Article January 13, 1968 Issue

Harmonious Family Relationships

EDWIN G. LEEVER

What a joy it is to know that one can work intelligently to have harmonious family relationships and maintain them! In Christian Science one learns that harmony in one's individual experience is not dependent upon others. If he meets up with another's stubborn resistance to what he thinks Science is or isn't or with another's rebellious nature or with another's inconsideration and self-centeredness, one still has recourse to the facts of Science; and he can realize and demonstrate God's government.

Many people keep waiting for other members of their family to change or to do something to restore harmony. They are like the Pharisees, who asked Jesus "when the kingdom of God should come."^{Luke 17:20;} He replied. "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, "Immortals, or God's children in divine Science, are one harmonious family: but mortals, or the 'children of men in material sense, are discordant and ofttimes false brethren."^{Science and Health, p. 444;} As one fills his own consciousness with the concept of man as immortal and rejects the discordant, false, mortal concept, he will maintain his own peace of mind and contribute to harmonious family relationships.