Category: Unitarian Universalism

Flower Celebration

This worship service was conducted by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, the homily below is a reading text. The actual homily as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Homily copyright (c) 2007 Daniel Harper.

Child dedication

This worship service included a child dedication ceremony for two children of the church.

Minister’s introduction to the child dedication

In just a moment, we’re going to celebrate the christening of two children. But before we do that, let me tell you a little bit about what a christening is, and how it differs from a child dedication.

You probably know that our church has Universalist roots — First Universalist merged with First Unitarian in 1930. The Universalists have long done child dedications instead of baptisms. By 1793, the celebrated Universalist minister John Murray was performing child-dedications rather than baptisms [Life of Murray, 1854 ed., pp. 243-244], since as a Universalist Murray did not believe in the necessity of washing away some mythical original sin through baptism.

Unitarians evolved somewhat differently. By the time I was christened in a Unitarian church, just before merger with the Universalists, a Unitarian christening welcomed the child into a church that recognized, as I was taught as a child, the spiritual leadership of Jesus. But in both ceremonies, the children were formally welcomed into the church family.

These days, during a child dedication we dedicate a child to the highest ideals of morality and ethics; while a Unitarian Universalist christening more specifically acknowledges our spiritual roots in the teachings of that great spiritual master, Jesus of Nazareth.

Gathering the flowers

83 years ago, Norbert and Maja Capek were ministers of a Unitarian congregation far away from here in Europe, in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Most members of their congregation had left other religions to become Unitarians, and many of these people did not want to be reminded of the religions they had left behind. So Norbert and Maja Capek decided to create a new ritual for their congregation — a Flower Celebration.

One Sunday in June, they asked everyone in the congregation to bring a flower to the worship service. When people arrived on Sunday morning, all the flowers were gathered together in vases, and Norbert Capek said a short blessing over the flowers. Thus the flowers became symbols of what it means to be a human being: every flower was different, every flower was beautiful in its own way. And at the end of the worship service, everyone went up and took a flower, a different flower from the one that they had brought, took that flower home with them as a symbol of their connection to everyone else in the congregation.

We are going to have our own Flower Celebration, or Flower Communion, right here in our own congregation. In just a moment, we will all have a chance to come forward and place a flower in the vases on the table here. If you forgot to bring a flower with you this morning, or if you didn’t know that you were supposed to bring a flower, you will find extra flowers on the table over there, and you can come up, pick a flower you like, and place it in one of the vases here.

Because we value our children highly — for our children represent new beginnings and new possibilities — I am going to let the children be the first ones to bring their flowers forward. I invite the children to come forward now, and you may bring an adult along if you wish….

[Children come forward]

And now I invite everyone to come forward and place a flower in the vase here.

[All come forward]

This short blessing was written by Norbert Capek:

“Infinite Spirit of Life, we ask your blessing on these [flowers], your messengers of fellowship and love. May they remind us, amid diversities of knowledge and of gifts, to be one in desire and affection, and in devotion to your will. May they also remind us of the value of comradeship, of doing and sharing alike. May we cherish friendship as one of your 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 your work in this world.”

Readings

Not long before he was put to death by the Nazis, Dr. Capek wrote this prayer:

It is worthwhile to live and fight courageously for sacred ideals.
Oh blow ye evil winds into my body’s fire; my soul you’ll never unravel.
Even though disappointed a thousand times or fallen in the fight and everything would worthless seem,
I have lived amidst eternity.
Be grateful, my soul,
My life was worth living.
He who was pressed from all sides but remained victorious in spirit is welcomed into the choir of heroes.
He who overcame the fetters giving wing to the mind is entering into the golden age of the victorious.

The second reading comes from the book Norbert Fabian Capek: A Spiritual Journey, by Richard Henry. Henry quotes Maja Capek, Norbert’s husband, as saying:

“During all his years in America Capek never had an interest in finding out more about the Unitarian church. Why should he be interested in a church that had no missionary spirit, was not willing to give a hand to a groping soul?”

