Ministry

[People] of the earth and sky, we are nurtured, sustained, given warmth and light from above and below.

Supported by earth's strong, firm crust, we build our homes, till the fields, plant our gardens and orchards.

When we turn from self and seek to be aware, we will find holy light in human faces, in blossom, birdsong, and sky.

Then earth is truly our home, and we are one with all earth's creatures,

Parents of earth's children yet to be.

Alice Berry  (from CLF-May 1990)

 

Comment:  Take these words and their many meanings; join me and follow the sound into the shared silence.

The song the choir has just sung (Prayer for the Children) is a perfect non-musical counterpoint to my sermon this morning. That is, it is in contrast to it. Given the often individualistic nature of our Unitarian religious perspective, this is a good thing. The music and its message - so dramatic in its own right - I believe also helps to demonstrate the need for flowers and their messages.

  

This is the time of year when one revels at living in a temperate climate: the rain and sun have combined to bring out the best in the natural world. The trees are clothed with new leaves of green, yellow or red; smaller plants have already begun to flower and our world is a riot of colour. It is at this time of the year that a flower theme can complement the Flower Communion that happens next Sunday. I must admit that I often feel quite speechless about the deep non-verbal impact flowers have on me.  And in this morning's sermon I hope to reach many of you at a non-verbal level even though I will be using words to do so!  I am using as a spring-board a portion of one of the sentences in the Meditation: "When we turn from self and seek to be aware, we will find holy light in human faces, in blossom, birdsong, and sky."

 

This morning I want to help you recognise 'holy light' in blossom, in flowers; I want you to turn from self and  become aware of the myriad of meanings invoked by the world of flowers.. 

 

To begin, listen to floral artist, Claudette Mautor: "The marvel of flower language is like the marvel of music; you don't need to be an expert musician to be enveloped by music's moods, melodies, and messages. Like music, flowers speak to the very soul. One needs only look and listen." 

 

That says it in a nutshell, I guess - flowers speak to the very soul.   

 

And perhaps some of you know that over the centuries many flowers have   acquired different meanings. These meanings are very diversified. They may be poignant or strange or funny or ironic. Their meanings, their symbolism has come from legend and experience and historical necessity. 

 

For example, connecting flowers and meanings goes back to the middle ages,  when flowers and herbs were grown for culinary and medicinal reasons. Rosemary came to be known as an herb that would create prosperity. Why? This came about at a time when rosemary was used as a seasoning for stews, but at this same time period most people were starving. Thus it was reasoned that if you had enough food to be concerned about seasonings, you must be wealthy and using rosemary could help you get that way. 

 

In 19th Century Victorian times bouquets of flowers were used to transfer messages back and forth between people interested in each other romantically. So, if you received a bouquet that contained a red rose, a tulip, a sweet pea and a gooseberry branch - the message would be "I love you, this is a declaration of love, will you meet with me?.. I wait with anticipation." 

Now the return bouquet might have an iris, an aster, a garden daisy, some ambrosia and  some mistletoe, meaning: "Here's a message for you-this is the beginning of all progress and I share your sentiments: Your love is returned and we shall surmount any difficulties."

Or it might be a very different return bouquet - one that contained a sprig of lavender, some foxglove and a red striped carnation it would instead say: "I have my suspicions that you are insincere and refuse your offer."

 

The suitor might then persist with a sprig of a currant bush, and a  red carnation   some shepherd's purse and a round yellow celosia, saying:  "thy frown will kill me, alas for my poor heart! I offer you my all, let your mind be capable of seeing the perfections of tomorrow.""

And the answer might come back in one of two ways, either a black poplar branch, a chrysanthemum, a pussy willow, a gladiola, and some chickweed, "You have courage, I guess you're telling the truth;  the future's a promise yet unrealised - you have strength of character, let's have a rendezvous." Or, if the answering bouquet had a gloxinia, a primrose, a pink larkspur, and a burdock  it would be saying: "I am a proud spirit, so it is with sadness, I note your fickleness, and ask you to leave me alone."

 

While there must have been no end to floral intrigue [and immense gardens...] as a method of subverting the repressive morals of the day  during the time of the Victorians, this is not something we have to face.  It is still good however, to acknowledge the determined and clever minds, hearts and spirits humans have, that could outfox the most rigid of systems in the name of love and justice.  (mostly from Never give a Lady a Restive Horse; a 19th century handbook of etiquette by Thomas Edie Hill)

 

For the most part, if we choose, in these days we are able to speak openly  to one another of our feelings and intentions for the present and the future -- and flowers now  bring meanings just as complex but not as hidden. 

 

What are these meanings?

 

Simply put, they provide us with beauty, with wonder, with excitement, with peace, with promise, with possibilities, with remembrance, with fragrance, with nourishment, with healing. They offer a manner of speaking to each other that words do not. They teach us about the world of nature and also, metaphorically, about ourselves. They remind us to be inventive and creative about ways to solve problems -  don't let a mere negative feature [such as a wall] stop us from advancing. Go around, under, over, through...They calls us to be our best selves: don't forget to nurture those you care for - if you don't properly give sustenance when needed, to those who are beginning to flower,  they will wither and ultimately, in one sense or another, die.  They persuade us to have fun in life by observing the ways in which the riots of colours, shapes and species intermingle and make  pleasurable contrasts and combinations.

 

The opportunity to enjoy flowers is something available to everyone . Either in your own garden, or walking down most streets  or even in a shopping centre - stopping to appreciate the creative displays in florists shops, absorbing the fragrances that can take us back to earlier times in our lives.

