Editorial February 20, 1971 Issue

Learning to Love in the Right Way

Alan A. Aylwin

Sometimes we see the need to alter our attitude toward someone, but when we try, the effort seems difficult. The affection and appreciation that we long to feel don't come through, and we wonder why.

Perhaps we need to remember that a deep-seated dislike of another, or a fixed negative opinion of his character or capabilities, cannot be changed by a mere effort of the will. Real affection is not something that evolves in the human mind through the blind force of electrical impulses in the brain. Warmth, understanding, humility, and patience are not the outcome of a physical process. They are human evidence of man's higher spiritual identity, and can come forth only as that true selfhood and its relationship to God are understood.

To love another really means to see and value him as he is known to God, perfect divine Mind or Love. It means looking beyond the misleading picture of a fallible mortal and recognizing all men as ideas of one concordant Principle, and therefore now and eternally loving and lovable. Under the marginal heading "Redemption from selfishness," Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "When we realize that there is one Mind, the divine law of loving our neighbor as ourselves is unfolded; whereas a belief in many ruling minds hinders man's normal drift towards the one Mind, one God, and leads human thought into opposite channels where selfishness reigns." ^{Science and Health, p. 205;}