Joy In A Super Bowl-Like Memory
Screenshot from X.com
With my favorite team and a few others I follow out of the running, Super Bowl Sunday will be a bit of a non-starter for me. Likely to watch the first half, but by 9 o’clock my wife and I will tune in to the stirring PBS Masterpiece series, All Creatures Great and Small.
Besides, for me, the highlight of the NFL’s playoff run already took place at the NFC Championship, during re-game of the LA Rams at Seattle Seahawks.
As the Fox network cameras followed LA Coach Sean McVey onto the field, he smiled, stooped down, and then took his oldest son Jordan into his arms. (Watch it here.) The delight and wonder on the boy’s face could melt a heart of stone.
Then McVey (who turned 40 the day before) turned the two-year-old around before walking over to his wife, smiling brightly.
What a moment of unbridled joy! What fun to watch!
Pleasurable Experiences
When I went looking for the clip online, I discovered another. This one featured McVey introducing newborn (in December) son Christian to Green Bay Packers’ coach Matt LeFleur.
Those few pre-game minutes will last in my memory for a long time. In fact, they reflected a column I read earlier that day by former Chicago Tribune staffer Heidi Stevens.
Her soliloquy concerned the fun and joy she experienced watching the Chicago Bears’ improbable turnaround in 2025, from worst to first in one season.
The fun included the aptly-named Wiener’s Circle shop offering free hot dogs if Caleb Williams scored four touchdowns against Dallas. He did.
Then they repeated the offer if Coach Ben Johnson took his shirt off after a win over the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles. Free dogs again.
Stevens talked of posting on Facebook recently about some of the joy she experienced during these Bears’ moments. That prompted a friend to respond to Stevens: “I don’t know how anyone can give a crap about football right now.”
The columnist acknowledged that there were numerous reasons for despair amid the chaos in Minneapolis and federal government overreach in other areas.
But Stevens followed up with a quote about joy carrying others through some of the darkest days of the past.
Teaching Joy
“The joy is what we’re fighting for, absolutely,” Stevens wrote. “The joy is why we’re here. I did not give birth so my children could pick a tribe. So they could divide and conquer. So they could feel outrage and despair and indignation. …
“We are here to feel wonder and witness beauty and create meaning and cherish the people who love us, and to love them back with intention and gratitude.”
What words fitly spoken, reminding me of Proverbs 25:11, which compares such to “apples of gold in settings of silver.”
Yes, these are alarming times. We have a Congress whose members seem most interested in how to oppose the president—or the other party. People who think settling a grudge means gunning down others. Storm clouds are gathering around the globe, with the war in Ukraine nearing its fourth anniversary.
And yet, if we get mired in a never-ending outlook of gloom and doom, we pass on to our children and grandchildren a legacy of negativity and impossibility.
We have to remember that life has its positives as well. Like when a father can hoist his son on his shoulders amid a stadium filled with more than 68,000 fans, bringing sheer joy to the toddler.
Such moments are the memory makers that become more important with each passing year.
