We live in an 1920s brick home within an upper middle class neighborhood of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Our house offers a lot of character and a lovely front porch, but no air conditioning.

On hot summer afternoons, my boys and I turn west out of our driveway and walk four blocks to the public pool. Here, we glide down the water slide, sit under the shade of a tree, and show off newly practiced flips from the diving board.

The pool is a gift. It cools us off on a hot summer day, but also shortens the distance and widens our experience with communities different from my family. Here, kids and families of various racial, ethnic, linguistic, socio-economic levels, and immigration status play side-by-side, cheering for each other after a great dive or chatting while waiting in line at the snack stand.

Because of its proximity to urban areas and its low entry fee — one dollar! — MLK pool is accessible for many. It becomes a community gathering place; a sacred space. The concept of sacred spaces opens possibilities for finding holy in the ordinary. For me personally, it brings me closer to seeing and understanding God’s kingdom and in more diverse ways. 

With every visit to the pool, God opens me to notice interactions and activities that repair my implicit biases and reform my view of ordinary spaces and places. For instance, multiple times a week there is a summer day camp that visits the pool. Adding 30 kids to the pool in the afternoon makes it busier (and the line for the slide longer) — but it also adds to my positivity and joy. Seeing older Black youth (counselors) play in the pool and interact with younger children delightfully contradicts societal stereotypes of young Black males. Instead I see constructive and supportive engagement and care.

In another common instance, a group of middle school-aged boys huddle together, egging another one to jump until suddenly they simultaneously jump in the pool together creating a giant splash. They are noisy and rambunctious. They are middle-school boys having fun together. Far too often these youth are pushed to a standard reserved for adults. The pool provides a space to freely enjoy each other.

I regularly witness impromptu dance parties. Grown-ups and children unabashedly dance to the music on the pool deck. I marvel at their dance moves. Their joy is contagious.

Ultimately, the pool provides everyone opportunities to interact with others outside of common circles. Last summer, while I sat in my beach chair watching from the shade of the corner tree, my youngest son happily alternated between jumping off the two diving boards. This caught the eye of another boy, who was about his age. They said something and together ran in sync off the boards together twice before both boys went off to do other things. No names exchanged, just a simple interaction between preteen boys sharing the joy of jumping off the diving board. It is these small interactions that encourage camaraderie, celebration, and empathy.

The pool is not perfect. It holds more complexity than water. The MLK Pool sits on the historic red-line of Grand Rapids (Fuller Avenue); a line of separation created through racist systems and racially-coded laws that denied mortgages to Black and Brown folks in the 1900s. The repercussions of these laws and structures are still seen and felt today. 

The pool is not without critique. Before the building was torn down, the bathrooms were not clean or well-supervised. We take limited items to the pool because kids sometimes take what is not theirs. Bikes need to be locked up. Sometimes inappropriate language is used. With each of these aspects, it has given our family the opportunity to talk about the complexity of this space while continuing to show respect to all people.

Going to the pool doesn’t solve racial or socio-economic injustice in Grand Rapids. I am cognizant that sometimes White people do more harm than good when they enter racially and culturally diverse spaces. Going to the pool doesn’t address the overall systems of power that have been historically present in this area. Certainly, there is more to learn and to do. Still, as I learn and grow and intentionally widen my community circle, I continue to glimpse the Kingdom in everyday sacred spaces. I am reminded to stay attuned to the ways God shows us his Kingdom in ordinary ways.

Photo by Lavi Perchik on Unsplash

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