Pentecost is the day the Holy Spirit came down on all those disciples waiting in Jerusalem. And here’s the amazing part—people from all these different countries, speaking all these different languages, suddenly understood each other. Not because they miraculously learned each other’s languages, but because the Holy Spirit made it so they could understand one another.
And you know what that means? It means Jesus is with us. It means we have the Holy Spirit in our lives. Because that’s what the Holy Spirit does—it makes connection possible. It helps us understand each other even across all our differences.
In our little community here, we’ve had preschool for fifty years. And I keep watching these small faces and thinking about what a difference a good preschool makes. Not just teaching letters and numbers, but helping kids feel loved, seen, known. Helping them know they belong somewhere.
We need more of that. We need spaces where people feel they belong. We need places where differences don’t divide us but where we find that common language—the language of being loved, of being welcome, of being seen as fully human and fully valued.
All right, so here’s what I’m asking: come to preschool graduation. Come see these kids get celebrated. Come be part of a community that says “you matter, you belong, you are loved here.” That’s not a small thing. That’s preschool, that’s church, that’s the Holy Spirit making understanding and connection possible across all the ways we’re different.
A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope