Wanting a break from writing the other day, I  walked into the den and turned on the television to one of the National Football League playoff games.  I rarely watch these things, but I watched this game, a contest between the Patriots of New England and the Baltimore Ravens, for fifteen or twenty minutes.  Over and over again, massively strong men were throwing themselves against each other, seeking some level of advantage, some opening in defenses, some way to make a gain.
     Countless commentators have opined about the similarities between these games and the gladiator games of ancient Rome.  Maybe they're right.  From another standpoint, however, these incredibly conditioned men are a picture of greatness as well as vagary. We may not agree with much of what the NFL does, we may not agree that football is worth watching, we may not agree that these men are proper representations of the human species.  Yet we can agree that those who play the sport and those who watch it are merely one more portrait of the timelessness of human futility:  here today, gone tomorrow.  Magnificent, yet fleeting.
     Ecclesiastes observes that, "Every skill which a person develops is the result of rivalry between him and his neighbors."  Though we are called to develop ourselves to the most we can be, we also remember that in a broken world, unless we commit our skills to a higher purpose, we're simply responding to the tenor of the times:  it's all about me. We're only contributing to the endlessly grinding wheels of human finitude and folly.
     Enjoy the games.