edschweppe | Flower Communion Followup

I mentioned last week that my church was going to hold a Flower Communion service, and that the local paper ran a story about what the service was going to be like.

Well, this week the paper reported on the actual service.

After the litany and a hymn, two teenage members of the church, Kellan Thomas and David Wellcome, performed a dramatic dialogue written by Kafka, which imagines Capek in conversation with a Nazi Guard at Dachau in June of 1942, five months before Capek was executed.

The guard, suspicious about Capek's flower-gathering among the weeds, suspects that Capek is actually secreting weapons to use against the guards.

"No Sergeant, you misunderstand," Capek replies. "Flowers cannot be used as weapons against a soldier, but I believe they can be used against the things which make soldiers. Against hatred for instance; and against prejudice and greed, and even against short tempers."

"Nonsense," the guard answers. "This is more of your queer Unitarian mutterings."

Capek continues to explain the significance of the flowers to the Flower Communion ceremony he is holding among the prisoners, however.

"These flowers are for the people who come to the church to give to each other. They are very little things - and very cheap really - but they can mean a great deal if you want them to. They can represent the value that we have for one another; the beauty we see in a friend's face; the hope - whatever our lot - that we have for the future.... We don't usually realize that our present comfort and happiness is the result of many people's contributions, but it is. The sharing of flowers with those we love can help us to see that this is so."

http://www2.townonline.com/acton/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=263263

After some of the awful things I read about today, it was good to be reminded of the good parts of the world. It's often too easy to forget the good stuff when it feels like I'm drowning in crap.