passing it on.....

 Since basketball will be most prevalent at my house in the next few days, I'd thought I needed to pull out one of my favorite basketball stories.  It never seems to matter where I am, when I listen intently to the Spirit whispers, God comes to me and opens me to new learnings.  Here is a reflection taken after watching my husbands team play their last game.....

Some of my most important theological learnings seem to have occurred in the midst of my ordinary busy life….

not that church did not provide the tools for me to “think in terms” of how the Spirit moves and how it changes us….

it just seems for me…

the concrete evidence of it often happens at the times I least expect it…….

Several years ago…when my son Braham was in the second grade or so….my husband was coaching his upwardbound basketball team.   There was quite the array of seven year old boys on his team…

and during any season as I watched the teams form, it seemed that all the boys somehow become my own….

I screamed for them, clapped for them and rooted them toward victory.

 This particular season….hum..

we certainly had an array of boys….

There were two decent players (one of course was my son—but I am a bit prejudice about that).   There was Edward---a Chinese American whose parents barely spoke English…..Edward could barely dribble the ball…..and Josh, quite the shooter and then there was big BUD—a kid about three times bigger than everyone else on the team.

every week they practiced

and every week…

…they played and somehow….

this rag tag group of seven year olds found the chemistry to be undefeated heading into the championship game.

Most of the time the goal for my husband was to teach the boys to give 110% of themselves when they were on the floor and to have a great amount of fun in the process….. …and that is what they did (underneath that outward philosophy—Mike always tried to set up a play to assure that each boy at least scored a basket at sometime during the season). 

 As the team was heading into the championship game…every boy on the team had scored except for big  Bud…..Bud was a big boy…tall for his age…..his feet rarely came off the floor when he jumped and when he shot the ball

…I’m not sure the ball had ever even made it to the backboard…..

AT the championship game, the team played a team equally matched in both skill and equally matched in their own challenges.

The game changed score often……….and

during the game Mike set up several plays to see if the team couldn’t help Bud score his first basket to no avail…… 

as we are heading into the last minute of the game, the score is tied and my son Braham stole the ball and headed toward the basket…

the seconds are ticking down

and he is in perfect position for a layup—

five, four….the clock ticks…and suddenly without rhyme or reason, and as he is going up for the easy layup…Braham saw Bud standing on the other side under the basket…. …

with the score tied……

he flipped the ball to Bud—the worst player on the team----

I think most of us thought…"what in the world!"……game tied…..seconds to win and now Bud has the ball….so we held our breath for the next few seconds….

In his surprise at getting the ball without thinking….Bud threw the ball into the air…..and by some unknown force the ball plopped through the hoop, rolled through the net and the buzzer sounded…….Everyone went crazy….Bud the worst kid on the team had scored the basket to win the championship game—I’m not sure it was so much for the game…but at the wonder of how Bud scored………………….

and isn’t that what we do here….in this place we call the world?….

We move around working as a team…

loving each other….

touching each other,

 encouraging each other….and somehow in the midst of the chaos…when push comes to shove somehow the Spirit pulses through us and without thinking somehow…..we pass that ball at the last second to sometimes our weakest member  grow to form an incredible team of rag tag members from all walks of life and all sizes.and it is an amazing thing to live and experience and grow.

I wonder how many times I have the opportunity to pass the ball to a weaker player

and I'm afraid they won't do it like me,

will do it wrong,

or won't do it all.

Perhaps, tomorrow, i will look for an opportunity to be unselfish like my son Braham. 

Don't we all want to hit the winning shot?

Don't we all want the crowd to scream for us?

I am thankful for an unselfish son, for a husband who has devoted time to changing the lives of others and for these ordinary moments that become extraordinary events.

so Tomorrow.....if you get the chance......go ahead....

Pass the ball......

I'm gonna try!