QUARANTINE BLOG # 613

December 3, 2021

Sports Talk by Amy suggested a new feature for QB – how teams acquired their nicknames.  Since it is football season, we’ll start there.  And hope to be finished by Super Bowl LVI (Sports Talk by David wishes they’d stop the Roman numeral silliness and use real numbers.  The city council of Rome, Italy abandoned using them in July, 2015, saying, “We have no choice.  The Roman numeral system is too complicated”).

The Arizona Cardinals began play in Chicago in 1898 before moving to St. Louis in 1960 and Arizona in 1988. Team owner Chris O’Brien purchased used and faded maroon jerseys from the University of Chicago in 1901 and dubbed the color of his squad’s new outfits “cardinal red.” The team adopted the cardinal bird as part of its logo as early as 1947 and first featured a cardinal head on its helmets in 1960.

As with many teams, a contest winner named the Atlanta Falcons. 1,300 came up with more than 500 names, including Peaches, Vibrants, Lancers, Confederates (they would have had to change that one in today’s cancel culture – they could have become the Atlanta Football Team), Firebirds, and Thrashers. Several fans submitted the nickname Falcons, but schoolteacher Julia Elliott was declared the winner of the contest for the reason she provided. “The falcon is proud and dignified, with great courage and fight,” Elliott wrote. “It never drops its prey. It is deadly and has great sporting tradition.”  QB notes that in the current season, the Falcons rank # 16 in the NFL for dropped passes with 12.  

Ravens, a reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem, beat out Americans and Marauders as the name of the Baltimore team when Art Modell moved the Cleveland Browns east. Poe died and is buried in Baltimore. The Marauders nickname referenced a B-26 built during World War II by the Glenn L. Martin Company, that was based in Baltimore.

👉  Readers of QB know that I do not like spiders.  One question I would like to ask God when I see him, if I am permitted a question is, “If there had to be spiders, why did they have to be so ugly.”  One time I warned the teenagers of Macedonia UMC  not to scare P.D. (“Preacher David” – the kids nickname for me) with spiders unless they wanted to hear some colorful metaphors.  Anyway, when I get to visit Australia, here is one place I will avoid like the proverbial plague.

This Australian field in Goulburn, New South Wales, has been blanketed by reams of spider silk, caused by wolf spiders migrating after lots of rain flooded their ground dwellings.  Silk from spiders’ bodies is captured by the light breeze.  The wolf spiders use their spider silk like a parachute to float up to the sky and fly long distances in a natural migration phenomenon called “ballooning.”  The spider silk blanketing the fields like snow is called angel hair. 

And that reminds me of a song by Dolly Parton and Jim Stafford called “Spiders and Snakes.”

👉  Speaking of creepy things in Australia, cannibal crabs shut down roads in Australia during their seasonal migration towards ocean.  

The swarm of these critters shut down roads from the jungle to the coast on Christmas Island off Western Australia.  Every year, an estimated 50 million crabs make their way from the forest after rainfall in October or November and head to the ocean to mate.  Their journey takes them through residential areas and tourist hotspots through the winter months.

The crabs generally eat leaves, fruits, flowers and seeds but have a dark side that sees them eat their young.  The crabs’ cannibal side comes out when babies returning from their first ocean migration are feasted on by adults as part of their diet. 

👉  I was recently sent a couple of videos from TikTok that are actually funny.  The first is comedian Sebastian Maniscalco talking about taking a picture of yourself.  The second is of an enthusiastic kettle drum player.

👉  I have been saving some comic strips, and now is a good time to share them.

Dagwood and the plumber:

Spaceman Spiff:

Men, hang onto this one for a time you need to say just the right thing:

Garfield is watching a very scary movie:

Opal tries a new recipe and Earl offers a critique:

This next one is a variation on a true story that happened at 2211 Whiskey Road – names have been changed to protect the guilty:

👉  Two really good smiles:

👉  Today’s close, “Season of Decrease,” is from Celebrating Abundance, by Walter Brueggemann.

“He must increase, but I must decrease” (John the Baptist, in John 3:30).

Into this season pushes the unkempt, unwelcome figure of John the Baptizer. You remember him. He is dressed in a hair shirt. He eats wild honey and such other gifts that he can forage in the rough.

He comes in anger and is demanding, with threats and insistence. He speaks really only one word: Repent! Recognize the danger you are in and change! He has this deep sense of urgency about the world. It is an urgency of threat and danger and jeopardy, one that we ourselves sense now about our world. He comes first in the story. He is a key player in the Advent narrative.

When Jesus appears on the scene, John the Baptizer immediately acknowledges the greatness of Jesus, greater than all that is past – greater than John, greater than all ancient memories and hopes. When Jesus comes into the narrative, John quickly, abruptly, without reservation says of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” 

If John embodies all that is old and Jesus embodies all that is new, take as your Advent work toward Christmas that enterprise: decrease/increase. Decrease what is old and habitual and destructive in your life so that the new life-giving power of Jesus may grow large with you.

Advent basks in the great promises. In the meantime, however, there are daily disciplines, day-to-day exercises of Advent, work that requires time and intentionality. Advent is not a time of casual waiting. It is a demanding piece of work. It requires both the outrageousness of God and the daily work of decreasing so that Jesus and God’s vision of peace may increase.

In this season of Advent, open our hearts to receive the hard word of repentance. Empower us to decrease what is old, habitual, and destructive in our lives so that the new life-giving power of Jesus may increase within us. Amen.

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