Many have said it :  God, (or whatever higher power you ascribe to) works in strange ways. And each time that power is wielded within plain sight, it adds weight to the proof that “balance” is the core of all existence. Take that incredible day of June 26, 2015 — and it doesn’t at all matter what your political preference is. This is universal.

The confluence of the Supreme Court’s  Gay (etc) Marriage decision coming in time-collision with Obama’s long sought opportunity to really hammer his position on “race” without having to cow-tow to political expediency – (in his eulogy for Rev. Clemente Pinkney)  signals to me some non-refutable absolute truths: Evil and tragedy eventually bring  good people out of their lethargy and comfort zone propelling them to rise to heights often inconceivable.  The Charleston Massacres,  intended as they were to incite racial divide, did just the opposite, escalating universal consciousness to the inherent rights  of human dignity and equality. The Supreme  Court decision, defying a long standing social code that has been slowly eroded over time, has done the same thing.

These two happenings are elevating in their own right.  That they  appeared on the “stage” of human events  simultaneously, even as Isis was perpetrating its heinous mission in other parts of the world (France, Algiers and Kuwait) cements the axiom of “balance” as a planetary existential fact, keeping us ever on the alert. Good and evil work in tandem and it seems that as long as the known world has existed, ‘twas ever thus. And yet good people continue to strive to overturn that balance in their favor, even as those evil forces seem to be invincible.

And so, with all of the above still lingering in our consciousness, there is that other phenomenon of the strange ways of the All Powerful. That is,  the miraculous way that we as a specie manage to keep our own personal balance. The parades, the fireworks, the speeches, the dancing in the streets, the gayety and celebratory essence of our nature  can never be quelled even as we are being overwhelmed with external threats of extinction.  In my own personal lexicon, I call that “jumping tracks,” – the ability to recognize,  internalize and deal with the negative extremes that course  through our lives, while still managing to revel in the positives that exist in perpetuity. No one person  is immune from the negatives – nor is any State. And it says so much for the general stability of our population that for the most part, we are able to jump tracks  — and joyously celebrate the good while cautiously seeking ways to cope with and eliminate bad.

So Happy BBQing and here’s to lots of gratitude for what’s GOOD  in our lives.