Article May 5, 1986 Issue

Helping our world find peace through individual love

SHARON SLATON HOWELL

Sometimes a person will take seriously his responsibility to emulate the Master, the Prince of Peace, in loving mankind, only to find himself up against someone, or several people, seemingly difficult if not impossible to love. What then? Fortunately, what Christian Science reveals about the true nature of man—of you and me and everyone—removes this barrier. As its teachings point out, we are never called upon to excuse or to love what is evil or bad or mean. What we are required to do is to try to love as the Master, Christ Jesus, did; that is, to perceive in Truth man as he really is—God's perfect, sinless, loving reflection, the man Jesus came to declare. This is the true, the spiritual, identity of every last one of us.

Almost two years ago I was reading Mrs. Eddy's Message to The Mother Church for 1901 when this passage struck me: "To my sense the Sermon on the Mount, read each Sunday without comment and obeyed throughout the week, would be enough for Christian practice."^{Message for 1901, p. 11.} I resolved to dig into these teachings of Jesus as never before, and to make every effort to apply them every day in some small way. Well, the results were positively heartwarming. So many situations and individuals reaped harmony and healing from this holy enterprise. And good will was wrested from inharmonious relationship more than once.

A particular incident comes to mind: We were having lunch at a local restaurant one day last summer. I stepped up to the counter to order, when a man standing next to me lashed out angrily. It seems I had unintentionally got ahead of him in line, and he let me (and everyone else nearby) know just what he thought of me. However, unlike other times when I wasn't spiritually fortified with Christly love, this time I not only didn't respond to his remarks; I didn't feel even the slightest resentment. We ate our lunch. Then this man I didn't know and would probably never see again did something he didn't have to do: on leaving the establishment he went out of his way to come over to our table, and he apologized profusely for his outburst. "No," I said quickly, "I was in the wrong. I shouldn't have gone ahead of you in line." "No, it was my fault," he insisted. He smiled warmly; I smiled back. Then he left with a raised hand and a fervently spoken "Peace!" The glow from divine Love that enveloped us that day stayed with me a long time, and the encounter itself showed me that I—or anyone—could make a small but worthwhile contribution to world harmony.

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