Article April 16, 1990 Issue

A HEART FOR COMMUNITY

It's natural to care deeply about community. Real love for family extends to neighbors—and overflows for the whole of society. This occasional column tells of how a spiritual perspective has been helping Sentinel readers help others and make a contribution to healing some of the collective challenges facing communities today.

For forty years I worked with the Probation Service. A probation officer's statutory duty in my country is to "assist, advise, and befriend" those under his or her supervision. To do this, the officer must detect and uncover the imbalance that seemed to have led the individual to commit a crime, and help the person to develop the self-control needed to resist further temptation. Over the years I became convinced that one cannot hope to be truly successful in a healing process of this kind unless one believes that the fundamental, God-bestowed goodness of man has unfailing power to nullify what appears to be a propensity for wrongdoing.

Christian Science helped me as a probation officer on countless occasions. However strongly an offender had been deemed "poor material," "worthless," "a hopeless case," I determined to hold in thought his deepest spiritual identity. After forty years of work with former criminals, my faith in the inviolable sinlessness of man and the redeeming power of Christ Jesus' teachings has grown rather than diminished. I attribute this to the inner strength that God gives us to refuse to accept mortal limitations as the final word about any individual. I have had the great blessing of seeing, despite heavy odds, so many of society's rejects become valued citizens.

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