A Word of Thanks to our Flower Committee

Every Sunday at this church we get to see a unique, original work of art. Each Sunday a new sculpture created for all to see who attend our worship services. Of course, I am speaking of the flowers that appear on this table each week. They are the product of our church's Flower committee. Like all works of creativity, it takes hard work to produce these wonderful sculptures. I ask members of the Flower committee what motivated their commitment to flowers. Ellen Thompson wrote to me:

As long as I can remember, my parents planted flowers in the garden and we had bouquets in the house during spring, summer, and fall. My father especially enjoyed finding unusual flowering bushes and trees. On my first trip to Europe in 1955, the beautiful flower beds and window boxes, even on office buildings, deeply impressed me.

My sister and all four brothers have developed an interest in flowers and plants -- not in arranging them but in growing them to enjoy. Two of the granddaughters have manifested special interest in flowers -- one working in a flower shop and one in a nursery to earn money during college.

I have always admired the flower arrangements at Cedar Lane as they were so different from the stiff basket arrangements that I was used to in churches. It was intriguing to see that a small number of blossoms could become a striking arrangement. So I finally worked up nerve enough to ask to join the Flower committee to learn how to do it. Then I took classes -- first in Spring B and then with a trained Ikebana teacher. I like making an arrangement that pleases me and that others seem to enjoy, too.

Ellen Thompson's statement that the flower arrangements at Cedar Lane different from the stiff basket arrangements in other churches, is true. Our flower arrangements often follow a Japanese style of flower arranging. Fourteen hundred years ago, Chinese Buddhist missionaries, who had developed a formalized ritual of offering flowers to the Buddha, introduced their approach to the Japanese. Out of this Buddhist religious tradition Ikebana developed. It is based on a harmony of simple linear construction and an appreciation of the subtle beauty of flowers and natural material. Sarah Reese writes:

In the floral art of Japan flowers are handled and arranged in a way that glorifies nature. Many flower committee members have studied some Ikebana and I think they approach the arranging of the flowers for a Sunday morning service in a religious attitude.

We live in a wooded area and most of our acre lot is left in the natural state. In the spring several small wild flowers pop up and these small blossoms give me much pleasure. My favorite bouquet is one of common summer wild flowers -- Queen Anne's lace, black eyed susans, golden rod, wild grasses and whatever can be found to add to it.

Oriole Saah says that for her creating flower displays began in college. She wrote to me:

I don't really think too much about flowers, except that it is my way of making a small contribution to the congregation.

I worked in a flower shop for a summer during college. I don't know what made me think that gave me enough skill to do my own wedding flowers (I guess I just didn't know any better), but I pulled it off and they were beautiful. Since then I've done flowers in silk for the weddings of some of my friends, and given them as my wedding gift. It makes them happy. It makes me feel good to contribute something that will live on in their memories and their photographs.

Flower committee members have many reasons why they work so hard to create beautiful flowers for our Sunday services. Joyce Collier wrote:

I love flowers for their all too short-lived beauty and their fabulous variety of shape and color. I rejoice as they bloom, and I morn as they fade and droop. I think my favorite is the beautiful little snow drop though really any flower in bloom is a joy.

And Lois Delaha writes:

Flowers, planting, and growing, arranging them are all meaningful experiences for me, mostly religious. The beauty of flowers is a necessity to my happiness.

I have a plant light in my recreation room so I can enjoy flowers all seasons. During those bleak winter days I have my flowers and plants.

My husband Ed shared my love for roses and shared my interest in flower planting, but not arranging. He would leave that to "the talented one" as he called me.

The most inspiring time for me was January 1997. I do memorial flowers for my husband in January and I keep up the tradition of different colors of roses that he loved. Sharon Boyer was ushering and told me, when I arrived at church, that one of my favorite singers in the choir was singing "The Rose." The service was wonderful, the music was inspiration and the flowers were almost my best.

Other persons on the Flower committee got involved after an experience of loss. One Flower committee member wrote to me:

I started arranging flowers because of a death in our family. Our third and youngest daughter passed away three days before her fifth birthday from leukemia. I had a deep need to have a living memorial for her--and thanks to the Flower committee at Cedar Lane, I had that chance.

The final word belongs to Doris Keyes. Doris wrote:

Dear Roger,

Thank you for your letter of May 12. I am sure that all of the Flower committee members who are in town will be present and are very pleased to be shown appreciation. However, believe it or not, the enjoyment that each of us gets from having worked with flowers is quite enough appreciation.

Here are some of the adjectives I think of when I am flower arranging:

Challenging

Demanding

Calming

Therapeutic

Spirit lifting

Exciting

Exacting

Frustrating

Perplexing

Rewarding

Fulfilling

In working with flowers there is no end to learning. Flowers have a will of their own and you find you frequently end up being the servant and they are the master. Still, to bring a sense of harmony out of all those unrelated objects is your personal reward.

I have been working with flowers since 1957 and still feel like a novice.

In a mechanized, computerized, and technological society, I sing the praises of flowers. In the May, with the miracle of growth, the exhilaration of bloom, the excitement of color, the fulfillment of ripening -- it is good to turn our eyes to the delights of the natural world. We forget the machinery for a moment, and enjoy the smell, the feel, the shape and the color of a rose or a carnation or a tulip.

A committee of creative people has made flowers a part of our worship at this church for many years. Each week I say a silent thank you to them. Today I invite them to stand and say their names. So that we can all show our appreciation for their work.

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
9601 Cedar Lane, Bethesda, Maryland 20814-4099
Tel: 301-493-8300    Fax: 301-897-5713
e-mail: office@CedarLane.org
Sunday Services at 9 and 11 a.m.
© 1998-2008, Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
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