The rubber soles of my Converse All Stars scratched the sandy asphalt, bits of seashell sparkling in the floodlights. I pivoted, tossed a high-arcing shot, a pause before the chain net’s angry clang. The next shot caromed off the rim. The ball bounced off the court and rolled under aluminum bleachers.

In the distance, a church bell began chiming, one chord following another, hesitant, as if wary of intruding on the darkness. I rested my forearms on the top bleacher. My breath slowed, the sweat began cooling on my chest. The hymn was one I’d sung in church three or four times, though the words wouldn’t come. I knew the notes, but I couldn’t name this beautiful melody carrying through the chill night air. A bright quarter moon hung in the sky. I looked back at the floodlights, down to the empty court I’d stepped off, one goal leaning over each end.

The hymn stopped. I retrieved the ball, dribbled to the basket, and floated a layup high off the backboard over an imaginary defender’s hand. Soon, another hymn began playing, one I didn’t know. The bells receded from foreground to background. The beauty and stillness, the momentary sense of something greater, fell away. There, but not there for me. I dribbled down the court, spun around every third dribble, dribbled back the other way.