Church Leagues

This evening I played in a church league basketball game. I stepped on to the court for the IMS team, a group consisting mostly of IMS junior and senior guys who aren't on the high school team. The league commissioners wanted them to have a couple of adults and for some reason I was recruited to join them. It was certainly for reasons other than my basketball skills which are minimal at best. Throw in my achy knees, weak eyes, and slightly below average height and I'm the first to admit I wasn't a prize recruit. Still, given the aging IMS faculty, there isn't much else to choose from. Plus if you are any good your church will want you to play with them. One of the guys in charge, told me they really didn't care if I played, they just wanted me to be at games to help keep tempers in check. I view it primarily as a way to get a little exercise. The problem was that tonight, only four of us showed up to play one of the better teams. Instead of getting a break every 4-5 minutes I had to play the whole game.

Church league is an interesting creature. It has been going for at least 40 years, probably more. It consists of teams from the various Mennonite or conservative Mennonite churches in the Kalona-Wellman area. Some churches have two teams, some consistently have a team, and some do for a year or two, and then struggle to put a team together. When I was attending Wellman Mennonite I played for their team a couple of years. The last year I played with them we had one or two guys from Kalona and a couple of Catholic guys. We were sponsored by Wellman Lumber that year and got these cool shirts labeled, Wellman Lumberjocks. We represented the lumberyard well and won the championship - not that anybody really cares. The next year I played for a faculty team from IMS, along with a couple of other folks whose churches didn't have teams.

Some guys take the games seriously and a few teams supposedly have practices. If you don't think Mennonites get mad, help a seemingly mild Mennonite farmer load hogs, or show up at a church league game some night. Two years ago tempers got so bad that the guys in charge decided to experiment. One option was to hire trained officials, the other was to have the guys playing call their own fouls. Trained officials are expensive, Menno's are cheap- or have that reputation. For the most part the calling your own fouls seems to have helped keep emotions and tempers in check though many people seem to find that hard to believe.

Players range in age from the high school kids to a couple who are close to 60. Most are in fairly decent shape, though there are a couple who look like they swallowed a basketball or two. The majority played in high school and a few played a year or two in college. Most take it entirely too seriously. I plan to retire at the end of the season even though it has been fun to see many former students and folks from other churches I don't often see.

snow day and the mandate of heaven

This is a picture near our house which attempts to show how much snow we received over the last two days, somewhere around 10 to 12 inches.

Of the last four school days we have had two canceled, one early dismissal and one late start. The snow is nothing compared to the tornadoes which hit Tennessee and other places in the south. The bad weather, along with the slowing economy and slumping stock market got me to thinking while I shoveled the snow off the driveway.

In Chinese history there is a concept known as the dynastic cycle which is tied to the idea of the Mandate of Heaven. The idea is that the emperor comes to power with the blessing of the gods and that things will go well. But as time goes on, the emperor enacts unwise policies or becomes corrupt. There may be rebellions, uprisings, or attacks by foreigners. Added to this there may be a series of natural disasters, bad weather, or other calamities which shows the people the emperor has lost the Mandate of Heaven and the time has come for the emperor or his dynasty to be removed from power.