COUNTERPOINT IN THE MUSIC OF OUR LIVES

We may not all understand counterpoint, but we can all appreciate this blending of different melody lines in music. It's what helps give majesty to a Mozart concerto, a Beethoven symphony, or a Dixieland riff. However, it's not always so easy to listen to the counterpoint in our everyday lives. Where different melody lines bang more than blend into one another.

Consider some glaring examples...

* Cops & Courts ~ All too often, the blue-uniformed team rounds up the bad guys in whatever ways it takes; then the black-robed team often seem to let them go free because of "the law." Each side holds fast to the propriety of their methods. Each side often rejects and resents the other. We could probably use a gifted composer to harmonize these differences; but in a democracy we simply have to work it out for ourselves

* Docs & Diets ~ The medical profession is almost on daily alert with its dire warnings about salt, sugar and fat. The irony here is that salt, sugar and fat are precisely what excite our taste buds. Even addicts them. The frustrations attached to this disharmony are not only psychological (driving millions to the latest health regimen), but even theological (driving other millions to wonder how could a good God be this cruel)

* Overt & Covert ~ In whatever wars we wage (legal, political, military) there is usually a vast difference between how we fight it in public and how we do it down-and-dirty in private. Until the Viet Nam war and the Watergate Cover-up went on television for all to see, a long history of my-country-right-or-wrong soured into a 24/7 gotcha media. Today's headlines are not so much about our overt heroes, but rather our covert spies and assassins and tricksters. The disharmony between what should be and what is has grown exponentially

How then are we to survive, existing inside this giant contradiction of melody lines? Between what we usually say and what we often do? Well, here's a better question.Talking about music, what kind do you -- in the safety of your own home -- find yourself tapping and jumping to? Now admit it, you do sometimes! Maybe its Rock, Dixie, Blues even Rap. Whatever it may be, keep dancing to it. Its harmony may just help you survive the world's disharmony.