Empty Pools and Water Dreams

Lent Reflection #6: Psalm 126

Last Friday, Ruby and I took a slow ride to a park, searching for the perfect place to walk and reflect. We found it. While Ruby stopped to sniff every blade of grass and patch of dirt, I had plenty of time to think about this week’s psalm.

Ruby loves Friday Field Trips!

Psalm 126 bursts with beautiful imagery. Fortunes restored. Dreams realized. Watercourses filling in the desert. The gifts and opportunities, lessons and challenges that each season of life brings. This psalm begins with people who had once been captives remembering how God restored them. How restoration was like a dream come true.

As Ruby pulled the leash, I noticed a wondrous playground in front of us. Not just any playground, but a water park. That heavenly place where the joy of pools meets the happiness of slides; where songs of water splattering blend with choruses of children splashing.

I was just a toddler when I began weekly water classes at a high school in Flint. This indoor pool was open all year round. I loved it. And there was another oasis I once loved even more. On the south side of the city, there was an outdoor park with a large pool. Open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It had two diving boards AND a high dive. It was a special treat to swim here on hot summer days. There was a 7-Eleven across the street, where a Slurpee sweetened the trip home.

Floating, swimming, bouncing around the pool, and launching myself off the diving board wasn’t only fun, it was also restoration. A dream come true. No matter what was happening around me, the pool was a reminder that however bad things got, they could get better.

The first half of Psalm 126 has a similar message. The people are remembering how bad things were and how their fortunes were restored. The second half of the psalm shifts from the past to the present. No longer about what God has done, but what the people are asking God to do now. After some period of health, wholeness, and prosperity, the people are once again in need. Seeking. Searching. Dreaming.

Restore us (again) God, like watercourses in the Negev.

The Negev Desert is an expansive region in southern Israel, covering more than half of the total land area of the country. The Hebrew Scriptures name the Negev a place where God provided water and manna for God’s people. This dry place plays a role in the journeys of folks like Sarah and Abraham, Miriam and Moses, and Solomon. It is where John the Baptist preached repentance and told us to prepare for a new way. Today, the area continues to be home to Bedouins who have lived here for centuries, even as it has seen new developments and settlements.

Due to its geographic location, the desert is not completely void of rainfall. The mountain areas surrounding this vast wilderness receive significant rainfall during annual rainy seasons. As the mountain soil cannot absorb all the water, it flows into the Negev.

Wadis are dry riverbeds found in desert regions of the world formed by the waters that rush in after a heavy rains. These watercourses are nourishing and dangerous. Mysterious and miraculous. For psalmists and poets and preachers, wadis are a source of creative inspiration.

When I saw the waterpark behind the fence, I imagined the Negev. I pictured dry riverbeds transforming into flowing watercourses. If you haven’t had relief from the desert heat in a year or dipped your feet into a stream since last season, a wadi would be a dream come true. The cool current would feel like restoration.

Pondering the empty pool, I remembered dry and barren, flooded and hydrated seasons of my life. I remembered the pools of my childhood and youth. The high school pool where I first learned to trust water, to breathe, and to float is abandoned. That outdoor pool where I spent hot summer days is not only closed, but filled in and paved over.

There was a time when Flint Community Schools were a model for the country. Known not only for education, but for after school programs, arts and recreation for people of all ages. There were several community pools that families like mine visited often. As the autoworkers were laid off and more and more people left the city, pools and schools suffered.

I walked around the fence wanting to see the empty pool from all possible angles. Grateful for the ways water has shaped my life and steered my journey. My love for water began in a pool. Pools are where I first learned to appreciate and embrace my body. I could do things in pools I could never do on land. Handstands, cartwheels, flips. Pools are where I floated my way to imagination; where I experienced the exhilaration of successfully swimming an entire lap underwater; where I developed the patience to conquer a new stroke; and where I summoned the courage to face once paralyzing fears. If it weren’t for lessons in the pool, I would never have cultivated the skills to navigate rivers, lakes, and oceans.

While some would say access to a community pool is a luxury or privilege, for me it was a lifeline. And for so many children and families today lifelines are being cut.

An empty pool holds a million dreams. Dreams that came true. Dreams that went unheard. Dreams that still come to me. Dreams that are still forming. Dreams that look like prayers and sound like pleas. Dreams that wake me to the reality that restoration is not simply divine work.

We cannot destroy the earth and cry out for God to replenish it.

We cannot cut programs that feed our children and house our elders and plead with God to end hunger and homelessness.

We cannot cancel healthcare and beg God to make us healthy again.

We cannot dismantle public education and ask God to improve test scores.

We cannot applaud parents who disown their queer and trans children and implore God to save the family.

We cannot erase history and disenfranchise voters and beseech God to strengthen democracy.

We cannot drain all the pools and insist God turn on some eternal fountain to fill them when living gets too hot.

We cannot pave them over and summon God to rebuild them when we need a place to cool down.

Well, we can, but this won’t restore us. Is restoration truly even our goal? The news cycle suggests it is not. This week I am overwhelmed by the news of tariffs’ impact on the economy. I hear personal cries for restored fortunes, but nothing about restoration of an economy that benefits us all. I hear chants of hands off, but so few voices calling for an end to the violence that continues to push the people of Gaza off the map and immigrants with shackled hands onto planes and into foreign prisons.

A few years ago, a dear friend introduced me to Tikkun Olam, a Hebrew phrase meaning “repairing the world” and a core concept of her Jewish faith. This repair is not merely about individual acts of kindness or charity, but is deeply grounded in a collective effort to bring forth systemic change and a just and equitable world.

As I continue wandering this Lent, I am amazed and awed, challenged and changed by the watercourses of my journey. Some expected. Others a surprise. Some void. Others filled. All flowing with wisdom. Lessons. Memories. Doubts. Certainties. Griefs. Blessings. Connections. Possibilities. Dreams.

Dreams of days gone by. Dreams of days to come. Dreams of empty pools. Dreams of a restored world where children fill watercourses with garden hoses and their grandmothers’ flower cans. Where youth are safe to play and free to explore. Where we all learn to love ourselves, our neighbors, and creation. Where we study and value history. Where we practice laughing and singing. Where joy has no height requirements or age restrictions.

Restore my spirit God, that my words might be like a watercourse in a wilderness world.

What does restoration mean to you? What dreams do you have for the world in this season of empty pools? How are you working to make these dreams come true?

Water-fully Yours,
Rebecca & 10Camels

April is National Poetry Month and to celebrate we have two Friday Field Trips on the calendar. This Friday, April 11th we are heading to the ballpark for a poem inspired by baseball. On Friday, April 18th we’ll continue the journey with a Holy Week poem about a tender experience washing feet.

Friday Field Trips are a second serving of words and water for paid subscribers to Wednesdays at the Well. Save your seat and support this work for as little as $5 a month.