Sunflowers. El girasol in Spanish; in Lipan Apache, indigenous to our area: Sheine lende. Yo howdy, we have an abundance of sunflowers once again – cultivated, corralled by curbs and cultivated where color and space called.
We have entered a time when many are beginning again to celebrate our journey towards a more perfect union. The collaborations of a diversity of people seeking equity and inclusion for themselves at the table of Grace. Celebrations of individuals participating in practicing the Golden Rule of Jesus of Nazareth, “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets”.
There are now growing monthly gatherings of our neighbors on the front steps and lawn of our State Capitol. From the front steps of our church the cadence of the speeches and the cheers of the crowd can be heard. It is exciting. Twelfth Street is a major route for our physical neighbors to walk – as a parade with signs and costumes, enthusiasm and joy.
Last month, on our Be Prepared Porch and Patio that opens onto this parade route, some of our congregation – with our Pastor Layne and members of clergy from area churches gathered to participate. Several garden volunteers joined at the patio, but stayed beside the parade giving away literally hundreds of single sunflower blooms to passersby.
Those who accepted did so with the joy they were given. Some remembered FlowerPower of the 60’s, including a daisy in the barrel of a gun (the Texas National Guard had been ordered to be standing ready). Two of the speakers told me they were happy to see so many sunflowers among the 25,000 participants. (Nearby residents clearly had an advantage finding front positions in the crowd that grew from across our community.) It was so much fun – but a lot of running work to keep our sunflower supply full. We did run out of sunflowers, but not engagement with folks both heading on and coming home. Many people heading home shared time to learn about Disciples of Christ and to walk about our gardens.
It is telling in so many ways that so many people would not accept even the gift of a sunflower from a Christian church. The perversions of the teachings of Jesus by so many churches under the umbrella of religions claiming His name have for decades now alienated growing numbers from every congregation claiming to be “Christian”. Centuries of abuse, oppression and exclusion by religions claiming to be “Christian” continue, as does the hypocrisy that so many “Christian” churches accept and tolerate the tenets of so many other “Christian doctrines” under the guise of a fictitious unity of belief in Jesus Christ. These things continue to make the concept of a “Christian” religion irrelevant and corrosive of a more perfect union within all of Creation.
There will be a Capitol gathering on the Fourth, and another on a mid-July Saturday. Please consider coming down and sitting round the patio table and chairs and share some sunflowers and fellowship with our neighbors. I enjoy participating as “crowd adjacent”, giving away sunflowers and water offered by our congregation of disciples of Christ.
“Fear not the “Christian” in our name; we practice the Golden Rule of Jesus” is frequently an appropriate greeting. The Patio is in the shade by the time the parade is going by. Come on down, help our Central Christian Church to be a gift to the street, help introduce our congregation. “In faith, unity; in opinion, liberty; in all things; Love.”
Be well share joy.
Phil