Poolside prophecy

By Meghan Olsen Biebighauser

Here we are! This is the week when we transition from our school year schedules and routines to our summer lives. For families like mine, with two kids in school and daycare and a spouse who teaches high school, this is a big change in routine and structure for all of us. School ends on Friday, Sunday school is over for the summer (but worship continues!), and graduation celebrations abound.

As I write this, my kids are out swimming for the second time this weekend, wet swimsuits hang in both bathrooms of the house, there’s a pile of sandals by the front door, the list of yard work chores gets longer by the day (basically taunting us at this point), and we had to make an emergency run for more sunscreen.

Summer in this city is magical and we totally deserve it after the winter we endured. After weather that more or less required us to be inside, cut off from even our closest neighbors, aside from the occasional wave of a mitten-ed hand when you both find yourselves shoveling out your car before dawn, now is the time to re-connect.

The opportunities now are endless: street festivals, cultural celebrations, food trucks, visiting the lakes, cycling everywhere, wading pools, playgrounds — so many opportunities to be out in the neighborhood.

 

FOR OUR FAMILY, LIVING here in the Powderhorn neighborhood, being out in the community means meeting folks from all over the world who also call this neighborhood home. Last night my spouse and I sat on the edge of the wading pool watching our kids play in the crowded water. There were easily four or five different languages being spoken by the families at the pool. (Our kids were definitely the monolingual minority.)

But as we watched all of our kids play together, you’d never know that language could be a barrier. The kids greeted one another when new families arrived, and moved seamlessly from silly made-up game to silly made-up game.  One minute they were swim racing (I mean, as well as you can in two feet of water), then a handstand competition followed by a biggest splash contest. They did it all.

“As we watched all of our kids play together, you’d never know that language could be a barrier.”

I can only imagine what it felt like to be present at Pentecost, the miraculous day that the church was born and barriers of language were torn down as the Holy Spirit became unleashed in the world. But, in moments like yesterday evening by the pool, it feels like a glimpse of Pentecost. Our sons and daughters and children are prophesying.

I hope you catch plenty of glimpses of the Holy Spirit running wild in the world as you’re out in your neighborhood this summer.