Dandelion Faith
“A weed is a plant whose virtues we have yet to discover”
This talk is part of a series of reflections on UU Identity: what defines as a tradition and a tribe. It is unusual in that it draws most of its inspiration from American Transcendentalists like Thoreau and Emerson who found something revelatory in the wild side of Nature.
It is also unusual in that it treats imagination as a primary source for building a world-view. It is more a poem than an argument.
Thought Experiment: What plant or flower most fully embodies or represents our Unitarian Universalist faith?
Roses are very dramatic but they've been spoken for.
Red roses express passionate love, romantic love or the passion drama of Christ nailed to a cross his red blood turning to red rose petals as it fell to earth a crown of thorns echoing the roses’ thorns. White roses express a more chaste love an emblem of Virgin Mary the pure alabaster temple in which Christ was born.
So roses have been taken.
The Lotus or water-lily has also been spoken for, rooted in the muddy sediment of human suffering rising towards the Sun that illumines a tranquil pond—in this world but not sullied by this world—opening heart & minds to the clear light of our True Nature. The Lotus or water-lily has already been chosen by Buddhists everywhere those who practice the slow or sudden art of Awakening.
I have heard several other lovely possibilities some of which might appear in our community gardens or yards this year: stinging nettle, skunk root, zinnias, daisies, grass, hemp, sage, or sweetgrass….
What plant or flower do you imagine representing our Unitarian Universalist tradition?
But for me, the living emblem of our faith is the lowly and prolific Dandelion!
It's a common flower or weed depending on your point of view. The flowers themselves are transient not especially fragrant. The seeds innumerable and light the roots virtually invincible and they keep coming back relentlessly without end. And the flowers turn orderly and chaste suburban lawns into riots of gold and green and yellow— call it Glow Ball! Canker root! Lion's tooth! Call it Priest's crown! Swine's snout! Wild Endive!
Its flowers can make a delightful wine, golden and summery sure to warm the heart, delight the palate and soothe a troubled mind—gold & green sweet Jesus come back to comfort us one cup at a time. Its leaves harvested young make bitter greens to grace a salad and a tonic to tone the liver. The roots, turned to tincture or tea become a powerful healing elixir that stimulates urination, and maybe even wards off rheumatism, gout, bruises, diabetes, heartburn, high blood pressure, some forms of cancer and even creeping conservatism.
Oh, Dandelion!
Maligned by lawn fanatics, control freaks, and architects of suburban ghettos but treasured by children and francophiles, herbalists and Taoists who braid you into love charms and crowns or blow your seeds on the winds of spirit.
Beloved Dandelion!
You are doggedly persistent, pungent as mustard, and twice as aggravating. Your seed numerous as the stars in a small way: as many as 188,000 seeds per puff as many square feet as a really big Walmart but more humane and frugal by far.
“Though you lack perhaps the high drama of the rose or the serene elegance of the lotus, consider your golden persistence! Your artless economy!”
Though you lack perhaps the high drama of the rose or the serene elegance of the lotus consider your golden persistence! Your artless economy! The way you entrust yourself to the winds of change whether Martha Stewart or Jehovah like it or not. And you keep in your golden heart and green flesh the first commandment which is not worrying about who to worship or not wondering what to covet or not but BE fruitful and you multiply!
AND YOU DO!
You are profligate and unashamed thriving beyond the binary logic of Adam and Eve. You are post-gendered and probably post-modern self-pollinating just like the Great Mystery but more modest, down to earth, and grounded faithful companions to your neighbors drawing nutrients up with deep roots while enriching and sometimes purifying the common ground entrusted to our care.
May our universal faith be as fruitful as these tiny golden flowers and as doggedly persistent as dandelion roots enduring and medicinal as a dandelion tonic as sweet and sultry as dandelion wine. May we be carried along on the wind of earth, spirit, or internet to verdant lawns everywhere to hearts and minds yearning to be free proclaiming the inherent worth and dignity and lively interdependence of Lion's tooth! Priests crown! Wild Endive!
O Dandelion:
Unitarian Universalism incarnate in the green leafy interdependent and possibly perma-culture web of universal life. And may you, just like Jesus and Jehovah instructed: be fruitful and multiply yourselves 10, 20, 100-fold a free and responsible faith that will not be contained, blighted or fenced in forever and ever joyful sharing your bounty without end.
Amen and Blessed Be
©2020 Rev. Ted Tollefson
Video Recording
Part One:
Part Two:
