Maja Capek – Dan Harper

Flower celebration

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 improvisation and extemporaneous remarks. Sermon copyright (c) 2009 Daniel Harper.

Story — The Flower Celebration

86 years ago, Norbert and Maja Capek were the ministers of a Unitarian congregation 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. There were more than two thousand people in the church, so the church rented a big concert hall for their worship services. When people arrived on Sunday morning, all the flowers were gathered together in vases — hundreds of colorful flowers all over the front of the church. Norbert Capek told the congregation that the flowers were 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.

Iva Fiserova grew up in the Prague Unitarian church, and she shared some of her memories of the Flower Celebration:

“Sunny morning… a granny walking holds a grandchild’s hand… carrying the most beautiful flowers from the garden, entire families enter a big house… there are floods of flowers on the stage of one of the biggest concert halls in the city… a vivid community sharing the mutual happiness of the gathering… thousands of people giving each other friendly greetings… a warm and festive atmosphere… the personal joy of belonging to this community… These are tiny fragments of childhood memories that influenced my life deeply and that have been treasured since those days.”

That’s how Isa Fiserova remembers the Flowers Celebration from when she was a little girl.

Our church has a special connection to the Flower Celebration. Maja Capek, one of the ministers of the Prague Unitarian Church, came to New Bedford during the Second World War, and was the minister of the North Unitarian Church. A few of our church members still remember Maja Capek from when they were children. While she was here in New Bedford, she conducted the Flower Celebration each spring. And so we still have a Flower Celebration each year, partly to keep alive the memory of Maja Capek.

Readings

The first reading was a prayer by Norbert Capek, written while he was imprisoned by the Nazis:

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.

[Second reading not included.]

Homily

Each year, we hold a Flower Celebration in the second week of June. I would like to speak to you this morning about the religious symbolism of the Flower Celebration. This is the last time I will preach to you as your settled minister, and the religious symbolism of the Flower Celebration offers me a perfect chance to sum up the main theological notions about which I have been preaching for the past four years.

The Flower Celebration as we know it today had its origins in a post-Christian religious ritual developed in the 1920s by Norbert and Maja Capek for the Unitarian church in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Most North American Unitarian Universalists call this religious ritual a “Flower Communion,” but I consider that name to be misleading; the Capeks wanted a ritual that was not based on old Christian rituals, and I feel calling this ritual “communion” when it has nothing to do with the Christian ritual of the eucharist is incorrect.

The Flower Celebration begins before the worship service, and outside the church building. Individuals and families find flowers to bring to church. Those who have gardens might pick flowers from their gardens; others might buy flowers from a florist; and others might find flowers growing by the side of the road or growing in a field. Then everyone brings their flowers to the church, each individual carrying a flower that looks like no other flower in the world. At the beginning of the Flower Celebration, everyone in the congregation brings their flowers to the front of the church, and places them in one of the vases there. The vases of flowers remain at the front of the church until the end of the worship service, the massed flowers serving as bright spots of color that enliven the worship space. Then at the end of the worship service, each person takes a flower home; not the flower they brought, but a flower that someone else brought.

First Unitarian Church has a special connection to the Flower Celebration. In 1939, as the Second World War was heating up, Maja Capek came to the United States to promote relief efforts in central Europe. She was unable to return to Nazi-controlled Czechoslovakia, and spent the remainder of the war in this country. From 1940 to 1943, she served as the minister of one of our antecedent congregations, North Unitarian Church. So it was Maja Capek herself who introduced this ritual to us Unitarians here in New Bedford.

The Flower Celebration is a simple ritual. It is also a powerful ritual with several layers of meaning.

Most obviously, the Flower Celebration is a ritual that celebrates the connections between the individuals who make up the congregation. You come in to the Flower Celebration with one flower, and you leave carrying a flower that someone else brought. You may not know who that other person was, yet when you leave the worship service your life has been touched by him or her. Perhaps the person who brought your flower is one of the people who has been one of your spiritual guides or mentors in the church. For all you know, that other person is one of the people in the church whom you happen to dislike; yet your dislike of that person means nothing in the face of the transcendent meaning and beauty of the flower you carry. Equally likely, your flower was brought by someone whom you don’t know. Every person in a congregation is connected by the transcendent meaning and beauty of the religious community, which is made up of individuals who are each physical manifestations of transcendent human beauty. We may not always see the transcendent beauty that is in each individual, but the Flower Celebration reminds us that it is there, in each and every one of us. The Flower Celebration also reminds us that we are connected each to all through that transcendence.

