Every summer for the past six years, I’ve made a northwest migration — trading the political pulse of Washington, D.C., for the cool breezes of Lake Michigan’s eastern shore. I load six or seven of my younger children into the car and head to my hometown of Holland, Michigan, where my parents, now in their eighties, still live in the same house a short walk from the lake.
Holland wears its history on its sleeve. Founded in 1847 by Dutch immigrants seeking religious freedom, it remains a place shaped by its Christian Reformed tradition. The strict Christian ethic — not even washing your car on Sundays was acceptable — has softened a bit, as has the tongue-in-cheek mantra, “If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.”
As a Catholic, I felt a bit like a spiritual foreigner growing up here. One of Holland’s two Catholic parishes, St. Francis de Sales, was named after the saint known for confronting Calvinism — an appropriately bold nod in this corner of West Michigan. But when the St. Francis church burned down a few years ago, it was the nearby Reformed church that reached out to offer their sanctuary for the celebration of Mass until our parish was rebuilt. It was an ecumenical generosity that still moves me.
Hope College, the town’s historic centerpiece, was originally founded to serve Christian Reformed students. Now it boasts a vibrant Catholic community, offering the campus chapel for Mass and adoration. The Catholic campus minister is a young Dominican priest whose joyful love of the faith draws Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
The town itself has aged gracefully. Downtown Holland bustles in summer, with a snowmelt system under the streets that keeps sidewalks ice-free in winter and charmingly strollable in July. One evening a week, the town hosts street performers, and I’ve never seen so many blonde, guitar-playing twenty-somethings singing Taylor Swift with such conviction. It’s delightful, if slightly uncanny.
Community investment is a hallmark here. One visionary businessman and his wife transformed the abandoned public middle school building into a thriving senior center where widows, empty-nesters, and retirees can swim, dance, carve wood, and eat soup in the cafeteria at large round tables designed for conversation. I sometimes think we should all be so lucky in our golden years.
Our summers follow a gentle rhythm. Often, I walk with my dear friend Rebecca. She and her husband Steve are devout Evangelicals, raising six children, the youngest adopted from China. We talk about parenting, faith, and the humbling reality of our aging bodies and minds.
My other friendships in Holland are rooted in shared school memories. Troy and Monique — high school sweethearts who recently celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary — embody the best of this town. Troy’s early years were marked by hardship. Kicked out of his home by an abusive stepfather before graduating high school, Troy worked tirelessly to cover the cost of college. Today, he oversees multiple factories for a large corporation headquartered in the region. Monique, a pediatric oncology nurse and former college cheerleader, is just under five feet tall, cute as a pin, and somehow hasn’t aged in two decades. She showers my teen daughters with beauty tips and gently used clothing.
Years ago, during the Las Vegas mass shooting, Troy used his EMT training to save a fellow concert-goer’s life. The trauma lingers in Troy and Monique, though you wouldn’t know it from their continued love of live country music and a full social calendar. If my sons need a model of modern masculinity — strong and dependable — it’s Troy.
This summer brought new milestones for my older children. My college-age son landed an internship at the Acton Institute, a think tank headquartered about 45 minutes away whose mission is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles. My sixteen-year-old daughter secured a job at Captain Sundae, an iconic ice cream shop in town, where she managed the putt-putt hut and took on the less glamorous tasks of emptying trash cans, power washing picnic tables, and cleaning bathrooms. I’ve tried to instill in my children the belief that everything we do in life is an offering to God. That lesson came full circle when she recently received a letter of recommendation from the shop’s owner, noting she was “by far one of the best employees I have had” in 26 years.
Summer in Holland means fresh blueberries from local farms, the scent of lake breezes drifting through open windows, and the call of church bells on Sunday mornings. Living one’s faith here, however, is not confined to Sunday worship. It seeps into daily interactions like running into the farmer who thanks God for the rain, the shopkeeper who wishes you “a blessed day,” and the neighbor who visits my aging parents every Monday afternoon in the summer for “mocktails” on the deck. In a nation where religious identity can be a point of division, Holland still reflects something countercultural: a shared acknowledgment, across denominational lines, that faith matters and shapes who we are.
By mid-August, the pull of Washington reasserts itself. The D.C. calendar demands attention; school and work crowd out the stillness of a sunset on the lake. Yet I leave Holland each year with my faith refreshed, my friendships renewed, and my hope restored that such communities — where belief is lived as well as spoken — can still flourish.
The world feels fragile in many ways, and the work of sustaining a free and virtuous society seems daunting. But here, in this small lakeshore town, I am reminded that such work begins at the most local level: in shared worship, in neighborly generosity, and in the daily offering of our labor to God. Holland may not be perfect, but its faith, its friendships, and its unhurried pace are a testament to the enduring strength of a community that knows exactly who it is.
Until next summer, Holland.