Homily — “Giving a Hand to a Groping Soul”

In June, 1914, a Baptist minister named Norbert Capek came to the United States from Bohemia and Moravia — what we now call the Czech Republic. In 1913, Austria had taken away Bohemia’s autonomy, and by April, 1914, the outspoken Capek was on a police blacklist. Nor was he any more welcome within the Baptist church; a friend told him politely that he sounded like a Unitarian, while others less politely called him a heretic. So he left his homeland with his family and came to New York.

Once in America, he served as minister to Slovak Baptist churches, though with increasing discomfort on his part. His new wife, Maja — his wife Marie had died not long after arriving in America — Maja encouraged his doubts, encouraged him to rethink his spiritual position. After the Baptists tried him for heresy twice, he finally resigned his ministry in 1919.

So there he was, without a church, without a denomination. And at the same time, he and Maja watched avidly as the new country, Czechoslovakia, was born. They wanted to go back and be part of their homeland’s liberation. Specifically, they wanted to be a part of their homeland’s spiritual liberation. What we now know as the Czech Republic had been a Protestant country until 1620 when the Hapsburg monarchy began oppressing Protestants, eventually forcing all Protestants to convert to Catholicism. After World War One, when the Hapsburg monarchy ended, Czechs began leaving the Catholic church by the thousands. Maja and Norbert Capek wanted to be in Czechoslovakia to found a liberal church for those thousands of people. But where could they get support for such a liberal church?

Ten years earlier, Norbert had approached the American Unitarian Association, asking them if they would support an earlier effort to found a liberal church in Czechoslovakia. But the American Unitarian Association had simply ignored Capek. It was as if someone came to our church, told us how they agreed with our religious values, felt in harmony with us — and in response we just ignored them and walked away. I feel ashamed at the way those Unitarians back in 1910 treated Norbert Capek. And so it was that Maja Capek later remembered, as we heard in the second reading: “During all his years in America Capek never had an interest in finding out more about the Unitarian church. Why should he be interested in a church that had no missionary spirit, was not willing to give a hand to a groping soul?”

However… by 1920 the Capek children wanted to go to Sunday school. The Capek family was living in East Orange, New Jersey then. One Sunday, the children went off to Sunday school at one church. When they came back, their father and mother quizzed them about what they had learned; but that church was teaching their children the old repressive dogmas, and Norbert said that he wished the children would go to a different Sunday school the next week.

Well, this went on for a few weeks. The children would go off to Sunday school, and their parents would quiz them when they got home. When Norbert and Maja heard the same old orthodox Christian doctrines, they asked their children if they would please try a new church the next week.

Until one Sunday, when things were different. Years later, Maja Capek recalled:

“One Sunday they came home and Capek was very much pleased with the lessons they had learned. He encouraged them to keep going there. And the, being curious about what this church had for adults, Capek and I went one Sunday. It was a small church, and we wanted to slip out unnoticed. But we could not get by the minister who stood at the entrance shaking hands and talking with everyone present. When our turn came, he said to us, ‘I believe you are new here. I have never seen you before.’ We said we were and then we confessed that we were the parents of three children in his Sunday school. And we told him how much we liked what the children were learning there.”

Do I need to tell you that it was the Unitarian church in East Orange that Maja and Norbert Capek liked so much? Even though the American Unitarian Association had ignored Norbert ten years earlier, the local Unitarian church held out a hand to him and to Maja. The minister of that church, Walter Reid Hunt, arranged to introduce the Capeks to the president of the American Unitarian Association, Samuel A. Eliot. And once Eliot actually met Norbert, he realized that this was an experienced, capable minister who deserved the full financial and moral support of the American Unitarian Association.

With that moral and financial backing, Norbert and Maja went back to Czechoslovakia. Before he left, on June 5, 1921, Norbert gave a farewell talk to his friends in the Unitarian church in East Orange New Jersey. He told them how they had restored his faith in Unitarians, after having been snubbed earlier. He told them what he liked about that Unitarian church:

“…I found not only clear heads but warm hearts, too. I liked the deep and inspiring sermons of Mr. Hunt, I enjoyed the sweet music of Mr. Decker, I loved to join in the bouyant, light-winged singing of the congregation, and especially I was enthusiastic about my [children], what they told me about their Sunday school and their teachers. It is certainly the best Sunday school I ever saw.

“But above all I liked what is so difficult to describe, what is more than a friendly smile, more than a kind word of greeting — it is that personal touch of a soul that has vision, it is the heart of religion in the heart of this congregation.”