This leads us to another meaning of the Flower Celebration. During the Flower Celebration, each flower is of value; there is no flower that will be discarded, or ignored, or rejected. Each flower is unique, each flower is different, yet all the flowers are welcome. This is an obvious metaphor for how we hope to treat each other as human beings. We aim to see the value in each human being. We try to live our lives so that no human being is discarded, or ignored, or discriminated against, or rejected. We also know perfectly well that it seems impossible to live our lives in that way. As an extreme example, while in a theoretical way we might be able to see the human value of a convicted child molester who is at great risk of being a repeat offender, in actual practice we don’t particularly want that person to be a member of our church. In real life, our highest values are sometimes brought down by unpleasant realities. Yet we want to hold on to those highest values, even if sometimes we can only hold on to them theoretically. So each year we have a Flower Celebration to remind us that one of our highest values is that each individual human being has all the beauty and value of a perfect flower.

Here in the United States, the Flower Celebration takes on a special meaning due to the history of our country. In the United States, we are still living with the moral problem of discrimination based on skin color. Racial discrimination, left over from the days of legal slavery, remains one of our most nettlesome moral problems. In the Flower Celebration, flowers of every color are valued equally, and here in the United States we almost can’t help but make the leap from flower color to skin color. The Flower Celebration reminds us, in this not-so-subtle way, that each individual human being has value and beauty regardless of skin color.

Another nettlesome moral problem that we face in today’s world is the problem of ecological sustainability, and here again the Flower Celebration reminds us of this vast moral problem. The flowers that we bring to a Flower Celebration are so fragile; they are easily crushed, they will wilt if we don’t care for them by keeping them in water. The very presence of flowers in the church reminds us of the fragility of the ecosystem. We also become aware that many different species of flowers are present during the Flower Celebration, and of course we value each different species equally. This serves to remind us that the ecosystem consists of many different species of plants and animals, each of which is equally valuable. Thus the Flower Celebration helps us to remember the importance of working towards an ecologically sustainable world.

And for me, the Flower Celebration illustrates one final theological point. Flowers come into bloom, fade, go to seed, and the seeds may germinate next spring while the flower itself with wither and rot and turn into compost that will nurture next year’s plants. The world is an endless cycle of change and transformation. This reminds me of the tenets of process theology: that nothing stays the same, and that we must be constantly ready to allow growth and change within ourselves, and constantly ready to transform ourselves in response to an always changing world. Stasis means death. Change means life, and growth, and hope. At the same time, change is never easy; to transform ourselves can require great courage. When I look at the flowers gathered for the Flower Celebration, I cannot help but think that they will all be faded and gone within a week or two; we cannot freeze these flowers so that they bloom forever. So these flowers will fade, but I also know that during next year’s Flower Celebration, people will bring flowers of equal beauty. Thus, change isn’t something to be avoided, it’s something to be embraced because change is the way of life; and for us human beings, change inevitably leads to growth and transformation.

So the Flower Celebration becomes a ritual which brings to a deeper awareness of our theology and of our moral values. The transience of flowers reminds us that change and transformation are the only things that will lead us to growth. The fragility of the flowers reminds us of the fragility of the ecosystem, and our moral responsibility to create an ecologically sustainable world. The uniqueness of each flower and the diversity of all the flowers reminds us of the uniqueness and diversity of human beings, and of our moral responsibility to end all forms of discrimination and racism. The exchange of flowers reminds us that each individual in this religious community is connected to every other individual, reminds us that we are not alone and that we cannot exist without community.

And assuming the Flower Celebration does bring us to a deeper awareness of our theology and of our moral values, may we then in turn continue to live out our theologies and our moral values in our day-to-day lives. We come to church each week to restore our connection to each other, to ourselves, and to something which is large than our selves; and having been restored, we go back out into the world, nurturing growth, embracing change, ever moving toward a world that will be transformed into a heaven on earth.

Maja Capek and an Immigrants’ Church

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.

