QUARANTINE BLOG # 633

December 23, 2021

Teaser!  Spoiler alert!  Be sure to tune in tomorrow for a special Christmas Eve edition of Quarantine Blog.  You don’t want to miss it!  Never seen before!  Be the first to click through!  It is so spectacular there are no celebrity endorsements!  Offer sent to a limited few (now that one is true). 

👉  Things I did that my kids probably didn’t do, and that my grandkids almost certainly won’t do.

Walking To School.  Walking to school isn’t a too, terribly strange practice in this day and age, at least for short distances.  And even then, parents will still be chaperoning their children to make sure they got to school safely.  From grades 1 through 6 I always walked to school, after that, I walked to the same place to catch the school bus.  Today, most schools are too far away from where they live, and if the kids did walk, we’d still be chaperoning them.  Oh, and I did it walking up hill – both ways – through waist deep snow, carrying my baby brother.

Cycling Without Helmets.  If a kid rides a bicycle today without a helmet, someone is sure to berate them for not wearing one – throw in knee pads and elbow pads, too.  However, back at 117 Shenandoah Avenue, I don’t remember ever seeing a bicycle helmet.  If anyone wore helmets we would have considered them to be dorks (or whatever was derogatory in the 60s).  Shoot, we played tackle football without helmets or pads, and fast pitch softball and baseball without helmets.  On the other hand, when the JAMM Kids were little, there were no child car seats – a situation I am glad is remedied.

Hitchhiking.  I hitchhiked home from college, and when I was in Russia, I often stood on the curb and held out my hand (you didn’t stick out your thumb for a ride there).  But today, unless I was packing a loaded six-shooter, I don’t think I’d put out my thumb – too many crazies.  Another but.  I do remember a woman with a car full of kids, broken down on an interstate highway, in the days before cell phones, and no way of contacting her husband, asking a man who stopped to give her and her brood a ride, “Can I trust you?”  He said, “Yes.”  They got in, and he was as good as his word.

👉  We haven’t been to a roadside attraction in a while, so let’s look in at “Mighty Og”

Mighty Og was a 36-foot high sculpture of a gorilla from the waist up.  It originally promoted Rawhide City, a tourist attraction in Mandan, North Dakota.  The statue was auctioned following the Rawhide City bankruptcy.  It was purchased by a merchant who moved it the 120 miles to Harvey, North Dakota.  He had intended it as an attraction to his hardware store, but opted not to proceed due to structural concerns.  Og was eventually located on another highway, but was destroyed in a strong windstorm sometime before June 2005.

North Dakota has several of these giant statues (Snidely Blogwriter comments, “I have been to Minot, ND, and seeing the vast nothingness, I understand why they build these things.”  Snidely is no relation to your favorite blogger.  Fingers crossed).  

The typical sandhill crane measures in at about 4 feet tall and weighs 9 pounds.  The World’s Largest Sandhill Crane, Sandy, measures in at 40 feet and weighs 4.5 tons.  Standing outside the Cobblestone Inn and Suites in Steele, ND, she is made out of rolled sheet metal and was built in 1998 by ironworker James Miller.

Before we go to Minot, ND, if you like Big Birds other than this large yellow fowl, 

check out:

a 13 feet tall Booming Prairie Chicken in Rothsay, MN

and Maxie, the world’s largest goose, 40 feet tall, with wings 62 feet wide, she is the most massive thing in Sumner, Missouri (population 102).

Bonnie, Jennifer, and I drove to Minot in 1972 to pick up Bonnie’s sister, Pat, who had completed her first semester at Northwest Bridal College (known officially as Northwest Bible College, a higher education outlet of the Church of God) known as much for the wedding matches made there as for the matriculation of its students.  Having completed her Registered Nursing degree, and not having completed her MRS. Degree, Pat went there to find a husband, and was successful.  On the way, we stopped to see the World’s Largest Buffalo located in Jamestown, ND.  The statue is 26 feet tall, 46 feet long, and weighs 60 tons.  Somewhere we have a photograph of me holding Jen and standing about where Val (the blue dressed clad writer of sillyamerica.com) is standing.  Jen is terrified, and when you are so small and this behemoth is, well, behemothed, you can understand.

👉  A couple of Smilies:

👉  How about a spot of Christmas music with the United States Navy Band performing “The Christmas Can-Can.”

And “Dueling Jingle Bells.”

👉  An offering from “Ooh You’re Gold.”

👉  Our close today, “What Time Is It?” is from Celebrating Abundance, by Walter Brueggemann.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall hear a son, and shall name him Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14).

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus (Matthew 1:24-25).

These two texts are about two odd babies, Immanuel and Jesus. The two texts are about two mothers, a young woman whose name we do not know and a virgin who has not married. The two texts are about threats to two world empires, Assyria and Rome. The texts show how power shifts from the empire to the baby. The empires, in fear and enmity, do not know what time it is. But the clock carried by the baby keeps ticking-away.

What time is it? Time tor peace, time tor justice, time for land reform, time tor health care, time for Jubilee year, time tor miraculous feeding, time tor comfort, time for freedom. Tick tock, tick tock. The empire cannot find the clock, cannot stop the baby, cannot have its way, cannot keep its own regime in place.

Imagine the superpowers of the world. Imagine the great corporate executives and all the people of harsh power in industry and schools and churches and banks and armies and tax offices who are used to having their way. Imagine the repressive part of our own lives, which are used to the silencing and crushing. Imagine all those threatened powers listening to the clock of the babies, moving relentlessly to the ending and transformation and beginnings.

This is the miracle of the babies. Because the baby has come by the Spirit, the world is changed. The empires are on notice. The kingdoms are under threat. A little baby offers another way in the world that destabilizes and invites us to new trust and new freedom. So be asking in Advent, “What time is it?” Well, it depends. If you think the empire is in charge, it is anytime. If you bet on the baby, it is very late, very close, very dangerous.

Bet on the baby. Get free of the coercive power of the empire. Then act differently about power and money and land and justice and homes and food and health care. Bet on the baby and notice the new world in which we live where the empires have been subverted. Bet on the baby and listen to the clock ticking away.

O God, our lives are shaped by the times of empire, so much so that we can barely hear the “tick tock tick tock” of your time. During this Advent season may we once again bet on the baby. May we know the time and so live with hope and justice. Amen.

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