Did you watch the Super Bowl?  I did not (except for the halftime show).  But billions of other people did.  Despite the well attested damage that playing professional football can do to the players' brains, and despite the NFL's curious tax exempt status, people continue to watch the Super Bowl.  It's not a football game; it's an institution.

     I often wonder what our many animal friends think about the sight of that many people glued to their television sets for over four hours, eating, talking, laughing.  Whatever are those human beings doing?
     Simply being, I guess, human beings, magnificent, glorious, frail, intelligent, self-conscious and incomplete sentient beings availing themselves of the only existence they will ever have on this planet.
     Therein lies the puzzle.  Where else will we find such an intriguing combination of will, tenuousness, folly, and determination?  Is this God's intention or is this evolution's result?  Either way, it's nothing anyone could have predicted:  life's essence eludes us unless we can see beyond it, unless we understand what a flourishing life really is.