The Merriam-Webster definition of magic is the use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces. Other definitions explain magic as some type of force which uses trickery or special powers to make things happen that would usually be impossible. Then there is the magic of the person called a magician who performs tricks to entertain people. Magic may produce marvelous effects through some means of extraordinary, unexplainable power.

Is there magic in your life which helps you to achieve good things? Is there some power which is making self improvement and success an easy matter? Sometimes things are not easy to explain. They may not be magic, but they could be magical as they cause good things to happen.

Magical new beginnings and endings can happen in a person’s life. Changes may come which are hard to explain and which do not seem rationally possible. Good things can happen when they are totally unexpected. It may seem that something magical has caused good results.

A magical time in your life may be when things just work out well through some means other than your own doing. A guardian angel may be looking over you. It may not exactly be magic, but it may seem like magic.

There was no magic when 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry were forcibly removed from their comfortable homes on the West Coast of the United States and placed in the American concentration camps during World War II. They might have wished for some magic to prevent their expulsion from their places of residence, but no magic came. Some people indicated later that they were herded like cattle being taken to the slaughter. In fact, some people thought they were being loaded on to trains to be taken out to the desert to be shot.

Instead, they were first taken to assembly centers at race tracks and fairgrounds where their living quarters were horse stalls which had been vacated by the horses with some remaining smells and hairs of the former occupants. This was before the camps were ready. The camps were being built in remote and desolate areas of the country.

Through no fault of their own and only because they were ethnic Japanese, these American citizens and immigrants could find no magic or indeed no help and support to avoid being imprisoned unjustly behind barbed wire enclosures. Armed guards watched over them from the towers placed in the camps. No one came to their aid.

It may seem like magic that people were able to survive that ordeal. Although these people were not treated with the same horror that faced those who were placed in the concentration camps of Europe where people were tortured and killed, it was a difficult thing to lose almost all their material possessions and to be held captive. Life was difficult, but somehow they survived the mistreatment of being unfairly incarcerated when the Constitution did not protect them from the mass racial profiling which occurred after the start of World War II. There may have been some magic in play as they endured the trials of incarceration.

Magic can come into our lives when we least expect it. Happy beginnings and endings to situations can seem like magic. It doesn’t have to be mystical or supernatural sources which cause good things to happen. It may seem like magic, and we may all deserve a little of what appears magical. Life can be good, and we should appreciate it even if it is not real magic.