Readings

The first reading comes from an unsigned manuscript in the church archives. This manuscript, titled “How our church began,” gives the history of North Unitarian Church. I should explain that when the author refers to a “Bohemian man,” she means someone who literally came from Bohemia, a part of Europe now part of Germany and the Czech Republic. Thus, the “Bohemian man” is a recent immigrant to the United States.

“In the year 1889 Mr. Paul Revere Frothingham came to New Bedford as assistant minister to Mr. Potter who was the minister of the Unitarian Church on Union and Eighth St. He had a very pleasing personality and was liked very much by young and old alike.

“In the year 1892 Mr. Potter tendered his resignation and Mr. Frothingham then became minister of the church.

“It wasn’t long after Mr. Frothingham became minister that he began looking around to see what he would do to improve the community. With Mrs. Frothingham they started a club for girls, called ‘Girls Social Union’ they met in the chapel of the Unitarian Church. There were classes in sewing, millnery, & cooking, besides having fun playing all sorts of games. This was given free of charge to any girl who was interested in becoming a member.

“In 1894 It was decided to hire rooms in the North end of the city 1651 Purchase St. where the firls could meet and they would be nearer their homes as they all lived in the north end of the city. It was in the same rooms Mr. Frothingham established a free kindergarten and secured a trained teacher for the children. Later this kindergarten was taken over by the city and called the ‘North end Day Nursery.’

“The beginning of this movement is quite interesting, for at that time a Bohemian man living in the north end, having read of the day nursery and of a sermon by Mr. Frothingham translated was deeply impressed, and said this is what I believe, and would like my children to go to the Sunday school where Mr. Frothingham is the minister. The children went to Sunday school, soon other children joined, and this was the beginning of our Sunday school. Don’t know the exact year but think it might [be] 1896 or 1897.

“Sunday school was held in a house 1378 Acushnet Ave. just across from St. Anthony’s church…. The Sunday school became so large in attendance that we were over crowded, so Mr. Frothingham decided we should have a place of our own. So in 1901 Unity Home was built….”

The second reading, from another manuscript in our church archives, is by Audrey Steele and gives her memories of North Unitarian Church.

“I started to attend Unity Home Sunday School when I was four years old.

“I have many fond memories of the years I attended there as I was growing up.

“We were a happy, congenial family-oriented congregation made up of many nationalities. All the children were close friends…. The Sunday School teachers I remember most were Miss Hanford, Miss Seguin, and my favorite Esther Grundy Grew….

“In those days we learned a lot from the Bible and we were taught the Unitarian creed which was popular and believed by the congregation. I will always remembeer we were taught, the fatherhood of god, the brotherhood of man, the leadership of Jesus, the salvation of character and the progress of mankind onward and upwards forever. We had many fine ministers. Those I remember most are Mrs. Robert Cross who was the church director for many years, Mrs. Majda [sic] Capek for her interest in the young people. She planned many things to do at the church service as on mother’s day we would give each of the ladies attending church a plant or some flowers. She loved flowers. Before Mrs. Capek died I received a nice note from her saying she also had fond memories of Unity Home and especially of the young people.”

Sermon

This is the second in a series of occasional sermons about the history of our congregation. We are the direct institutional descendants of three congregations:– First Congregational Society (Unitarian) of New Bedford; First Universalist Church of New Bedford; and North Unitarian Church (Unitarian). 2008 will mark the three hundredth anniversary of the oldest of our three antecedent churches, First Congregational Society, later First Unitarian; in honor of that anniversary, this fall I plan to tell you about several unsung heroes and heroines from all three of our antecedent churches.

In the first sermon in this series, I told the story of John Murray Spear, and I said I consider him to be the most remarkable minister who was ever called to serve in one of these three churches. Well, he may be the most remarkable, but only if he is tied for first place with Maja Capek, minister at North Unitarian Church from 1940 to 1943.

