BY THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH

Considering the evolutionary fact that 99.5% of all the animals who ever existed on the planet are now extinct, it has to make you wonder why we're still around? What qualifies us to still be in this existential race called life?

For those who simply get up every morning to do what they did yesterday morning, the question may have neither purpose nor imperative. However, there are at least five categories among we remaining 0.5% who have something to say on the matter. Surely nothing that can be squeezed into a few paragraphs here, but as a fellow runner in the race, you might want to consider some of their observations:

* Our biologists tend to to understand you and me as a part of the evolutionary process that began a long time and place ago. While they've pinned down the time to about 14+ billion years, they have no idea as to the place. Even the master biologist himself, Charles Darwin, gives us no firm location. Most evolutionary biologists just say it happened with the Big Bang, wherever and however that was. Which seems to be telling us we arrived here without any passport from there.

* Our neuro-scientists tend to focus on our amazing brains. That part of the human anatomy the ancient Egyptians didn't even bother to preserve with their mummies is today considered to be the power-source for billions of energy bursts Electrical bursts which seem to explain how we experience and behave, think and decide. We are told these energies, coupled with those from our gene pools, explain much of who and what we are. Which seem to be providing us the missing passport, but with so many crucial specifics still missing.

* Our sociologists tend to work without passports, chiefly because their interest lies in how we interact once we congregate here. Socio-economic behaviors and consequences are their areas of interest. Their work has shed light on such hitherto mis-understood behaviors like violence, crime and ghettos on one hand, sharing, cooperating and creating on the other. Still, the sociologists leave our passports with gaping holes for anyone who would fully understand us
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* Our theologians and philosophers have a word to say here too. Lately, though, they don't get as much coverage in the media, and they function mainly in backstage areas like college campuses and sabbath day services. At one time in history theirs were the preeminent voices, now muffled by more secular choruses. A loss, though, because theologians and philosophers are the ones who insist our passports must be stamped by both place of original origin and the place of destination.

* This leaves our artists. The painters, poets, composers, novelists, playwrights and cinema directors whose gifts allow them to speak directly to everyman. Whether we are degree-ed or not, wealthy or not, powerful or not. When our artists speak, they use the international languages of sights, sounds and language which strike directly into the deepest fathoms of our being. And while school budgets trim their role, while the recession thins their ranks, they would be this man's choice for what keeps our remaining 0.5% human in the midst of so much inhumanity and hopeful where there is so little hope. Our best artists are often the best reasons why our 0.5% just might keep making it by the skin of our teeth....