You may think that this sermon is filled with much too much sweetness and light and lacks balance. Do I not know that some people are allergic to certain plants and to certain fragrances? Yes I do. Do I really believe that everyone goes gaga over flowers?  No,  there are times when flowers can leave us   each of us cold. But. On the other hand we are reminded by one of our religious sources: ‘Spiritual teachings of Earth-centred traditions .... to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.’ That definitely includes flowers. And we often need to be reminded that beauty brings excitement, or peace, or awe or wonder. It can lift us out of ourselves and allows change to take place more easily. The person who is allergic to certain flowers today, usually will be moved by different flowers in different seasons; the person who finds a fragrance intolerable may still benefit from the medicinal qualities of that or many  other flowers. 

 

And even the acknowledgment of the negative aspect of flowers can be a means of healing occurring. Listen to this poem by Unitarian John Carlos Williams:

 

“Sorrow is my own yard

where the new grass

flames as it has flamed

often before but not

with the cold fire

that closes round me this year.

Thirty-five years

I lived with my husband.

The plum tree is white today

with masses of flowers.

Masses of flowers

load the cherry branches

and color some bushes

yellow and some red

but the grief in my heart

is stronger than they

for though they were my joy

formerly, today I notice them

and turn away forgetting.

Today my son told me

that in the meadows,

at the edge of the heavy woods

in the distance, he saw

trees of white flowers.

I feel that I would like

to go there

and fall into those flowers

and sink into the marsh near them.”

 

The flowers are reminders of what has been lost. What has been lost is real and bone-deep and permanent. And no flower will do to assuage that grief. And yet, she would make of the flowers her own bed.  We must all make our way through sorrows that present themselves to us over and over again. And surely these flowers will, in the appropriate time, lift her up again, when she is ready, to accept life's embrace and they will become her joy once again.

 

And in counterpoint to that poem, here is a piece of prose that is hard to describe, except that it has to do with flowers: it is an excerpt from My Family and other Animals  by Gerald Durell. It takes a whimsical vignette from Durrell's life. He was visiting an eccentric and unusual older woman called Mrs. Kralefsky.

 

"The room was a forest of flowers; vases, bowls, and pots were perched everywhere, and each contained a mass of beautiful blooms that shone in the gloom, like walls of jewels in a green-shadowed cave. 'They say', (Mrs. Kralefsky) announced- 'they say that when you get old, as I am, your body slows down.  ... I think that is quite wrong. I have a theory that you do  not slow down at all, but that life slows down for you ...you can notice so much more when things are in slow motion...'Take flowers,' she said, pointing at the blooms that filled the room, 'Have you heard flowers talking?' '..flowers have personalities. They are different from each other, just as people are. Look, I'll show you. D'you see that rose over there, on the bowl by itself?'

 

On a small table in the corner, enshrined in a small silver bowl, was a magnificent velvety rose, so deep a garnet red that it was almost black. It was a gorgeous flower, the petals curled to perfection, the bloom on them as soft and  unblemished as the down on a newly-hatched butterfly's wing. 'Isn't he wonderful? Now, I've had him two weeks. You'd hardly believe it, would you? And he was not a bud when he came. No, no, he was fully open. But, do you know, he was so sick that I did not think he would live? The person who plucked him was careless enough to put him in with a bunch of Michaelmas daisies. Fatal, absolutely fatal! You have no idea how cruel the daisy family is, on the whole. They are very rough-and-ready sort of flowers, very down to earth, and, of course, to put such an aristocrat as a rose amongst them is just asking for trouble.

 

By the time he got here he had drooped and faded to such an extent that I did not even notice him among the daisies. But, luckily, I heard them at it. I was dozing here when they started, particularly, it seemed to me, the yellow ones, who always seem so belligerent. Well, of course, I didn't know what they were saying, but it sounded horrible. I couldn't think who they were talking to at first: I thought they were quarreling among themselves. Then I got out of bed to have a look and I found that poor rose, crushed in the middle of them, being harried to death. I got him out and put him by himself and gave him half an aspirin. Aspirin is so good for roses.

 

Removed from the company of the daisies and given that pick-me-up, he revived in no time, and he seems so grateful; he's obviously making an effort to remain beautiful for as long as possible in order to thank me."

 

She gazed at the rose affectionately, as it glowed in its silver bowl. 'Yes, there's a lot I have learned about flowers. They're just like people. Put too many together and they get on each other's nerves and start to wilt...And.do you know that some people think it's kind to change the water every day? Dreadful! You can hear the flowers dying if you do that. I change the water once a week, put a handful of earth in it, and they thrive.' "

 

This is certainly an unusual piece! Do flowers really talk? If they do, very few of us understand them. And still, I invite you to try to hear their language.   I invite you to see the holy light that is present in blossoms and flowers. There are many instances when we take time to ponder and work out how to make a fairer and more just world for all. Let us never stop doing this and let us also never stop being glad for the beauty of flowers that can give us hope, remembrance, healing and possibility. They are also essential to the health of body, mind, heart and spirit.

Kahlil Gibran said:

"When night comes the flower folds its petals and slumbers with love, and at dawn, it opens its lips to receive the Sun's kisses, bespeckled by quick dartings of clouds, which come, but surely go.The language of flowers is hope and fulfillment and peace; tears and laughter."  

 

We need hope and fulfillment and peace; we need tears and laughter in each of our lives and here in our religious community - we need it to balance our work in the larger world and to remind us that beauty and creativity must always be part of the answer. Seek to be aware. Please listen to the silent language of the flowers. (jmrb)