Taking the fear out of difference

JOHN LEWIS SELOVER

An obstacle we face in loving one another is that we seem so different from each other. Different races, nationalities, religions, customs, languages, talents, interests. Yet the Bible reassuringly asks, "Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?"^{Mal. 2:10;}

We do all have one Father, as Christ Jesus continually proved. God is Father-Mother. Man is God's spiritual idea, or creation. Our relationship to each other is planted squarely on the foundation of our relationship to God.

Differences we attribute to geography, language, culture, are subordinated to the fact that, as Mrs. Eddy says in the Christian Science textbook, "God creates and governs the universe, including man."^{Science and Health, p. 295;} Differences between people become less an obstacle as we discern the true nature of man and his relation to God. We observe differences, but we see them more as evidence of the unthreatening variety of God's creation. The Apostle Paul observed, "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit."^{I Cor. 12:4;}