Article October 5, 1981 Issue

A loving righteousness

JANET RAE BEEZLEY

Have you ever found it difficult to feel at once gentle but firm, righteous but uncritical? For a while I struggled in the attempt. It seemed perplexing to me that when I tried to hew to the line of Principle, I didn't always feel loving and vice versa.

For example, if friends or co-workers behaved in ways that seemed to deviate from strict integrity, I found myself feeling self-righteous, critical, and sometimes almost guilty about my association with them. I somehow felt that to love them in spite of wrongdoing was to condone their behavior. Yet to be unloving seemed less than Christian. "The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love,"^{Science and Health, p. 113.} says Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health. Surely there was a solution to this dilemma.

I thought of Christ Jesus' example. His healings and teachings were unexcelled expressions of righteousness and love. A good example was the release of the adulterous woman. Before he freed her, he apparently saw the need to heal the self-righteousness of her accusers, the Pharisees. He challenged them to examine their own lives before condemning another. The biblical account tells us, "And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last."^{John 8:9.} Then Jesus compassionately set the woman free.