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Maryland volleyball downed in straight sets again to No. 11 Oregon

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Maryland volleyball downed in straight sets again to No. 11 Oregon


Trailing No. 11 Oregon 2-1 early in the opening set, Maryland volleyball looked to stay within striking distance and give itself an opportunity to come out with its first set victory in five matches. And the Terps got the run it desperately needed, scoring six consecutive points.

However, Maryland failed to close out the set.

After falling in four consecutive straight-set matches, the Terps were in dire need of a win in their first Big Ten West Coast road trip. But Maryland was unable to leave Eugene, Oregon, with any sort of progress, losing 3-0.

With the Terps up 6-2, defensive specialist Lilly Gunter recorded a service ace, the first of the match. Oregon, however, responded with two points of its own, cutting the Maryland lead to three.

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But outside hitter Sam Csire and a couple errors from Oregon helped extend the Terps’ lead to five, 15-10.

“[Csire’s] been doing a really good job in practices, just dedicated to her shot selections,” Hughes said. “She’s not rushing a lot of decisions. I think she’s doing a good job of mixing and matching.”

Middle blocker Onye Ofoegbu sparked some momentum for the Ducks with a kill, followed by three more points from her team moving the score to 15-14. Oregon got a short glimpse of a lead after another four-point run, but middle blocker Eva Rohrbach knotted the score at 19 with a service ace.

Aligning with Maryland’s recent struggles in terms of closing sets, the Ducks went on a late run to push ahead, scoring six of the last eight points as the Terps fell, 25-21.

Unlike the first, Maryland found itself down 5-3 in the second set. But a kill from outside hitter Sydney Bryant was followed up by a service ace from defensive specialist Ally Williams, leveling the score at five. Oregon pushed ahead, 11-7, after a three-point run from Ohwobete, who tallied two kills and a service ace.

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The Terps responded to any blows from the Ducks, not letting them get the knockout punch. Csire and Schnitta kept Maryland afloat late in the set, tallying two kills apiece, while the nation’s leader in service aces, Schnitta, added another ace.

Down 21-18, the Terps rattled off five consecutive points, including a service ace from setter Sydney Dowler and joint-block from middle blocker Anastasia Russ and Schnitta. But Oregon closed out the set with five of the last six points. Ducks outside hitter Mimi Colyer added her match-high 13th during the run. Maryland fell, 26-24, in the second set.

“I thought we missed too many serves at really unfortunate times,” Hughes said. “We missed a serve at 23-22 and another one at 24-23. We were still offensively scoring and keeping us in it. But, you just run out of time against a really good team.”

Maryland opened the third set with three players teaming up for a block, while Russ and Bryant each added a kill. Williams tallied her second service ace of the match, helping push the Terps in front, 4-1. Oregon landed a punch early, though, scoring nine consecutive points.

Colyer continued her domination with three kills, pushing her total to 16 for the match.

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Maryland scored two points off service errors from the Ducks, but redshirt freshman sensation setter Cristin Cline responded, pushing Oregon in front, 13-6. Rohrbach hoped to fire up the Terps with a kill and service ace. But Cline stopped any potential Maryland momentum with a service ace.

The Terps found themselves trailing 23-14 late in the third set. Two kills from Schnitta and one from Csire only served as consolation points, as Maryland lost, 25-17.

The Terps were stout defensively, tracking down all kinds of shots. Maryland had 48 total digs, led by double-digit performances from Gunter and Williams, who each had 12.

“I thought Ally played one of her best matches,” Hughes said. “She had a couple serving aces, and she was making some great saves. We changed the lineup a little bit to try and get her on the floor more often than she currently is.”

Three things to know

1. Late set struggles continue. Maryland had an opportunity to win both the first and second set. The Terps found themselves tied at 19 in the opening set and up 23-21 in the second set. But Maryland was unable to pull one out, pushing the set drought to five matches.

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2. Serving issues on the road. In the Terps’ last three road matches against ranked teams, they have combined for 13 service aces and 27 service errors. For a team that is ranked seventh in the nation in aces per set, Maryland has been unable to use that to its advantage against good teams.

