Life

It's really the way life should be. Everybody gets to play -- and everybody has fun. I was watching my young niece, Kaitlyn, play basketball near Charlotte, North Carolina. It was a Saturday morning, and the stands were packed with fans of a variety of ages and races. Proud parents, sisters, and brothers cheered on the young players. The excitement rivaled any championship game of the NCAA "Final Four."

And it wasn't even scary -- even if you were out there playing basketball for the first time. If your shoe came untied and you didn't know how to tie yet, you could go to your mother and have her do it. And if another girl's elbow accidentally landed in your face, you could go sit with Mom in the stands for the rest of the game.

The referee was always willing to help out if you got confused. The free-throw line had been moved up a couple of feet to give little arms a fighting chance to fling the ball through the hoop. Everybody got a fair shot.

And, even if you threw the ball into the hands of the other team six times in a row, you still got to keep playing. Even if you went tearing down the court and went right to the same corner and got the ball tied up by the other team 11 times in five minutes, still you got to stay in. Although you would be gently reminded by the coach to try to share a little more.

Each team had the entire backcourt to themselves without the other players around defending (until those last vital couple of minutes at the end of the game); so even slower teams had a chance to get the ball to their side -- unless, of course, you threw it right into the hands of the other team. Six times.

But, you see, nobody cared. The little girl with the perfect aim at the other team kept getting the ball passed to her anyway -- because, you see, she could dribble. There were many gifts, but only one spirit: Fun.

LEST YOU think there was total anarchy out there, there were some rules. Like, for example, it's not okay to take 28 steps without dribbling before passing the ball. And it's really not okay if your baby brother crawls out onto the playing court, but Mom can always fetch him and bring him safely back to the stands (and everybody will cheer). Generally, as long as everybody was having a good time and nobody was crying, play continued no matter what.

And everybody's out there wearing the same thing. In a pair of gray shorts and a blue T-shirt, nobody is rich or poor. Although, let's face it, even in a get-up like that, there's a little room for style.

Take, for example, my niece. She has two older sports-playing brothers and a father who coaches basketball at Davidson College. She knows that the way to be cool these days is to wear your shorts baggy and halfway down the hips. ("Kids today ..." Shake head and sigh.)

Everybody cheers at everything -- a basket, a completed pass, getting the ball across the center line. And with a final score of 16-8 (Kaitlyn's team was victorious), you know that for a lot of players, it was a thrill just to be out there, to touch the ball, to dribble once or twice, maybe even take a shot. Tying up the ball appears to be as valued as actually making a basket -- and much more likely to occur.

Nobody ever fouls out. Nobody ever throws a fit or a fist and gets fined $10,000. And if somebody gets knocked down, it's likely that the one who knocked cries harder than the knock-ee. When the game's all over, everybody shakes hands.

Yep, this is the way life should be. Barbara Ryan of Sojourners Community once passed along to me a saying that she found. It went something like this: "Life ... This is a test. This is only a test. If it weren't a test, it would have come with much better instructions."

Some days, it feels like the instructions are written in a different language -- one I haven't yet mastered. Wouldn't it be nice to know we could just go to Mom and have her tie our shoe to make it all better?

Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.