My friends, Norbert Capek could have been describing this very congregation, First Unitarian in New Bedford. I cannot claim to preach deep and inspiring sermons, but at least they’re religiously liberal. But Randy’s sweet music, the good singing of this congregation (when you like the hymns you are asked to sing, that is), the non-dogmatic teaching of our Sunday school, the friendly smiles, the kind words of greeting — we here have that personal touch of a soul that has vision. That is the heart of religion, which is the heart of this congregation.

Not that we make a big deal out of ourselves. We are not like the hypocrites who have those television shows, the ones praying and wailing and asking for money, and putting on a grand show. That’s all you get from them, a grand show, but there’s no real religion at the heart of all that preaching and praying and weeping and wailing. We are quieter, and not so showy. But when you head out to social hour and start talking with the members and friends of this church, you realize that these are souls with vision.

For many of us, our souls have visions of an earth made fair with all her people free; that is to say, we will not rest until we have instituted heaven here on earth. For others of us, our souls have intellectual and spiritual and artistic visions that extend beyond mere transient dogmas to that which is permanent in religion. Our souls have visions of personal integrity, where we try to treat each person as having that of the divine within. Our souls have visions of a universe in which love is the most powerful force. Go out into social hour, and in those ordinary-looking people I see souls of vision. Go out into social hour, and underneath the ordinary conversations, I hear souls with depth and intensity sounding forth.

Each member and friend of this church is on his or her own spiritual journey, and most of us — maybe even all of us — take this pretty seriously. And I see individuals in this church reaching out to each other, and reaching out to visitors and newcomers, extending a hand to a groping soul. So it is that the strength of this church lies in the individual characters of each of us, its members and friends.

Let me get back to Norbert and Maja Capek before I end. By 1922, they had begun a new liberal congregation in Prague. Soon, they realized the need for new religious ceremonies, and so on June 24, 1923, Norbert Capek organized the first flower celebration. He described that first flower celebration to Samuel Eliot:

“…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 we go home, each takes one flower just as it comes without making any distinction where it came from and who it represents, to confess that we accept each other as brothers and sisters without regard to race, class, or other distinction, acknowledging everybody is our friend who is a human and who wants to be good.”

So it is that in just a moment, we will come forward and take a flower from the communal vase, take a flower without regard to race, class, or any other distinction. So it is that we recognize that we are all connected to one another, all humanity is connected, and in that connection lies whatever salvation we shall find. How could it be otherwise? –for whenever we extend our hand to a groping soul, to another human being — whenever we take a hand that has been extended to us — there is hope; there is true salvation; there is the power of love.

The exchange of flowers

The poet William Blake wrote:

    To see a World in a grain of Sand
    And a heaven in a Wild Flower,
    Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
    And Eternity in an hour.

Please come forward now, and take one flower, a flower different from the one you put into the vase, without regard to where it came from, without regard to the race, class, sexual orientation, age, gender, or national origin of the person who put it there.

[All come forward to take flower.]

We have each taken a flower, a blossom unique and like no other. So we affirm that we are all brothers and sisters. This flower in your hand may fade, but every spring flowers bloom; nor will they ever stop. Everett Hoagland sent me a poem by the poet Bassho that tells us why:

    the temple bell stops
    but the sound keeps coming
    out of the flowers

— trans. Robert Bly

Question and response sermon

This service was conducted by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford.

Readings

Before the first reading this morning, I should a word or two about what a “Question and Response Sermon” is.

In our religious tradition, what holds us together is not a creed, but a covenant, a set of voluntary agreements and promises we make to one another. In other words, our religious tradition emphasizes relationship, not belief.

This state of affairs is confusing to some people — How, they ask, can you have a religion if you don’t believe in anything? One possible response to this question is that we think it’s better to concentrate on the promises that hold us together, rather than abstract beliefs which would more than likely drive us apart. Another possible response to this question is that of course we do believe in things — life and love and the power of truth. And another possible response to this question is that we believe in the power of questions — and when the glue that holds us together is relationships, we are freed to ask difficult and interesting questions; and the responses to those questions often lead us to engage in further questioning together.

