BEING unified with others for a common objective is a widely attractive idea. Getting together for mutual benefit, belonging to a society or organization that we can contribute to and that helps support us: such attitudes are natural.

But grasping the spiritual essence of unity brings about a uniquely satisfying and anchoring feeling of truly belonging. Christ Jesus gave us a breakthrough insight into ultimate unity in his declaration "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30). He showed us the most fundamental relationship there is. He spoke not of some form of personal togetherness but of his coexistence with God, the origin and Maker of all real existence. Unity starts with God, with His oneness and allness. It's about God; it is a divine concept. It is, in fact, that concept and that reality which make possible a concordant human community.

The unity of God and man is the underlying reality of true being. It's the essence of universal brotherhood. It's the inevitable fact, too, of human experience—to the degree that the union of God and man is glimpsed and appreciated by individuals, and carried out in their life week to week.

The world of mankind—even our local community—may at times be torn apart by stress, tension, racism, political corruption; it may be very disunited. But which world is that? Not the reality in which God and His idea, man, are in peaceful union always. The fake world, seeming to be physical and geographical and personal—with its arguments of who owns which limited resources and with clashing ideologies—is not the reality of being but a material mind's distortion of it.

Claims of disunion are not resolved by taking off on flights of religious fancy or by laying down the law about what everyone else ought to do. What genuinely helps is our maintaining a more vivid view of our own undisturbed union with divine Principle, God. And then seeing that this oneness becomes more evident in our daily round.

Nor is the final answer to disunion a matter of trying to weld together, no matter how lovingly, bits and pieces of society that inherently don't fit comfortably together. Rather, the answer lies in realizing deeply and prayerfully that the elements of true existence—man, substance, love, intelligence, all the expressions of God's being—can't be tugged apart. They remain in steady concord.

Yet battles large or small may break out in the corporation or the kitchen, between ethnic groups or religious. Such incidents can be very upsetting. Through the Science of Christ, we can grow in the understanding that man cannot be disturbed by material evidence of ugly disunity, since man, divine Principle's manifestation, is never actually faced with it. There is no jangling material testimony of any kind, for there is no matter in the allness of Principle, God.

Family unity, rooted in the oneness of Father-Mother, God, and His family of ideas, doesn't impose sameness and restrict the development of this one or that, but clears the way for individual growth. Impersonally based family unity doesn't bring about a blurring of individual identity but focuses and sharpens it.

In reality, unity isn't the coming together of fragments merging in a colorless and shapeless mass. It's not comparable to raindrops flowing down the window, coalescing with the main stream and losing their identity. Rather, unity is divine wholeness remaining the stable actuality everywhere, wherein true identity is not lost but uncovered. Referring to God, Mary Baker Eddy says, "He sustains my individuality. Nay, more—He is my individuality and my Life" (Unity of Good, p. 48).

But what if much of the time, despite efforts to fit in unselfishly and congenially, you still feel out of kilter with parents or colleagues?

Spiritual facts are not dependent on others for their expression, and others can't hinder their expression. You can still—and always—affirm the truths of your spiritual identity and prove them. If you can claim those truths with genuine conviction, you can demonstrate them—and you don't have to wait, either. In another of her books, Mary Baker Eddy writes, "The sweet, sacred sense and permanence of man's unity with his Maker, in Science, illumines our present existence with the ever-presence and power of God, good" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 196). What a tremendous possibility!

Oneness with God characterizes the true identity of us all. It is as necessary to our real self as are colors to national flags; our being wouldn't exist without this connection—this coexistence—with God. The comprehending, the accepting, and the living of this oneness are the soundest basis for stronger and more worthwhile human groupings. Really, unity is not the clustering of more or less disparate parts. It is the wholeness of eternal being present everywhere. Recognizing such spiritual facts will help bring together elements that should be together.

Our life and relationship will be more unified as our reasoning goes back to a spiritual and scientific perception of unity. This calls on us to put to one side the egotistical self, which is not the true "who we are," and consistently to accept our enduring place in the oneness of Spirit. What superbly wise teaching this is: "Spirit teaches us to resign what we are not and to understand what we are in the unity of Spirit—in that Love which is faithful, an ever-present help in trouble, which never deserts us" (Mrs. Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 167).

Constructive unity may sometimes seem threatened by beliefs of personal ego that parachute quietly into thought, apparently coming from nowhere. But their source, in Biblical terms, is the devil. The devil would divide man from God, divide man into a planetful of mortals, then split individual from individual in painful disunion. However, the scientific fact is that instead of spending decades as more or less disunited mortals separated from God, we have spent eternity as spiritual idea, one with Principle.

This observation in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy could scarcely be more timely or practical in its showing of the way: "One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scriptures, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself;' annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,—whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed" (p.340). There it is—the one, all-good God unifies.