This Summer is Different than the Rest

As I walked in to my apartment following a trip with Our Saviour’s to Holden Village in Washington, I got a weird feeling. Something was not right. I put my bags down right in front of my door, and I stood still.  

Again, I thought something seems so strange. I tried to identify what this strangeness was, but I still felt lost; therefore, I went on with my day, and I took a nap.

Eventually I woke up. But the rest still did not cure this feeling.

I wandered around my small, aging apartment. Everything was in the exact place I left it. This strangeness could not be blamed on a unpleasant smell, since I remembered to take out the trash before leaving, although this was not the case for every trip I took this summer. I found myself getting frustrated as I was finding it more and more difficult to identify what was bothering me.

Again, I walked around my apartment. I pulled open both the shades and curtains on the large floor to ceiling window in the main living space. I looked in the fridge. Opened the closet that is home to the furnance that I find rumbling throughout the night. I even dramatically pulled open my shower curtain to find nothing suspicious.

At this point I wondered if I had gone mad.

It was then that I opened the door to my apartment that has you instantly meeting the outside. It was as the door slammed behind me that I was struck with an ah-ha moment.

This thing that was different, strange and rather uncomfortable was the silence that had been surrounding me since arriving home. I no longer heard the giggle of three-and-a-half year old Ruby on the train or as she was being chased around the Village. And I no longer turned around to five-year-old Anders as he warned me of his next action by proclaiming, ‘poke.’ The conversations on the nature path, the slamming of the doors in our lodge and the sounds of play had disappeared. 

I wanted the noise back. You see, my summer has been filled with noise.

This is not the bad noise like learning your college roommate has a deviated septum or your alarm going off three-hours before you want to get out of bed. It is the good noise — the laughter of elementary age children on the unremitting train ride to Holden Village or hearing the thumping of forty-some students run up the stairs to fill their famished bodies during Day Camp. The noise is the sound of jazz music as we walk back to our hotel in the rain during the ELCA Youth Gathering or the conversation following Shane Claiborne’s presentation one evening in the Superdome. This noise is turning around during worship to catch Lydia whispering camp songs after joining the community at the table for the Great Feast.

These are good sounds.

These are great sounds.

These are the sounds of the Spirit being active and present in the Children, Youth and Family Ministry Collaborative that I serve. I have been challenged many times with the question of what would it look like to leave room for the Spirit to work in the lives of our children, communities and even ourselves. It is easy to create programs, blame statistics, and let our pride get in the way of being vulnerable. But here, this summer, we left room for the Spirit to work.

And for me, I experienced the work of the Spirit through the sounds. The sounds of the Spirit were meant to be heard this summer, even experienced and sometimes left unexplained.

I am ready for fall. And quite possibly more than anything, I am anxious and ready to be surrounded by noise; those noises that have done their part to define my summer.