The first reading this morning comes from Henry Thoreau’s book Walden, the opening sentences of the chapter titled “The Pond in Winter.”

“After a still winter night I awoke with the impression that some question had been put to me, which I had been endeavoring in vain to answer in my sleep, as what — how — when — where? But there was dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my broad windows with serene and satisfied face, and no question on her lips. I awoke to an answered question, to Nature and daylight. The snow lying deep on the earth dotted with young pines, and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward! Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask.”

So writes Henry Thoreau, telling us either that questions may not be as important as we think, or that a sufficient answer to any question may be had by simply looking reality in the face.

…

Before I get to the second reading, let me say another word or two about this Question and Response Sermon. My sermons are usually written in response to something someone in this congregation has said to me. But in a question-and-response sermon, the relationship is a little more direct. You ask questions about religion, and I respond to them right here and now. You will note that I said I will respond to your questions, but I won’t pretend to answer them, for when it comes to religion I haven’t yet found a final answer to anything. If I don’t get to respond to all the questions this morning, I promise that I will provide written responses in the summer newsletters. And I’m sure some of the questions will be so meaty and interesting that I will want to address them more fully in sermon sometime in the next twelve months.

The second reading this morning is one of the readings I used for last year’s Question and Response sermon, but it was just so good I can’t resist using it again. This is from one of Mark Twain’s speeches, given at a 1909 banquet honoring one of his friends, Mr. H. H. Rogers. I should tell you that at the time of this speech, a half crown would have been worth about sixty cents. Mark Twain said:

“[Others have said] Mr. Rogers is full of practical wisdom, and he is. It is intimated here that he is a very ingenious man, and he is a very competent financier. Maybe he is now, but it was not always so. I know lots of private things in his life which people don’t know, and I know how he started; and it was not a very good start. I could have done better myself. The first time he crossed the Atlantic he had just made the first little strike in oil, and he was so young he did not like to ask questions. He did not like to appear ignorant…. On board the ship they were betting on the run of the ship, betting a couple of shillings, or half a crown, and they proposed that this youth from the oil regions should bet on the run of the ship. He did not like to ask what a half-crown was, and he didn’t know; but rather than be ashamed of himself he did bet half a crown on the run of the ship, and in bed he could not sleep. He wondered if he could afford that outlay in case he lost. He kept wondering over it, and said to himself: ‘A king’s crown must be worth $20,000, so half a crown would cost $10,000.’ He could not afford to bet away $10,000 on the run of the ship, so he went up to the stakeholder and gave him $150 to let him off.”

Thus Mark Twain proves that we should ask questions….

The Question and Response Sermon was entirely extemporaneous, and so cannot be reproduced here.

Mom Spirituality

This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2007 Daniel Harper.

Distribution of flowers

“We are, in our collective capacities, the imperfect divinity that must make the world over into the kind of abiding place that we know it ought to be.” So it is that on this Mother’s Day, we recognize all those here this morning who identify as women. Very often in our world, it is the mothers, and all women, who have quietly worked to make over the world into the kind of abiding place that we know it ought to be. I don’t mean to denigrate the efforts of those of us who identify ourselves as men — but mothers, and all women, seem to get less credit than is their due. As a small step in correcting that lack of recognition, this morning we give all women a flower, a small, fragile object of beauty in recognition of the work women have done, and are doing, behind the scenes everywhere.

If you identify as a woman, please raise your hand — and one of the children from the Sunday school will bring a flower to you where you are seated….

Readings

The first reading this morning is is a poem by Grace Paley called “On Mother’s Day”:

I went out walking
in the old neighborhood

Look! more trees on the block
forget-me-nots all around them
ivy   lantana shining
and geraniums in the window

Twenty years ago
it was believed that the roots of trees
would insert themselves into gas lines
then fall   poisoned on houses and children

or tap the city’s water pipes
or starved for nitrogen   obstruct the sewers

In those days in the afternoon I floated
by ferry to Hoboken or Staten Island
then pushed the babies in their carriages
along the river wall   observing Manhattan
See Manhattan I cried   New York!
even at sunset it doesn’t shine
but stands in fire   charcoal to the waist

But this Sunday afternoon on Mother’s Day
I walked west   and came to Hudson Street   tri-colored flags
were flying over old oak furniture for sale
brass bedsteads   copper pots and vases
by the pound from India

Suddenly before my eyes   twenty-two transvestites
in joyous parade stuffed pillows
under their lovely gowns
and entered a restaurant
under a sign which said   All Pregnant Mothers Free

I watched them place napkins over their bellies
and accept coffee and zabaglione

I am especially open to sadness and hilarity
since my father died as a child
one week ago in this his ninetieth year

…

The second reading this morning is slightly abridged, very short story by Grace Paley, titled “Politics.”

