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Life is a Ball

I was just sitting there waiting for a friend.  I watched the kid walk by dressed ready for a workout in the gym.  He carried a ball against his side nestled into the bent arm around the ball.  He opened the door and walked on into the gym and began bouncing the ball.

I have seen this a million times.  I played basketball since I was a little kid.  Every evening I would go to the barn to do the chores and in between drawing water for the calves, I would stop, pick up my ball and begin to dribble around and shoot. 

But I never looked at it---or “saw” it---like I did today.  The thing that hit me as I watched the kid slowly walk onto the floor was the ball.  With a flick of the wrist the ball headed straight for the floor.  And the amazing thing was the ball rebounded off the floor in a perfect straight trajectory right back into the kid’s hand.  This action was repeated as he walked further onto the gym floor.  There was a rhythmic down-up-down-up and so on.  He had disappeared behind the door (with a glass so I could still see), so I heard no sound.

As I thought about it, the ball bounced so straight because it is perfectly round.  The point of impact sends it reactively straight back.  And then it hit me.  My life could be just like the ball. 

Life is a ball.  No, that is not an advertisement for a dance!  I can see the ball as a metaphor for life---especially, the spiritual life.  With this image, I picture myself bouncing through life.  I hope I am like the basketball---perfectly round and a truly straight bouncer.

If that were true, I would always be aligned with the Divine One.  Like the ball, when I knew the desire of that Divine One, I would resolutely bounce in that direction in order to encounter that One and react truly in a bounce right back into life and the world.  I would probably be tirelessly working for justice and peace.  I would be the bringing of harmony and the mitigator of evil.  And I would do it all with respectful humility---just as the ball bounces rhythmically from hand to floor and back to hand. 

But I know I am not that kind of ball---some of the times (and maybe most of the time!).  Now that I think about it, I am more convinced that life is a ball.  It is just sometimes I am more like a football.  I am funny shaped. Life has done something deformationally to my perfect roundness.

If I am honest, I realize I bounce in funny, odd, eccentric ways through life.  I love to watch a high kick-off in football.  If that football hits the ground, no one knows what kind of bounce will happen.  It is erratic.  That is how my life is---especially my spiritual life.
For some of us, the spiritual intentionality and endeavors are start and stop.  We begin and we fail.  Sometimes, I am the bringer of injustice and the one who makes a mess of peace.  I am too frequently misaligned with the Divine One.  Too often, I introduce disharmony into my context.

At some point the metaphor or image does not work anymore.  With a football or basketball, we cannot change their shapes.  We can deflate them, but they are still a football or basketball.  Life is not that way.

Life is the kind of ball that can be reshaped---even transformed.  By God’s grace and with truer intentionality, I can learn to become more basketball-like.  I can learn to bounce more truly and be more usefully engaged with God and with God’s people. 

I have another image.  As the ball, I am nestled in the arm of the Divine One.  We are walking into life’s gym.  I am grasped and gently released to be and to do the Divine desire in the world.  Will I bounce truly, surely, and resolutely?  I am working on it!

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