If you're a senior citizen, do you sometimes feel an urgent need to rethink your attitude toward those of another generation? Maybe you sense the moral and spiritual wrongness of ignoring other age-groups. What stops us from being interested in those who belong to the juvenile or married or career group? Perhaps we tend to see them as a generation below or outside our lifestyle. But if we're ready to rethink this view of ourselves and others, an invigorating new "reason for being" emerges—one that enables us to see everyone in a new way.

We realize we've misjudged others by seeing them as separate from God, the one creator. We realize that mankind is not a mass of mortals representing different generations. Instead, man is spiritual, God's own self-expression, therefore entirely good, intelligent, harmonious, and peace-loving. As this concept of man becomes the model by which we identify others, divisive generational labels disappear. We see others more as God knows them. This correct insight naturally frees us to love everyone, regardless of generation.

How can we maintain this spiritual concept in an environment unfamiliar to us and with people who seem "different"? We must be willing to adopt a purer, truer concept of humanity instead of clinging to a mortal view that labels others as unapproachable, remote from us—unknowable. A humbler, more receptive attitude opens the way for us to understand man as God's likeness, forever united with every other individual idea.

Perhaps it would be helpful to relate my recent experience in learning to express "ungenerational" love. It all began when I read about a police-sponsored effort to start a program to keep children off the streets. This was a united effort of parents, volunteers, and law enforcement officers to benefit children of all ages, especially those in need of parental care. My children and grandchildren are now "on their own," so this venture attracted me. I needed a demanding activity through which I could express love more inclusively, more generously. This program was both intergenerational and intercultural. I saw that spiritual love naturally erases the human generational belief that prevents inclusive loving. I volunteered.

I met police, joked with energetic, self-assured teenagers, visited with responsible mothers, responded to hugs of irresistible kids, and listened to troubled women trying to decide whether to be at home or to go to work. Their problems touched my heart. I learned to see each individual more unselfishly—as God's expression, not as someone personally to sympathize with.

Neither generation, culture, nor race could separate us. I found direction in Christ Jesus' prayer "that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us" (John 17:21). As I kept my thought in line with Jesus' teaching, I could accept our togetherness in God's embrace. We weren't persons on different "levels" in different generations. We were in fact God's spiritual ideas, united in Him.

Jesus' perfect, inclusive love inspired me to recognize everyone's spiritual nature as I was told about family discord and neighborhood upheaval. While listening, I could see the speaker as the perfect expression of God, knowing only good, involved only in satisfying activity. Within God's allness, everyone is conscious of his or her spiritual self-worth and harmonious interaction with others.

I could see more clearly that true being is untouched by "generations" or any other mortal belief that would misrepresent man's oneness with God. This oneness transcends time, overrules class, culture, ID, mortal descent, or inheritance. Generational beliefs dissolve as we realize, "The one Spirit includes all identities" (Science and Health, p. 333).

We put off generational thinking when we truly acknowledge man's spirituality. No one is actually living in a period of life labeled restless, deteriorating, or purposeless. All true being reflects only God, good. We can know (right in muddled human situations) that only God, Spirit, is manifesting His infinite qualities in man and that this is the true being of all people—whatever their age, race, or culture.

As we drop habits that demean us—self-centered thoughts such as concern about appearance or manner or behavior—we grow to know the spiritual fact that we are all one with God. Individual, yes, but always spiritual; therefore one community, one family. In whatever surroundings we find ourselves, we can consciously unite with others by blending with them through our kinship with God, not as people of another generation.

It's this Christly spiritual concept that establishes togetherness. We honor the Christ-spirit in man so steadfastly that we refuse to let general beliefs about humanity impress us. At the same time, we do watch news reports, keep informed about law enforcement efforts, and never miss an opportunity to appreciate a single sign of human progress.

After months of mixing with all ages, what did I learn? I got rid of subtle mental traits that kept me from embracing others in love. And I stopped letting anyone's appearance (hairstyle, garb, or language) prevent me from knowing that person as one with God. By shedding superiority, hesitancy, and caution, I found it easy to be interested in everyone. Any sense of apartness is unthinkable when you value and respect everyone's Godlikeness. In this compassionate, true view of man, we are coequal, and we are discovering the joy of loving all generations.