By the time the game had come around last night, Claire and I were already spent. In fact, due to a few days of racing to get through the 1,000 pages of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's epic novel/history textbook November 1916 in time for Saturday night's discussion, we were pretty tired before Super Bowl Sunday even got here.Then, Sunday started real early...like 5:15...because I was behind in getting my study notes formed into a finished sermon. That accomplished, we skipped breakfast and cleaned off the drive, got through our snowy neighborhood to the relatively clear interstate, and buzzed the 25-minute drive to church. There we had a fine service with a bigger than expected congregation. I thought the latest snow would keep more people away but ours is a hearty group. We had communion together and I preached the opening sermon on a new series exploring Colossians.
Afterwards we enjoyed a pizza lunch with 32 other church friends. Because of the size of the group we were scattered around the restaurant a bit but we did have good conversations with a couple of the guys who are part of a Salvation Army treatment program who have been attending our church. It was a good time. Our congregation provides a real mix of backgrounds and I am really impressed at how well our members are interacting with one another.
Following this, we headed back across town to visit Mom and attend with her the church service they offer there at Life Care Center. Then it was checking in via phone calls to family members in Colorado, Florida, Kansas and California -- and checking in with the Troutmans whose premature babies had been delivered earlier in the morning but were doing fine.
We finally got home just in time for kickoff but we realized we weren't all that interested in the outcome. Neither team is among our favorites and although I had decided to root for the Colts (mainly because they represented the AFC), I had gone on record as saying the Saints would pull out an upset win. Factors? The Freely injury. Reggie Wayne's slide the last 8 games or so. The Saint's ability to run as well as pass. And what I believed was a mistake by the Colts in coasting along those last three games of the regular season. Once they surrendered their winning streak, they seemed to wilt in confidence and urgency.
The game itself was exciting enough to hold our interest. Well, almost. While we watched, Claire did laundry and I worked on ideas for the February LifeSharer letter. But it was a good game. Drew Brees was fantastic; the Saint secondary kept Peyton from going deep; and the officials did a good job of staying out of it.
But those ballyhooed, super-expensive commercials? What a bust. With few exceptions (i.e. the Google ad), they reminded me of junior high locker room stuff: unfunny, ineffective and moronically tasteless.
And after all the hype, we were both very disappointed with the Tim Tebow spot. It didn't really say anything. Now, do I hope that millions went to the Focus on the Family web site to learn more? Of course I do. But I'm afraid that most of the traffic over there will be from Christians already in on the Tebow story. We can, however, be very glad that Planned Parenthood and other abortion enthusiasts made such a big stink about the ad. For as it happened, they needn't have bothered. But so irrationally ardent are they to promote abortion, they overplayed their hand and exposed themselves to millions of Americans (as even the New York Times agreed) as more devoted to abortion than they are to women, freedom, justice, or even "reproductive choice." And so for that, I still thank Focus for sponsoring the ad.
And finally two more comments about the Super Bowl experience.
1) The camera lingering on a teary-eyed Drew Brees holding his infant son while the colored confetti floated in the background was about the best thing I've seen on TV in a long, long time. Beautiful and compelling.
2) The halftime extravaganza. Among the performers at Super Bowls along the way have been some really delightful performers at the top of their game (Al Hirt in 1972, Andy Williams in 1973, New Kids on the Block in 1991, Gloria Estefan in 1992, Michael Jackson in 1993). But there has also been a tendency, especially in recent years, to bring in acts whose talent expiration date has long passed. Among those have been George Burns and Mickey Rooney in 1987, Diana Ross in 1996, a Blues Brothers remake in 1997, Areosmith in 2001, Sting in 2003, and The Rolling Stones in 2006.
Some of these latest performances have been sadly disappointing. Some were downright bad. But the performance of The Who last night somehow reached a new level of awfulness. They looked like cheap caricatures and they sounded flat out (pun intended) terrible. Thanks to the light show and the shooting pyrotechnics, they were actually upstaged...by the stage.
Now maybe CBS selected The Who so they could feature the theme songs from their 3 CSI series. If so, they've got to be beating their heads against the studio wall this morning because last night's versions sounded like they were done by some suburban garage band...a garage band that has grandpa doing the vocals.
If you never liked The Who, last night's halftime was probably pleasurable for you -- you left the room. But for those who were once fans, it must have been sheer agony.
