Article March 4, 1996 Issue

Peace begins in your own corner!

Carolyn Hill

It began with the demands of a small girl perched in the basket-seat of the shopping cart in front of me and soon developed into a high-volume shouting match between sister, brother, and mother. Hoping to bring some peace to the area by providing a diversion, I complimented the little girl on her purple shoes. Result? She began yelling at me not to look at her shoes or talk to her!

It is not my custom to close my eyes and bow my head in prayer in a public place, but that's exactly what came to me to do. My praying was not in the form of specific words at this point but simply a reaching out to God for some thoughts to calm the turbulence of this moment and help me see the beloved child of His creating.

Such a desire is prayer itself and was answered in these words from the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy: "A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive" (p. 463). The discord disrupting the atmosphere certainly qualified as "offensive." But God did not make any mistakes in His creation. And this child was actually God's spiritual idea, or likeness, and didn't include an unspiritual element such as rebellion.

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