Make the World More Beautiful
This short homily was written for the annual Flower Celebration, a Unitarian Universalist ceremony of beauty and diversity. It picks up on themes from Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney, the Time for All Ages story for that day. This homily was delivered to the UUs of Fallston on June 5, 2011.
- - - - - - -
Miss Rumphius invites us to “make the world more beautiful.” I believe we will. Like little Alice, I think we have already committed to do that. We are already on the path to “do something to make the world more beautiful.” Like Alice, “I do not know yet what that can be.” To me, this is the mark of a spiritual quest. Inspiration calls, and we rise up to answer without knowing how the story ends. There are no guarantees. The search itself is meaningful.
As individuals and as a congregation, I don’t know what we’ll discover in the future as we continue to make the world more beautiful. Miss Rumphius suggests some ways to figure it out.
In the book, Alice Rumphius reaches out with an open heart, putting herself into unfamiliar places. She moves to a city far away from her childhood, she travels around the world, and she retires by the sea. “And everywhere she made friends she would never forget.” For those of us who aren’t world travelers, I think there is still something to be said for stretching beyond our comfort zones. Alice Rumphius spread the beauty of literature and friendship before she ever opened a packet of seeds. She had to be willing to meet other people where they were, to step beyond what she knew. Reaching out is the first suggestion for finding a way to make the world more beautiful.
Throughout the book, the narrator and the main character invoke a sense of being present, noticing the smell, feel, and sight of that moment. As a child, she notices the “bristling masts of tall ships.” In the conservatory as a young adult, “the warm moist air wrapped itself around her, and the smell of jasmine filled her nose.” Resting in her room during an illness, she took satisfaction in the lupines she could see from her window, which had “bloomed in spite of the stony ground.” Wherever we are, opening our senses to whatever goodness or beauty we can find in the few square feet around us can lead us forward on our quest.
Finally, Miss Rumphius’ breakthrough discoveries come when she listens to inspiration, embracing beauty beyond reason. The surprising sight of lupines on the other side of the hill inspires her to order five bushels of flower seeds. Historically, a bushel was 8 dry-measure gallons. What fabulous abundance! Her neighbors are confused by this unexpected behavior. Their comments don’t seem to deter Miss Rumphius at all from her mission of lavish generosity.
Reach out. Be present. Listen to inspiration.
The flower celebration teaches some of these same lessons. Like those of us who gather in UU congregations, the flowers in our ritual come from different places. Each one of us blossoms under different circumstances. Together, we are a riotous bouquet. Putting ourselves and our flowers in new settings brings out surprising contrasts and conversations. The celebration calls us to reach out.
The flowers together command attention, bringing us into appreciation for this moment. The fragrant air we breathe together, the glory of this morning, and the feeling of this floor beneath our feet call us to find common ground in the beauty we share right now. Be present.
The story of the flower communion begins with Norbert and Maja Capek’s inspiration in 1923, while they were leading the Czech Unitarians. They were looking for some way to add spirituality to the Sunday services enjoyed by their diverse congregation, people who hungered for meaning but resisted the trappings of religious dogma from the past. Maja shared the ritual with American congregations beginning in 1940. The Capeks’ ability to trust inspiration has led to generations of abundant celebration, vases overflowing with color from Prague to Providence, from Philadelphia to Palo Alto. Every year, I imagine ahead of time what the flowers might look like on the chancel, and every year I am proved wrong by beauty and generosity that ignores the limits of expectation. Listen to inspiration.
If we commit to making the world more beautiful together, who knows where these three practices might lead. We reach out by putting ourselves in unfamiliar places, being brave enough to not be experts. Our Social Action and Circle of Hope activities already give us chances to do that. In addition, we might find ways to make the world more beautiful when we learn more about our ecosystem or about the international community of Unitarian Universalists. We can also reach out with what we already know, by sharing the skills we already have such as music and respectful dialogue. Reach out to make the world more beautiful.
When we are truly present to each other here and to our larger community, we might find ways to make the world more beautiful through compassion. Paying attention to someone else’s story means opening ourselves up to the inconvenience of being fully human. Being present sometimes leads to creativity: a handmade greeting card to say someone is in our thoughts, a casserole, a tangible project that improves the neighborhood. Be present to make the world more beautiful.
Listen to inspiration. Realize that sometimes inspiration leads us to try things that sidestep our expectations. As Unitarian Universalists, we share a passionate, radical love for this world and for the potential of the human beings in it. Let’s dream of the possible places where that love may take us. Listen to inspiration to make the world more beautiful.
So be it. Blessed be. Amen.
