The great 20th century preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick once said that if you entered into a congregation of progressive faith and listened with your heart on a Sunday morning, you could hear the bells of ancient sanctuaries singing out from beneath the waters of all of life's storms and terrors. The bells of hope and power, still ringing. Together, in these times, can we still hear the pealing of those bells beneath the waves of hurt and sorrow?
Join civil rights attorney and poet Sunu P. Chandy as she shares poetry and stories on the blessings of surrender. Sunu is a queer woman of color, senior advisor with the non-profit advocacy group, Democracy Forward and the author of the collection of poetry, My Dear Comrades. She is the daughter of immigrants from Kerala, India and currently lives in DC with her spouse and teen daughter. She has been included as one of the Washington Blade's Queer Women of Washington.
The Flower Ceremony, or Flower Communion, is an annual ritual celebrating beauty, human uniqueness, joy, diversity, and community. The ritual was created in 1923 by Unitarian minister Rev. Norbert Fabian Čapek of Prague and introduced to the United States by his wife, Rev. Mája Čapek. During the service, everyone brings a flower to place in a shared vase. The flowers are blessed by the congregation and ministers, then redistributed so each person takes home a different flower. All are invited to participate, and we will have extra flowers available for anyone who needs one.
Memorial Day is a time to pause to honor those who died in the armed forces, a national observance that began as local expressions of grief for casualties of the Civil War. This service will reflect on reclaiming our gratitude for the lives of those who serve in our name as we mourn the absence of those we lose to death. A ceremony to dedicate new plaques on the Memory Wall in the Memory Garden will be held immediately after the service.
Mother's Day 2025 will, as always, arrive with that forced expectation that children and mothers of all ages set aside the complexity of their real lives and invite Hallmark to remind us of what maternal appreciation would look like if the mothers of America were really doing their job.
