The other night I went to a middle school basketball game, and I noticed that though the focus was the kids on the court, a lot of the work wasn’t on the court.

Look around the room: There are the ten players on the court, of course, doing their best, and others on the bench, ready to add their skills to the game. There are the coaches, pacing the sideline with scrunched eyebrows, flailing arms, and raised voices. The school administrators stand near the wall, hoping everything goes smoothly. A few parents run the clock and keep the official book and stats. The parents and families fill the bleachers, and each one is watching exactly one kid, no matter what the other nine are doing.

Outside the gym, another group of parents runs concessions. They will see much less of the game. They’ll hear it, a whistle, a cheer, a roar through the wall, and wonder what they missed.

Then there are the people you only notice if you go looking. The officials come from somewhere else, have no one to cheer for and no connection to this village, and the game can’t happen without them. The bus driver brought the other team and waits to return them home. The woman at the door takes admission, turning a few dollars at a time into support for the program. And long after the last family has gone home and the lights click off, the custodians arrive and get the place ready for tomorrow.

Nobody in that building is the main character. Take away any one of them and there’s no game. Each contribution makes the experience.

This image was fresh in my mind the next morning as our Seniors Center opened its doors for the first gathering. What I keep marveling at is how it came together. I started with a small, sensible idea, the size of what I figured I could manage. Then I pushed on one door, and it opened. Then another. And then I noticed something stranger: the walls I’d assumed were holding those doors in place weren’t there anymore. What was waiting on the other side was bigger than anything I would have dared to plan.

I shared an idea, and the community responded. Some said, “Yes, and...” Others brought connections, skills, and better ideas, and many simply offered themselves. Each gave a piece without seeing the whole, and the whole turned out to be larger than all of us put together. Whatever you call the Mystery that weaves through the universe and holds it all together, that Mystery seems to love working this way, through a crowd of people each doing something small and unglamorous, many out of sight, to make a community a community.

It costs something, too. Saying yes to an idea before you can see the full shape of it might stretch you beyond what’s comfortable. It means giving yourself to work you may never get credit for, for people you may not know.

My wish for you this week, Reader, is that you’d notice your own spot in your community. Maybe you’re on the court, or at the door with the cash box, or sweeping up after everyone’s gone. Wherever it is, I hope you’ll trust that it matters, and that you’re holding up more than you can see. And if a door opens before you and a little whisper in your soul invites you forward, I hope you’ll have the courage to walk through it, even if you can’t see what lies beyond it. That’s the fiLLLed life.

Live a fiLLLed life, Melissa