“A group of mothers from our neighborhood went downtown to the Board of Estimate Hearing and sang a song. They had contributed the facts and the tunes, but the idea for that kind of political action came from the clever head of a media man floating on the ebbtide of our lower west side culture because of the housing shortage. He was from the far middle plains and loved our well-known tribal organization. He said it was the coming thing. Oh, how he loved our old moldy pot New York.

“…the first mother stood up… when the clerk called her name. She smiled, said excuse me, jammed past the knees of her neighbors and walked proudly down the aisle of the hearing room. Then she sang, according to some sad melody learned in her mother’s kitchen, the following lament requesting better playground facilities….

    ”  ‘will someone please put a high fence up
    around the children’s playground
    they are playing a game and have only
    one more year of childhood. won’t the city come…
    to keep the bums and
    the tramps out of the yard they are too
    little now to have the old men … feeling their
    knees … can’t the cardinal
    keep all these creeps out’

“She bowed her head and stepped back modestly to allow the recitative for which all the women rose, wherever in the hearing room they happened to be. They said a lovely statement in chorus:

    ”  ‘The junkies with smiles can be stopped by intelligent reorganization of government functions….’

“No one on the Board of Estimate, including the mayor, was unimpressed. After the reiteration of the fifth singer, all the officials said so, murmuring ah and oh in a kind of startled arpeggio round lasting maybe three minutes. The comptroller, who was a famous financial nag, said, “Yes yes yes, in this case, yes, a high 16.8 fence can be put up at once, can be expedited, why not…” Then and there, he picked up the phone and called Parks, Traffic and Child Welfare. All were agreeable when they heard his strict voice and temperate language. By noon the next day, the fence was up.

“Later that night, an hour or so past moonlight, a young Tactical Patrol Force cop snipped a good-sized hole in the fence for two reasons. His first reason was public: The Big Brothers, a baseball team of young priests who absolutely required exercise, always played at night. They needed entrance and egress. His other reason was personal: There were eleven bats locked up in the locker room. These were, to his little group, an esoteric essential. He had, in fact, already gathered them into his arms like stalks of pussywillow and loaded them into a waiting paddy wagon. He had returned for half-a-dozen catcher’s mitts, when a young woman reporter from the Lower West Side Sun noticed him in the locker room.

“She asked, because she was trained in the disciplines of curiosity followed by intelligent inquiry, what he was doing there. He replied, ‘A police force stripped of its power and shorn by vengeful politicians of the respect due it from the citizenry will arm itself as best is can.’ He had a copy of Camus’s The Rebel in his inside pocket which he showed her for identification purposes….”

[Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, pp. 137 ff.]

Sermon

It’s Mothers Day today. Mothers Day has become a day when children honor their mothers by giving them gifts or taking them out for a meal; and for some of us who don’t have mothers, Mothers Day has become a day to privately mourn the mother we lost or the mother we never had.

It is worth remembering that Mothers Day began very differently, in the late 19th C., as “Mothers Peace Day.” It was originated by Julia Ward Howe as a day for mothers to advocate for peace. Julia Ward Howe was a well-known poet and hymnodist in her day, and she was also a Unitarian. Let me read you a few excerpts from the original Mothers Peace Day proclamation:

“Arise, then, women of this day!…

“Say firmly: ‘We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.’…

“In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.”

That’s part of what Julia Ward Howe wrote in her Mothers Peace Day proclamation. So you see, at its beginning Mothers Day was not about mothers passively receiving gifts, it was about mothers actively promoting peace so their children wouldn’t get killed in a war. Mothers Day was a day when mothers were encouraged to get political — this in a day when women were not even allowed to vote! It was a kind of early feminist holiday.

