One of the things my wife and I do to mark the coming of autumn is to purchase a couple of bales of hay to set among the mums on our patio.  We also buy a corn stalk to set in our front hallway.  As I sat on the patio the other morning, looking at the beauty of the changing autumn colors on our trees, I glanced at the bales and noticed that they had begun to sprout grass.  Out of what had been very dry and seemingly lifeless bundles of hay had come dark green grass, thrusting into the air as though spring had arrived, six months early.
     Looking at the grass, grass a color with which I normally associate the months of April and May, I found myself struck by the resiliency of existence.  These blades of grass didn't know that autumn had come; they didn't know that winter and its snow was coming; they didn't know that dry, dead hay should not sprout fresh greenery.  But there they were, pushing themselves into the world, brumal inevitability be damned.  They were determined to be.
     Understanding the mechanics of existence is relatively easy.  Science has enabled us to know a great deal about how the world works and comes together.  Grasping the fact of existence, however, is considerably more difficult.  Why do all things want to live?  Why is every animal reluctant to die?  Why, despite all odds, does life keep going?
     Life of course is not aware that it is living or going; it simply exists.  It cannot define its truest purpose.  So it is with us.  We're here, of course; but why we are here, and why, generally speaking, we continue to want to be here, well, those are another questions altogether.  They are questions that, try as we might, we will never fully answer.
     In the end, it's either us or God.  We can know ourselves, we can know God, or we can know both.  But unless we know God, we'll not know, fully, ourselves.
     We can't see past our own selves.