Blessed be the flowers
It’s a glorious spring day and in honor of the day and the season, I offer you the Unitarian Universalist (UUA) tradition of celebrating life by exchanging flowers as a form of communion. The tradition, which began in Europe after World War I, calls for members to share flowers with each other and is wonderfully celebrated in words by Michael DeVernon Boblett in his poem “Blessing for Flower Communion”:
Blessed be the flower that triumphs at last
Over the snows, over the centuries,
over the heavy feet of cattle and of soldiers
treading down the fragile places of the earth.
Blessed be the flower that triumphs at last
Over the tangled branches, over the withered stem,
over the tearing thorns of roses and of barbed wire.
Blessed be the flower that triumphs at last
Even over the hand that gathers it,
cuts it off from life, from roots,
from the memory and taste of iron and tears in the soil.
Blessed be the flower that triumphs at last
Over the closed rooms that are not its home,
over efforts to domesticate its wild truth,
over the vain words of priests and poets.
Blessed be the flower that triumphs at last
Over us, over pasts and futures, over words and silences,
over deaths and lives, placing them all in their proper place,
restoring to all things their joyful smallness.
Blessed be the flower that triumphs at last.