Article October 29, 1990 Issue

Love more and take off the mask

Spiritual love sees through the outward appearances to that which is loved of God.

Carol Lindholm

Most of us, in times of trouble, have felt the need to pray. We turn to a higher source to save us from the predicament in which we find ourselves. Why is it these prayers are not always answered? One human tendency is to decide on the desired outcome and expect God to comply with our wishes. A much more effective form of prayer is listening to God's direction. When human desires are stilled and the tumult of human planning and striving ceases, we are better able to hear God's solution to the problem confronting us. Let me illustrate.

Several years ago I had been praying earnestly about a human relations problem of long standing. As I had been taught in Christian Science, I was affirming God's allness and denying the reality of the erroneous picture, but seemingly to no avail. Finally I asked God to show me what I needed to do in order to be healed of anger, resentment, and a feeling of helplessness. Then I listened. These words came clearly to my thought: "Love more. Take off the mask."

As I pondered these words and how they pertained to my situation, I saw in my mind's eye a beautiful painting, perfect in every detail, unquestionably painted by a master artist. Then this beautiful painting was completely masked over with crude and careless strokes by an unskilled painter whose caricature of the original was twisted and ugly. I saw that the original picture symbolized the perfect spiritual universe and man created by God. That which seemed to obscure the original symbolized the false, material sense of existence, with all its suffering and discord. How fortunate I was to know that the ugly counterfeit wasn't the original painting but an outlandish fake. All that was needed was lovingly and persistently to remove the counterfeit brushstrokes to reveal the glorious masterpiece underneath.

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