I’m not saying we should go back to that early version of Mothers Day. If you do have a mother, I’m not trying to talk you out of giving your mom a gift or taking her out to dinner, or giving her a card. And if you are a mother, I hope you are pampered by your children. At the same time, let’s take just a moment and think about the old-fashioned Mothers Day, a day when mothers could band together and take action, and make the world a better place for their children.

In the second reading this morning, the very short story by Grace Paley, we heard a about how a group of mothers who were living in the middle of the city. They grew concerned about the playground where they took their children to play. Junkies were using the playground, sick old men would come around and leer at the children, and bums and tramps would hang out there. Now we all know that junkies, bums, tramps, and the like are human beings too; at the same time we want to keep them away from the children who are trying to play on the playground.

The mothers talk over this problem among themselves. They all know that there’s no money in the city budget for such projects, and besides since when did the city ever pay attention to a playground, since when did they ever listen to a bunch of mothers? Then a newcomer to their neighborhood, a media man from the midwest, suggests that they could go to a city hearing a *sing* their request for a fence.

That’s just what they do — they go down to City Hall, to a hearing of the Board of Estimates, and they sing their request:

will someone please put a high fence up
around the children’s playground…
won’t the city come…
to keep the bums and
the tramps out of the yard…

And then my favorite part, the repeated chorus:

The junkies with smiles can be stopped by intelligent reorganization of government functions.

The mayor and the comptroller and the other men on the Board of Estimates listen to the song, they say ah and oh, and they immediately authorize a fence around the playground, which is erected the next day.

The mothers have triumphed politically! Well, they triumph politically, but not for long, because that very night a cop (of all people) comes along and cuts a hole in the fence so he and his buddies can have access to the baseball bats in the playground locker room.

I had to leave off the very end of the story, where the cop and the reporter wind up having two children together, and a new round of problems begins. There’s a lot of poetic truth in this story, isn’t there? Humanity being what we are, as soon as one problem is solved, new problems arise, generation after generation.

Mothers, simply by virtue of being mothers, find themselves right in the middle of each new round of problems. Partly this happens because mothers tend to find themselves right in the middle of the human lifespan. Mothers often have equal responsibilities both to children and the younger generations, and to parents and the older generations. Of course there are mothers whose parents died young, and mothers who never knew their parents, and so on; but even then, many mothers have older mentors and older friends who stand in for parents, members of an older generation for whom they feel some responsibility. And there are plenty of women who do not have biological children, but who are mothers nonetheless, because they care for younger siblings, or for young protegees, or for other young people.

Grace Paley’s poem “On Mother’s Day” sums up what it means to be in the middle of the human lifespan. She writes:

I am especially open to sadness and hilarity
since my father died as a child
one week ago in this his ninetieth year

Mothers are there when babies are born; mothers are there when elders become increasingly dependent and sink into helplessness and death. Not uncommonly, sadness and the hilarity may come at the same time: a mother might witness a child’s first words or a child’s graduation or a child’s wedding, and in the same day she might witness a parent’s illness or death.

The poem by Grace Paley tells us that mothers inhabit a world where memories of the past and expectations of the future merge with the sad and hilarious present. It seems to me that forces mothers to be flexible and relentless. Mothers have to be relentless: Try to make the world better for the children, and you’ll succeed in one area only to find that there is work to be done in yet another area. You put a fence up to keep the junkies out of the playground, and along comes a cop and cuts a hole through the fence. Mothers have to be flexible: You realize one day that your children grow up and become more self-sufficient, only to realize the next day that your parents and elders are have become increasingly dependent.

I’ve been thinking about how we can make our churches into places that better support mothers. And I’ve thought of at least two things that churches could do that might help support the spirituality of mothers, or “mom spirituality.” First of all, a church can support mothers who need time to find beauty. Second, a church can help build community.

I’ll start by talking about beauty. Beauty is all around us. Problem is, many of us are too busy to take the time to notice it. I don’t know about you, but I work well over forty hours a week, I try to volunteer for some causes that mean something to me, I try to keep up with my spouse and family, so this past week I had a couple of twelve hour days and hardly any time to enjoy the beautiful spring weather. That’s my life, and I’ve got it easy — my partner and I don’t have children. Most of the mothers I know are far busier than I am: job, volunteer work, plus taking care of kids, and in many households doing the majority of the housework. If a woman is that busy, when will she find time to just sit and appreciate the world?

