The people of this world are so varied, so wildly different, so unexplainable and did I mention impossible to understand? We look different and sound different and eat different weird foods. We hate and fight and terrorize and murder. We judge each other and shoot dirty looks and world leaders puff up and threaten and innocents are raped and buried in mass graves. People get blown up. Buildings fall down. Diseases define generations.

It’s a pretty awful place, this fallen, broken, really gross world.

But then waterfalls.

In the parking lot we notice it—people from all over the globe. They’re here to witness 600,000 gallons of water a minute fall over a cliff. They’re here to exclaim over the constant rainbows, the waves, the cloud of mist one sees from miles away. They’re here to experience Niagara Falls and we are some of them.

We smile at each other just cause. We board a ship and wear plastic ponchos (they are glorified trash bags but no one cares). We speak many languages but we all know to wait our turn, show patience, be kind. The languages blend together in a sweet song as we climb stairs, ride in elevators, examine poncho-wearing stuffed ducks in the gift shop. Someone picks up litter and deposits it in the garbage can nearby. Someone else laughs at a child finding his sea legs on The Maid of the Mist. Our eyes meet and we share a moment with cold spray covering our hair leaving droplets of the waterfalls on us, joining our merry band and leaving us happily connected.

Other boats pass ours. Some started on our side of the border. Some started on theirs. We all wave. We wave and the raincoat-clad tourists splashing by us wave back. I don’t know who they’re voting for and I don’t care. They might not love Star Wars (gasp). They’re not my Facebook friends and never will be. I will never see them up close but for the briefest, wettest second, we are united in our joy of God’s creation and our experience of it. We speak the same language, the international language of waterfalls.

Questions are answered. Guides with little flags flying over their heads lead travelers through the crowds and Danny and I grin at each other, thinking of tours we have taken in other countries when we were the minority and it was totally ok and beautiful.

We brush hands with others as we hold on to the rails and lean out trying to see more, feel  more, hear more of that rushing, powerful, frightening, glorious water. A man stops us from unnecessarily paying for parking. It’s past 6 p.m. It’s free now. We’re all free to enjoy the majesty of this place together for a bit longer.

The sun goes down and we eat amongst strangers and no one blows anyone up and people aren’t crying for lost loved ones and armies don’t invade as we share a burger and fries and stories of the falls.

We go back out and someone has turned on all the lamps and we walk in the tree shadows with our waterfall-loving compadres and find our way back to the water for another glimpse of the crazy coolness, now all aglow from the changing lights the Canadians kindly shine on the water at night. It’s as though the waterfalls are now one with the rainbows that danced above them earlier in the day. That’s probably exactly what happened.

All of us understand the language of waterfalls.

It’s a pretty amazing place, this small, connected, lovely world.