Article August 9, 1969 Issue

Let's Love Our Enemies

HELEN VEATCH SUTHERLAND

Christly compassion and universal love for all mankind impelled Mrs. Eddy to pray daily, "'God bless my enemies; make them Thy friends; give them to know the joy and the peace of love.'" The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 220; Such consciousness of divine Love empowers us daily to evidence the omnipresence of good by expressing kindness, consideration, patience, generosity, and forgiveness. Willingness to share blessings with others, regardless of who they are or what they may have done, represents a yielding of human will and opinions, which otherwise might ignorantly claim the privilege of judging and even of punishing those who may have offended or hurt one, whether deliberately or not.

What enables us to love our enemies is the fact that, from a spiritual standpoint, we have no enemies. If we think someone is hindering our success or depriving us of health, happiness, or the necessities of life, we are believing that man is an instrument of evil. This false belief is our sole enemy. Only the belief in evil as real or personal permits an individual to seem to be either its instrument or its victim. And this erroneous concept destroys itself by bringing into the believer's experience the suffering that will eventually force him to relinquish his belief in evil.

To be willing to turn the other cheek, as the Master taught, to be able to forgive without demanding restitution, to refrain from retaliation of any sort, may seem unthinkable to one schooled in the theory of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." Matt. 5:38; But wisdom and compassionate obedience to God, good, require that the spirit of the Golden Rule guide all our actions. Practicing this rule can result only in blessings for all concerned.

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