Ideally, a church should offer a little bit of time each week when a mother can come and sit and just be, just have a moment to appreciate the beauty of the world. It may only be a moment, because some mothers teach Sunday school, and other mothers have substantial volunteer responsibilities here at church. One of our goals for worship services is to try to provide moments of concentrated spirituality for busy people. If you believe in God or the Goddess, it might be a moment at church when you can talk to God or the Goddess without interruption. If you don’t believe in God, it may be a moment of intense feeling or intense concentration. Different people get their concentrated dose of spirituality in different ways — for some people it comes when lighting a candle, for some when offering up a prayer, for some by sitting with an intentional community, for some when listening to music or poetry — so our worship services have a number of different elements to try to accommodate different people.

Since ours is a religion based on reason, Unitarian Universalist worship services also include some kind of thoughtful reflection, usually spoken words — a reading, a sermon, poetry, a meditation or prayer — to help us focus our reason, our thoughts, on what is ultimately good and true and beautiful. So our worship services aim to provide a concentrated dose of thoughtful reflection each week.

(Parenthetically, I will add that I get my concentrated dose of thoughtful spirituality by teaching Sunday school — teaching children makes me think about my religious faith, and I find it to be very healing. That’s why I come in to this church on my Sundays off to teach Sunday school — to get my concentrated dose of religion.)

Grace Paley’s poem about Mothers Day starts off as she is walking through the old neighborhood, thoughtfully appreciating the beauty there — the trees, the flowers. Then she tells about taking her children on the ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island, and looking back at the rough urban beauty of the city as viewed across the Hudson River. See the city! she says to her babies, How beautiful!

Just as Grace Paley’s poem helps us to see the beauty in the trees and flowers along a street, the urban beauty of a city, the absurd and hilarious beauty of transvestites getting free pastry and coffee on Mothers Day — so our church can support mothers as they search for beauty in their lives. And if you will be giving flowers to your mother today, or taking her out to eat — or if your children bring you flowers, or make you a card, or cook you a meal — the same kind of thing is taking place: these are all ways that we can nurture a mother’s spirituality, by creating a small space where a mom can a moment of time to appreciate beauty.

This is the transcendent side of mom spirituality. There is also the very practical, down-to-earth side of mom spirituality. On the practical side, one way we can nurture the “mom spirituality” is to build a church that is a healthy community, and that serves as an incubator for the wider spread of community.

In Grace Paley’s story, the way the mothers got the fence put up around the playground was that they banded together in a small community. The mothers in that story served as support group for each other, and a group that worked together to get something done. If Grace Paley didn’t happen to be a Jewish atheist, the mothers in her story might have met each other at church — actually, if it were a Unitarian Universalist church where the mothers met it wouldn’t matter if Grace Paley happened to be a Jewish atheist, you can actually find a fair number of Jewish atheists in some Unitarian Universalist congregations, but I digress. The real point is that our churches should be places where you can find people for spiritual support, friendship, or political action. Not only that, our churches should be healthy communities themselves so that they both nurture and set a good example for smaller groups and mini-communities within them.

This represents the pragmatic, relentlessly practical side of “mom spirituality.” Moms need that dose of concentrated beauty; moms also need practical support from a supportive community. So those of you who have accompanied your mom to church; or those of you who are here because your children told you to go to church; or those of you who are here because you’re trying to set a good example for your mom — you’re doing exactly the right thing on Mothers Day, by helping moms stay connected with a good supportive community.

Mom spirituality needs both the transcendent, and the pragmatic. We should give Moms flowers, but we should also give them the time to attend Julia Ward Howe’s international congress of women to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, and the great and general interests of peace. It’s important to give Moms time to go down to City Hall to get a fence for around the playground, but it’s equally important to let them write a song to sing when they get to City Hall.

“Mom spirituality” is both transcendent and practical, both radical and beautiful. May our church provide both moments of transcendent beauty, and a pragmatic sense of community. In doing so, we will feed the souls of mothers; we will feed all our souls; we will transform the world for the better.