Our children and grandchildren live in the four corners of the United States. In the summer of 2020, in a hedge against COVID-induced family separation, we bought a used red truck and our own pull-behind motel room with a queen bed, kitchen, bathroom, and shower. But when COVID-19 cases rose sharply, we canceled our plan to meet our family outside Yellowstone National Park. We opted instead for a three-day trip to an Ojibway-run campground on the shimmering waters of the lake the Ojibway call Gichi-gami (Lake Superior).

On our last evening, some new families had arrived. We sat in our old blue canvas folding chairs; as campfires lit the twilight, the lake turned its evening colors. At one picnic table, a group of teenagers played cards. In the center of the knoll, young girls turned cartwheels on gymnastic mats. Their mothers, some in hijabs, others bareheaded, watched and chatted. The beauty of their vacation soothed our souls.

We quip, “Out of the mouths of babes” when a child says something precocious. Yet the context implies that strength is derived from children when those around them are threatened. My colleague Judith Newman reminds me that Hebrew poetry is ambiguous. Quoting Robert Alter, she says the most innocent and vulnerable of children provide “a source of strength” against the “inhuman forces of chaos,” no doubt bringing a smile to the face of God! Certainly, these children, teenagers, and their parents witnessed to this profound possibility in a summer we spent discerning an invisible but vicious threat.