Church was packed yesterday, which was a comfort and felt like a blessing. (In case you’re new here, I’m Unitarian Universalist. I’m currently part of the lay leadership of my congregation.) My 9 year-old asked me if he could go play with a friend on the church grounds – I said yes. I was standing in the coffee hour, watching the crowd and eating delicious food, when he returned. I could feel the excitement coming off of him. He was also soaked.

“Mama,” he said, “We found a waterfall!!!!!!” He also found a shovel, apparently. He wanted to show me both.

Now, the church we attend is on the corner of two main drag urban streets and Buffalo is notoriously flat. I had quite a bit of skepticism that a waterfall had suddenly shown up, but it’s been a weird week. I was wearing my burgundy Dr. Marten Persephone boots (think tall heels), and not super keen on traipsing through the garden in them, but I also felt like I needed to learn exactly what he was talking about. I also didn’t read the weather forecast and didn’t have a rain coat. Well, good thing I’m not a cat.

We leave. He runs, I walk, carefully choosing my steps on the stone path. “Here!!!!” he says. He’s really excited about it.

On the back of the 1906 English Country Gothic limestone building, in our memorial garden where it’s not visible from the street, my son shows me. He stands underneath what is, in fact, falling water. From the slate roof where it meets the gutter, it seems there’s a spot where leaves have clogged the gutter and instead of flowing through, it’s flowing over. It looks exactly like the waterfalls of creeks or streams, the water hugging the stone a bit before becoming air born.

A waterfall.

The kids found a waterfall where the homeowner and lay leader in me found A Problem That Needs to be Solved. He grabbed the shovel and we re-entered the building and found the respective people who needed to know about these things – our church community works because so many people have taken ownership of the place. In the scheme of church puzzles, this one is easy, and it’s going to be taken care of quickly.

I have been reflecting on how the same set of circumstances can land so differently – when I saw this, I recognized trouble: the eroding power of water, the negative impact water can have on buildings, and a strong sense this how precious I consider the church building, and the church’s governance structure of who to talk to. The church feels like home to me, and home is something to take care of. I jumped into line of thoughts of “OK, how do we take care of this?”

But there was the other piece: my children, who are growing up with this stunningly beautiful building and community in their broad scheme of what is home, found something else that makes the place seem a bit more magical and beautiful. In the ways of “both/and”, they weren’t wrong.