Marie Veruna Oktavec Capek, known as Maja, was born in 1888 and grew up in the city of Chomutov, then in Western Bohemia, now in the Czech Republic. As a young woman, she rejected Catholicism — the religion that had been imposed on her land by an invading army centuries before — and became quite liberal in her religious outlook, though not a member of any specific church. She, with her sister and parents, emigrated to the United States in 1907, graduated from Columbia University’s School of Library Science, and began working in a branch of the New York Public Library. There she met another Czech emigre, Norbert Capek, and though he was 47 and eighteen years older than she, they fell in love and married in 1917. Capek was a Baptist minister at that time — or rather, he was barely a Baptist minister, since he was suspected of liberal tendencies and accused of heresy. As a married couple, he and Maja drifted further into religious liberalism, until at last Norbert left the Baptist ministry, and in 1920 he and Maja joined the Unitarian church in East Orange, New Jersey, where they were then living.

But all this while, Maja and Norbert considered themselves to be only in temporary exile from their true home, and when the new country of Czechoslovakia was formed in the aftermath of the First World War, they longed to return there and start a liberal church. They appealed to the American Unitarian Association, who provided money and moral support, and off they went, back to Prague.

In Prague, Norbert and Maja Capek organized a church that grew from nothing, to some three thousand two hundred full members in twenty short years — and another five thousand Czechs, while not officially members, considered themselves Unitarians. This was the congregation that ordained Maja Capek into the ministry in 1922 [?]. In the late 1930’s, the Prague church headed by the Capeks was the largest Unitarian church in the world.

But larger events would prevent the further growth of Unitarianism in Czechoslovakia. Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia in 1938. In February, 1939, Maja and Norbert decided that Maja should go to the United States, to speak to Unitarian churches across the country and raise funds for relief work in Czechoslovakia. As they said good-bye, both Maja and Norbert knew it could be the final time they saw each other.

Maja went on her lecture tour, and soon it became clear that she would not be able to return to Czechoslovakia during the Nazi occupation. She settled in the north end of New Bedford, where there was a large population of Czechs, Bohemians, and other people who had come from central Europe. And she became a part of North Unitarian Church.

Now I must back up a little bit, and tell you about North Unitarian Church. As we heard in the first reading this morning, Paul Revere Frothingham, the minister at First Unitarian during the 1890’s, and his wife decided to get their church involved in outreach in the greater New Bedford community. Since Unitarians have long been involved in education reform, it is not surprising that the Frothinghams started working with kids: first by creating a girls’ after-school program, then a Sunday school, and then a free kindergarten. They were so successful in their efforts at attracting children, particularly children from the central Europeans who lived in the North End of New Bedford, that it soon became necessary to have a dedicated space for all these children’s programs.

A father of one these children, a recent immigrant who may not have been fluent yet in English, was naturally curious about these programs, and the church that was sponsoring them. Someone had translated Mr. Frothingham’s sermons into his native language, and he said: But this is what I believe about religion! I am a Unitarian! What began as an outreach to children grew to become a liberal religious movement among their parents. And so the Frothinghams and First Unitarian founded Unity Home in rented rooms in the North End, as a religious outreach to religious liberals in the immigrant community there.

Unity Home seems to have begun with a Sunday school, but it was quickly followed in 1895 by a branch of the Women’s Alliance of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Women — the national organization that later became the Women’s Alliance, and still later the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation. Other activities for adults and children followed, and by 1901 First Unitarian built a building for Unity Home. This new building included a chapel, and by 1904 regular religious services were begun, led by a Mr. Brunton, and held under the auspices of First Unitarian. Music was supplied by a talented quartet of singers chosen from the ranks of the Sunday school. A succession of men and women were directors of Unity Home over the next few two decades, some of whom were ministers; at other times, it appears that the minister of First Unitarian led worship services in Unity Home. Finally, on May 8, 1920, the religious community at Unity Home incorporated as a separate congregation. First Unitarian continued to own the building called Unity Home, but the religious congregation which met in Unity Home was officially and legally called North Unitarian Church.

North Unitarian Church had its ups and downs. The church ordained a Mr. Pratt to the Unitarian ministry in 1924, but he soon left. Following his departure, there was a Sunday school but no worship services at North Unitarian from 1924 through 1938. Beginning in 1939, Duncan Howlett, minister here at First Unitarian and arguably the greatest minister at First Unitarian during the 20th C., began working with the people of North Unitarian Church to resume worship services. Howlett found a student minister named Robert Holden to lead services for a year. And then, out of the chaos of the Second World War, North Unitarian Church encountered some amazing good luck; a Unitarian minister named Maja Capek decided to settle in the North End of New Bedford.

Even though Maja Capek must have been worried sick about her husband Norbert, who had been taken into custody by the Gestapo, she managed to help revive North Unitarian Church. Her ministry at North Unitarian lasted from late 1940 through most of 1943. As we heard in the second reading, she did much work with the young people of the church. She introduced the annual Flower Service, an innovation of the Prague Unitarian church that we still observe each year; indeed, the Flower Service or Flower Communion has spread to nearly every Unitarian Universalist congregation in North America.

Maja Capek also re-vitalized North Unitarian as a church, as something more than a community center and a Sunday school, with the result that in 1941 a re-organized North Unitarian could once more affiliate with the American Unitarian Association — which proved to be important because it meant that North Unitarian could draw on the resources of the American Unitarian Association to find a new minister once Maja Capek left. By 1944, Maja Capek was working at the headquarters of the American Unitarian Association in Boston, doing work for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency, helping to provide relief to Europeans ravaged by the Second World War.

I tell you these two interlocking stories — the story of Maja Capek, and the story of North Unitarian Church — because these stories have a great relevance to our church today. By 1971, the membership of North Unitarian Church had gotten so small that it ended its legal existence and merged back into First Unitarian. Sometimes we think of First Unitarian Church as an old New England Yankee church — and no doubt about it, we are an old New England Yankee church — but we also have this amazing history of welcoming recent immigrants into our liberal religious community. Of course, we all know that today, our church is still has some New England Yankees as members, and on any given Sunday morning there might be four or five of us out of forty people present in the worship service. Yet on any given Sunday morning, a fifth of the people present here might have been born in one of six or seven different countries. On any given Sunday, another fifth of the people present here might be the children of immigrants.

The stories of North Unitarian Church and of Maja Capek tell us that you can be a religious liberal regardless of where you were born. Our Unitarian Universalist faith includes people who are Native Americans, and people who immigrated to New England twelve or thirteen generations ago, and people who were born in another country but now live here. Our faith knows no national boundaries, our faith is not specific to a certain people, or a certain language. Fifty years ago, Unitarians promoted a religion founded on reason, a religion that affirmed “the fatherhood of god, the brotherhood of man, the leadership of Jesus of Nazareth, salvation by character, and progress onwards and upwards.” We still welcome anyone who craves a religion founded on reason, a religion that looks upon the universe with awe, that believes that all humanity must learn to work together, that acknowledges the great religious leaders of the past like Jesus, that finds salvation in the improvement of our personal characters, and believes in progress through the work of men and women of good will. Among everything else that we are, we are still a church of immigrants, just as we were in the days of Maja Capek’s ministry here in New Bedford.

And the interlocking stories of Maja Capek and North Unitarian Church have yet another layer of meaning. As a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association, we have covenanted to affirm and promote the principles and purposes of the Association. One of those principles states that we shall affirm and promote “the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.” Although the current wording of this principle only dates back to 1985, nevertheless Unitarians have actively supported world community for centuries. Maja Capek lived out this principle in her life: she was one of the ones who resisted the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, that is, she resisted a military invasion that destabilized all of Europe, a military invasion that threatened to extinguish the flickering light of world community that had begun to shine in the early 20th century. North Unitarian Church also lived out an ideal of world community, right within the walls of the old Unity Home building that once stood on Tallman Street in the north end of New Bedford. No matter what your national origin, you were welcomed into North Unitarian Church.

We have inherited the legacy of North Unitarian Church, and we have inherited the legacy of Maja Capek. Here at First Unitarian Church, we affirm and promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. We hold this goal because we know that all persons, all peoples, in the world have equal rights for peace, liberty, and justice. We stand up against tyrants because tyrants threaten our sacred principle of free inquiry. We stand up against tyrants because tyrants threaten our sacred value of love for all humankind. We remember the legacy of Maja Capek and North Unitarian Church by continuing to welcome all persons, regardless of nationality or citizenship status, into our congregation. We continue the legacy of Maja Capek and North Unitarian Church — and the legacy of both First Unitarian and First Univeersalist — by working in the world towards the goal of world community.

So it is that we continue to honor the memory of Maja Capek — a woman who built up a church here in New Bedford that welcomed immigrants, a woman who stood up against the tyranny of Nazism, an amazing woman who deserves to be remembered by future generations.

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:

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