. I’m not totally sure what we’ll get or how it will go this year, but…we’ll see. Whatever happens, Flower Communion is a beautiful ceremony, and since we’re working with flowers, it really cannot go wrong.

As always, I think Flower Communion is one of the most impressive things we do as Unitarian Universalists. Trying to describe it, and put its pieces together, to a person unfamiliar with what it is we do, reminds me all the more of how unique it is. Of course different congregations celebrate it at different times of the year, but our currently doing it in the spring makes it meaningful to me as we need to go beyond that which is around us, stretch a bit, to carry out the service. Throughout the month of May I will be speaking about aspirational things—stretching ourselves. And while it makes perfect sense for a congregation to have more native blooms and blossoms more immediately available and brought from home (which we also do), I think our doing it with blooms and blossoms that are found essentially the year around and from around the world also sends a message.

There is no time for us to stop and say this is the fullness of a season, or a time when we are at a peak. Walking along the streets and seeing the blooming trees and daffodils and forsythia speaks volumes, as it will when lilacs are blooming, or roses, or snowballs, or butterfly bushes, or when the leaves are ablaze with their fall colors. When you put us all together, we are, and our congregation is a combination of all the flowers of all the seasons and areas and times, all at once.

May our unique ceremony and our unique way of doing it reassure us of our unity in diversity. May it inspire us to stretch ourselves a bit more and reach for that which is aspirational. It cannot really be explained what it is we’re doing, but its effects can be seen and known, even by those who don’t quite understand it all…perhaps including ourselves.