rivka

On Sunday,

curiousangel and I went to church and then to a cookout for our Unitarian Young Adults group. (The UUA defines "young adults" as people aged 21-35; our group has a couple of people in their late 30s as well.)

The church service included something called "flower communion." Everyone was asked to bring a flower or two to church, and ushers gave out additional flowers at the door to people who didn't have any. Early in the service, we brought our flowers forward and placed them in vases at the front. At the end of the service, we went forward again and chose a different flower to take home.

According to a UUA website,

The significance of the flower communion is that as no two flowers are alike, so no two people are alike, yet each has a contribution to make. Together the different flowers form a beautiful bouquet. Our common bouquet would not be the same without the unique addition of each individual flower, and thus it is with our church community, it would not be the same without each and every one of us. Thus this service is a statement of our community.

By exchanging flowers, we show our willingness to walk together in our Search for truth, disregarding all that might divide us. Each person takes home a flower brought by someone else - thus symbolizing our shared celebration in community.

It sounds kind of... hokey, I guess, written down like this. But the ceremony was surprisingly moving, and all of the disparate flowers looked beautiful massed together in vases.

The cookout was at Patapsco Valley State Park, an enormous park curving along the west side of Baltimore. Our picnic area was half shaded and half in sun, on the edge of a large field for games, close by the woods. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, veggie burgers and tofu pups, ate chips and salsa and pasta salads and carrot sticks and white chocolate lemon bars, drank iced tea and water and hard lemonade and beer. Played horseshoes, played catch, worked on the Sunday crossword puzzle, hiked down a steep woodland trail to a stretch of rapids in the Patapsco River, waded in the water, basked in the sun. The more adventurous or less fully dressed among us, of which

curiousangel was one, climbed up and down the rapids and went swimming. He also played frisbee for hours, coming home with bruises on his catching hand. Poor guy.

About thirty-five people from a half-dozen different Unitarian churches stopped by over the course of the afternoon. I only knew a handful - the ones from our church - and some aspects of the situation definitely triggered my social anxiety. When I was in church high school youth groups, I always felt myself on the edge - worried about not fitting in, intimidated by the cool kids, on the fringes of activities, worried about sounding too sincere about religion. The cookout had enough echoes of former youth group activities that I was sort of on my guard...

But you know, either Unitarians don't act that way, or adults don't act that way, or I've grown up a lot in how I approach social groups. I kept waiting for the moment I'd feel rejected, and it never came. There was one hilarious moment as we sat at a picnic table, discussing the prospect of getting up to play games. "I was always chosen last, for teams," someone said. "Me too," said the next person, and everyone else chimed in. "Was anyone at this table ever chosen first for games?" I asked. No one was, or at least, no one admitted it. Another Unitarian formative experience, I guess.

And indeed: I played horseshoes poorly. Everyone laughed, but they laughed with me - and encouraged me. "Keep trying, you went further that time." "Hey, it takes practice. You're doing fine - try [instruction]." I waded in the water towards a group of people I mostly didn't know, and they called to me and held out their hands. And the conversations were great.

It was a really good day. Hard at the end, because the frisbee players dragged on much later than I'd wanted to stay, but an excellent thing overall. And good counterevidence with which to battle my social anxiety. A good day indeed.