Pretty Yellow Flower Day

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
March 27, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Some folks mock theological progressives at Easter, asking what there is to celebrate if you don’t literally believe in the resurrection of Jesus. “What is it,” one wrote, “Pretty Yellow Flower Day?” Listen, you can learn a lot of theology from flowers.

Call to Worship
By Diego Valeri

“You who have an eye for miracles regard the bud now appearing on the bare branch of the fragile young tree. It’s a mere dot, a nothing. But already it’s a flower, already a fruit, already its own death and resurrection.”

Meditation reading
by e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Sermon

The Force that through the green fuse drives the flower

This past week we have watched the news about the terrorists’ attack in Brussels, Belgium. What I want to call your attention to is that people have been laying bouquets of flowers in response. Today I want to talk about those flowers. Why are they beloved by the human spirit? Why do they speak to us at a cellular level? Why are they a moving declaration in the conversation with death and destruction?

Once, long ago, in conversation about how UUs celebrate Easter, someone said, “So, if you all don’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, what do you have, just pretty yellow flower day?” That has stuck with me. I felt shamed at first, as if, by being inspired by the metaphor of resurrection and new life rather than by its literal historical truth, we were somehow weaker in our grounding in the world, but no. There are lots of stories around the world and throughout history of dying and rising gods. Why? It’s a way of talking about the absolute miracle of the dying and rising of the wheat, the corn, the pretty yellow flowers, of life’s return after a period of dormancy, of how the food we count on falls into the ground and seems to die, then grows again and produces what keeps the planet alive. Dying and rising is one of the most basic motions of life on our planet.

Living things are full of the life force, which says “Make more life! Spread your seed! Survive!? Flowers have done that by attracting animals and humans through their beauty, their usefulness, their ability to help with pain, changing consciousness, or forgetting. In early hunting and gathering days, flowers appearing in a place would signal to the gatherers that soon there would appear in that place tubers or fruits, something to eat, and that they should return to that place soon. We are hard-wired, at an evolutionary level, to delight in flowers. Flowers existed long before humans did, though. They started 139 million years ago to figure out a way to spread their DNA, to have offspring, to take over more territory. In order for that to happen, they had to attract pollinators. The flowers which were the most successful with the bees, bats and butterflies had symmetry, scent, and color. When humans came along, we fell in love with their beauty and scent as much as the bats and bees did. The flowers that managed to attract our attention got propagated, fertilized, pampered, given more territory, and even had special environments prepared for them so they could have what they needed. In return for that attention, they gave the beauty that the human soul seems to need.

If thou of fortune be bereft,
and in thy store there be but left
two loaves, sell one, and with the
dole, buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.”

– John Greenleaf Whittier

Some plants attract attention by being good medicine. They produce chemicals that help mammals, so they get eaten when someone has a stomach ache, or they are taken to someone who needs a rash soothed, and they are cared for and valued for their medicinal properties. The cannabis plant is being tended by the best gardeners of our time, who spend energy and money giving the plants everything they need, transporting them, cultivating them, making them stronger, moving them inside when the outside is inhospitable. What more could a plant want, if its drive is to propagate itself and increase its security?

The flower teaches us about the life force, and about death. Dylan Thomas’ poem says:

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

A medieval Christian mystic named Hildegarde of Bingen wrote: ” …the breath of the air makes the earth fruitful. Thus the air is the soul of the earth, moistening it, greening it.” I see it as a green fire burning through all of the connected earth, through the grass, the trees, through us. Watching the Spring I see that greening breath moving up slowly through the stems, sending energy through the tips of the leaves as they uncurl, gathering in what they need from the summer sun.

We grow in cycles like the plants do, I think. Sometimes we are in a winter spirit, where our branches look bare and all our life has gone underground. We are grieving or resting, ill or injured. We look around at those who are in a more summer spirit, lively and open, flourishing and at a peak of productivity, and we might compare ourselves to them and find ourselves wanting.

