Sunday, December 11, 2005
The view from the hardwood
I wish there were enough hours in the day for me to both live the life I'm living and tell you all about it in excruciating detail. I can only hint here at the highlights of the last few weeks, but I can do it in one word: basketball.
Or, to be more precise:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!BASKETBALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For it is the season of my contentment, the time of year in which boys and girls and men and women don short pants and special shoes and run up and down ninety-four feet of hardwood while bouncing a ball and launching it through metal hoops. This is, I tell you, the apotheosis of human achievement, the reason we have cold weather in the fall and winter so we'd think to move our athletic events indoors where we can practice the most perfect sport known to mankind. We were put on this earth for two reasons: to glorify God and enjoy basketball. (No, I'm not being flip. I truly think of Dr. Naismith's invention as a blessing straight from God.)
Each week brings a flurry of games, and I have, over the last two weeks, been to (if I recall correctly) about fifteen of them. That's five a day each Saturday, plus multiple games on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. Mostly high school games -- I started going to them so I could see my kids from last year, and I've stayed with them because our freshmen and varsity boys' squads are spectacular to watch. And they win -- they've won every game I've seen them play, often coming from behind and outplaying teams whose average height and skill level would qualify them to be, if not in the NBA, then at least Division II college teams.
The girls, unfortunately, haven't done so well, though there are signs that a reversal of fortunes is in the offing -- at least for the freshmen and JV teams, where my kids do most of their playing anyway. The less said about the varsity girls, the better, maybe; they have a set of problems that anyone familiar with the game will understand fully when I say the word selfish.
And not only has there been basketball, but I've gotten to watch it all in the company of some of my favorite people on earth: my kids and their parents. I've gotten to meet, talk to, laugh with, commiserate with, and further befriend about a dozen people I'd gladly be stranded on a desert island with. It's down to them that the last few weeks have been among the happiest I've ever lived.
How happy?
Nearly a year ago now (and it's hard to believe it's been nearly a year, so fresh is the memory of it) I wrote about our trip to Knoxville to see the Lady Vols and the Lady Bulldogs play, and how that night would be a powerful gem of a moment to which I'd turn in the future for memories of what it's like to be completely glad to be alive.
That was just one night. In the last couple of weeks, I've had four or five more just like it, with the promise of more on the way.
The only thing that in any way diminishes my complacency is that it will eventually end. The uniforms will be turned in and the gym lights turned out for another endless spring and summer. And there'll be track in the spring and softball in the fall, but these are mere shadows, whited sepulchres, poor facsimiles of the glory that is basketball. It will end and there'll be nothing for it but a long and unameliorated wait till it begins again.
But even if it were to end tomorrow, I've experienced it today. Thank you, Lord, for basketball, and for these people, and for these nights. They are more than I deserve.
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Or, to be more precise:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!BASKETBALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For it is the season of my contentment, the time of year in which boys and girls and men and women don short pants and special shoes and run up and down ninety-four feet of hardwood while bouncing a ball and launching it through metal hoops. This is, I tell you, the apotheosis of human achievement, the reason we have cold weather in the fall and winter so we'd think to move our athletic events indoors where we can practice the most perfect sport known to mankind. We were put on this earth for two reasons: to glorify God and enjoy basketball. (No, I'm not being flip. I truly think of Dr. Naismith's invention as a blessing straight from God.)
Each week brings a flurry of games, and I have, over the last two weeks, been to (if I recall correctly) about fifteen of them. That's five a day each Saturday, plus multiple games on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. Mostly high school games -- I started going to them so I could see my kids from last year, and I've stayed with them because our freshmen and varsity boys' squads are spectacular to watch. And they win -- they've won every game I've seen them play, often coming from behind and outplaying teams whose average height and skill level would qualify them to be, if not in the NBA, then at least Division II college teams.
The girls, unfortunately, haven't done so well, though there are signs that a reversal of fortunes is in the offing -- at least for the freshmen and JV teams, where my kids do most of their playing anyway. The less said about the varsity girls, the better, maybe; they have a set of problems that anyone familiar with the game will understand fully when I say the word selfish.
And not only has there been basketball, but I've gotten to watch it all in the company of some of my favorite people on earth: my kids and their parents. I've gotten to meet, talk to, laugh with, commiserate with, and further befriend about a dozen people I'd gladly be stranded on a desert island with. It's down to them that the last few weeks have been among the happiest I've ever lived.
How happy?
Nearly a year ago now (and it's hard to believe it's been nearly a year, so fresh is the memory of it) I wrote about our trip to Knoxville to see the Lady Vols and the Lady Bulldogs play, and how that night would be a powerful gem of a moment to which I'd turn in the future for memories of what it's like to be completely glad to be alive.
That was just one night. In the last couple of weeks, I've had four or five more just like it, with the promise of more on the way.
The only thing that in any way diminishes my complacency is that it will eventually end. The uniforms will be turned in and the gym lights turned out for another endless spring and summer. And there'll be track in the spring and softball in the fall, but these are mere shadows, whited sepulchres, poor facsimiles of the glory that is basketball. It will end and there'll be nothing for it but a long and unameliorated wait till it begins again.
But even if it were to end tomorrow, I've experienced it today. Thank you, Lord, for basketball, and for these people, and for these nights. They are more than I deserve.