3. 1-8 in Big Ten play. The Terps find themselves tied for 15th in the Big Ten so far this season, only ahead of winless Rutgers. After going 7-13 in conference play for three straight seasons, Maryland hopes to pick up some wins and avoid its worst season since 2020, when it won five conference matches.



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Maryland

The rich and controversial history of Maryland’s clown ministers

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The rich and controversial history of Maryland’s clown ministers


We are fools for Christ’s sake.

So believed the apostle Paul when he penned a letter to the Corinthian church. And so, too, believed Maryland’s pioneering clown ministry.

This niche style of Christian outreach is as outrageous as it is earnest, and traces some of its roots back to Columbia. It’s perhaps a legacy that James Rouse never imagined when he founded the Howard County town, with its distinctive urban plan, efficient use of land and commitment to diversity. Rouse included a series of interfaith centers intended to bring people of different beliefs under one roof. The model inspired one local pastor at Abiding Savior Lutheran Church to pursue his own experiment blending liturgy with laughter.

These days, Rev. Floyd Shaffer is remembered by some as the “clown father” of modern Christian clowning. Though liturgical clowning already had a history in Europe, Shaffer spent his time in Columbia in the 1970s dabbling in clown ministry and eventually became known as a leader of the movement in the United States. He died three years ago, his wife Marlene Shaffer confirmed.

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Even though the whimsical ministry’s heyday was in the 1980s and ’90s, some Christians continue to answer the call to clown. And the practice has captivated new audiences on TikTok and YouTube.

Earlier this year, the Columbia Maryland Archives put together an online exhibit about the town’s nondenominational clown ministry, called Faith and Fantasy, which Shaffer founded in 1974. Archivist Erin Berry said staffers were inspired after stumbling across a popular YouTube channel’s episode on Christian clowning.

Shaffer’s idea for a clown ministry came to him in 1964 on a beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The pastor was in town for a Bible study and leafing through some books when he stumbled across the etymology of the word clown. He connected it with Jesus’ command to be a servant.

That same year, Lutheran church leaders were getting creative with clowns — and it wasn’t going over well.

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The National Lutheran Council produced the short film “Parable,” which depicted Jesus as a white-faced clown and the world as a circus.

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The film’s 1964 debut at the New York World’s Fair roiled event organizers, some of whom resigned in protest. One “disgruntled minister threatened to riddle the screen with shotgun holes if the film was shown,” the Library of Congress noted when it announced that it had selected “Parable” for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2012.

Six years later, Shaffer debuted as a clown minister for the opening day of Abiding Savior’s vacation Bible school, according to a news article preserved in Columbia’s archives.

Floyd Shaffer as Socataco and his granddaughter Erica play with a clown marionette. (Created by Floyd Shaffer/Courtesy of Columbia Maryland Archives)

“I don’t think that something that’s so controversial — I don’t know what other word to use — as clowning ministry could flourish in another place other than Columbia,” Berry said. “You could just try what you wanted to try.”

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Other leaders within Columbia’s interfaith centers encouraged Shaffer to keep at it, said 86-year-old Marge Goethe. Her husband, Rev. Jerry Goethe, the pastor for Kittamaqundi Community Church, suggested to Shaffer that he teach a class on clown ministry. Together, the two men designed a seven-week course that covered theology, the history of clowning, skits and games to encourage playfulness.

Many local residents, including Marge Goethe, enrolled in the classes, embraced clown ministry and set out to visit children’s hospitals, retirement homes and domestic violence shelters. She learned how to silently deliver sermons with gestures and humor, but never mockery. Goethe used lipstick to draw a red circle — a symbol of the liturgical clown — on her cheek.

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Goethe developed her clown persona and named him Harry, after a man she knew as a child who lived on the streets. He was a reminder that she could either be the kind of person who brushed him off or helped him out.

Howard County’s clown ministry eventually grew to include as many as 300 clowns, The Baltimore Sun reported in 1994. Members of the Faith and Fantasy ministry went on to teach clown ministry around the country and internationally.

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Not every audience loved the routine.

During a worship service at a Virginia college’s youth convention, Goethe and other clown ministers offered to draw the mark of the clown on people’s cheeks.