A spring spirit, I think, has to do with blossoming. When you’re blossoming, that’s a time of big change. I used to have roses by my house that would bloom in the spring and keep blooming through November. I found myself wondering if it hurts to bloom. I know scientifically, that doesn’t make sense, but suspend disbelief for a moment and picture this: if you were a rose, and this were your first time out, would you be having fun being a bud, all curled around yourself, feeling hugged and tight, knowing what’s what? You are soaking up the sun, being gently tossed in warm wind, and suddenly everything starts to loosen up. Your petals are letting go! They are moving apart from one another! Do you try to hold on, try to grab for the edges and keep the changes from happening? Maybe you think to yourself, “I don’t understand this, but maybe it’s what’s supposed to happen.” You allow the once tight petals to move apart. Does it hurt? Does it cause anxiety? Do the buds think they are falling apart or do they know they are blossoming ? The roses seem to accept each stage with grace, but how do we really know that? Maybe we just can’t hear them screaming.

The same green fire that shoots up the stem of a rose and causes it to bloom also drives the petals to open so far that they fall to the ground. The rose hip swells and turns red and bursts open, releasing the seeds of future roses, which have to lie under the ground for a while before rising green again and starting the whole cycle over. Is it any wonder that we tell stories of blossoming, growing wise, spreading our seeds, our deeds, our words, our offspring, then falling to the ground to lie still for a time before rising again? We see the mystery all around us. Spirits winter, spirits bloom. The same green fire drives it all, the Spirit of Life to which we as UUs sing praises. What is more worthy of worship than this?

What is a more worthwhile use of life than this, to become as peaceful as we can with all the phases of the mystery. What is more spiritual than to come to a place of reverence and acceptance of the force driving us through life’s cycles of seed time, through budding, blossoming through the fruit, fruit falling to release the seed?

Life and death weave together in this Easter holiday.

I was thinking about death and greening one weekend camping with my friends. We were nestled in a clearing on a Carolina mountain side. Most of the folks were around the campfire, talking or dozing. Our chef was in the cooking tent grilling and gossiping with his fiance and a couple of others. He wasn’t wearing his high heels that day, but he does sometimes, only on camping weekends. I love those people, and they love me. Being surrounded by love is one fine way to spend your time. I wandered off to the hammock, and lay there looking up at the sky through early April leaves. I was soaked with light, the blue of the sky, the green of young leaves, the sun shining through them like stained glass. I thought, “When I die, I want to have my ashes buried under this tree, so that for one spring after another my body can be part of this particular green.” I could feel my life flowing through the cells of a leaf, feel the leaf opening to the warmth and the light, feel myself part of that green, and I was happy. If that is my afterlife, I will be deeply happy.

The hope of that afterlife doesn’t take any leap of faith. I know it can happen. The minerals and the water in my body can be soaked up through the roots of that tree. A part of my body will be unfurling, green in the sun. My soul may be somewhere else. Sometimes I think my soul will float in an ocean of love. Will I recognize old friends, family who have gone on ahead? I don’t know. I think I will know they are there. I will know this: there is not now nor was there ever any separation between us. I will know that they were with me as strongly when I was alive as when I’m part of the leaves. The green of a new leaf, lit from behind with the spring sun — that color stays inside me, a glowing place of peace, the certainty of remaining part of life. During a memorial service I see that green, I feel that peace.

I’m going to close with a poem by my friend Mary Feagan.

Beauty First

Listen. I learned something this morning.
Fruit comes from flowers. Do you get it?
See, results come from joy and beauty first.
You don’t hammer seeds in the ground
and wait for breakfast.

The important step is in between.

You graciously plant ten seeds or a thousand.
Then the seeds, so quietly and invisibly,
in comfort and heat, drowning and dryness,
well, the seeds either die or open up. And
if they open up, mind you, if in their own time
they graciously come up for you,
what do they do first?

They bloom!

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