“What is that, the mark of the devil?” one man asked.

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Goethe couldn’t reply while she was in character.

“All I had to do was accept what he was feeling at the time and hope it changed at some point,” Goethe said.

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Goethe still attends Kittamaqundi services and performs clown ministry. When people ask her about the decades she spent cheering up strangers, she worries she won’t find the right words to explain how rich clown ministry turned out to be.

“I did more good for people being silent,” Goethe said.

Shaffer eventually moved to Ohio and authored several books with titles such as “If I Were A Clown” and “Clown Ministry.” He produced instructional videos on clown ministry that lately have found a rapt audience on the internet.

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Jen Bryant realized she had a personal connection with clown ministry while putting together an episode on the subject for her YouTube channel, Fundie Fridays, which features cultural commentary on aspects of fundamentalist Christianity in the United States. The Missouri resident’s grandfather, a Catholic, performed for a time as a clown minister under the name “George-o.”

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Every community seems to have its subcultures, Bryant said, and she found that was also true for clowns. There are classical clowns like Joseph Grimaldi, a Regency-era entertainer who introduced the white face makeup. There are dark clowns like Juggalos, a nickname for fans of the hip-hop group Insane Clown Posse. And there are scary clowns like Pennywise, the shapeshifting antagonist in Stephen King’s 1986 horror novel “It.”

At first, Christian clowns sounded like a meme to Bryant. The full story, she said, turned out to be “way more interesting.”

Bryant and her husband James Bryant ordered copies of Shaffer’s books and collected a variety of research on clown ministry for their episode, which posted in April. The hourlong segment earned an “overwhelmingly positive” response from their audience, many of whom are in the midst of deconstructing their faith and understanding of Christianity, Bryant said.

“Everyone just thought this was just the most pleasant little novelty,” James Bryant said.

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Maybe Christian clowns are even the original deconstructors.

“They’re people who went, ‘faith wasn’t working exactly how we wanted it to, so we broke it down and changed it,’” he said. “It worked. It has a legacy.”

Appearing in a video on Kittamaqundi’s YouTube page, Shaffer said clown ministry gives people a new way to live out and enjoy theology, “instead of being so glum and gloomy and solemn, as much of the church has become.”

Many Bible stories defy rational thought and that’s sort of the point, Floyd said in the video.

Scripture, Floyd noted, often suggests that God has a sense of humor.

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Calmer weather and milder temperatures in store for Maryland on Christmas

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Calmer weather and milder temperatures in store for Maryland on Christmas


Calmer weather and milder temperatures in store for Maryland on Christmas – CBS Baltimore

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With bitterly cold temperatures, and mixed precipitation now behind us, Marylanders can look forward to much calmer weather on Christmas.

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Where To Celebrate New Year’s Eve 2024 In Annapolis

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Where To Celebrate New Year’s Eve 2024 In Annapolis


ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MD — New Year’s Eve will feature fireworks over the Annapolis Harbor, six Arundel Mills celebrations at Maryland Live! Casino & Hotel and the annual Charm City Countdown party at Hilton Baltimore BWI Airport Hotel.

Here is a look at some events happening in Anne Arundel County. Click on any event to learn more.

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The transition from one year to the next is often marked by the singing of “Auld Lang Syne,” a Scottish folk song whose title roughly translates to “days gone by,” according to Encyclopedia Britannica and History.com.

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The tradition of New Year’s resolutions dates back 8,000 years to ancient Babylonians, who made promises to return borrowed items and repay debts at the beginning of the new year, which was in mid-March when they planted their crops.

According to legend, if people kept their word, the pagan gods would grant them favor in the coming year. However, if they broke their promises, they would lose favor with the gods.

Many secular New Year’s resolutions focus on imagining new, improved versions of ourselves.

The failure rate of New Year’s resolutions is about 80 percent, according to U.S. News & World Report. There are many reasons, but a big one is they’re made out of remorse — for gaining weight, for example — and aren’t accompanied by a shift in attitude or a plan for coping with the stress and discomfort that comes with changing a habit or condition.



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