PARENTS, children, wives, husbands, friends, neighbors, co-workers, even fellow church members—we've all wondered just how to do it. How to love each other without waffling under the stress of circumstances. How to commit, as the master Christian said we should and could, to a level of caring so totally spiritual that it transcends every conceivable kind of barrier—political, social, racial, gender-related. A love that cuts even across enemy lines.

Maybe the answer isn't all that complicated. Maybe committing to pure, irreversible love for anyone and everyone is something so simple that even a child can do it. And can teach other people how to do it, too. Actually, just a few weeks ago, an adorable set of three-year-old triplet girls taught a whole planeload of us traveling from Fort Lauderdale to Boston, something very special about true spiritual love.

The triplets, dressed in the kind of ruffly pink dresses that little girls love to wear, entered the cabin crying inconsolably. A tearful debate followed over which of the girls should sit in which of the three seats this family of five had purchased, in the row just behind me. The problem seemed to be that only two laps were available (Mom's and Dad's) at any given time for the three children. And so any way the dear, endlessly patient parents tried to arrange the seating over most of the three-hour flight, one or the other of the triplets was left wailing and kicking in her seat with no lap to sit on!

As the commotion continued hour after hour, my heart went out to the parents, especially when the flight attendants chastised them. I was praying to see in those little girls the children of God that they really were—the pure and innocent offspring of the one infinite divine Mind—never separated for a moment from the tender, comforting love of their true Father and Mother, God.

Not that the girls instantly began to act angelic. They didn't. But I finally realized that something remarkable was going on around me. All the other passengers seemed to be feeling the same kind of tacit support for that little family that I was! In spite of the noise and agitation, people went right on talking quietly with each other, reading, working on their laptops, sleeping contentedly, or trying to help out with the triplets. No one complained. Everyone seemed able to look beyond the ruckus and find something irresistibly lovable about those children. Everyone was clearly at peace.

"This cabin is full of tangible love," I thought. I knew it was real love because it actually made me feel the presence of God, divine Love, as I hadn't felt it in weeks.

That holy feeling of peace and love still inspires me. It helps me remember that even in the middle of hectic or adversarial situations, God's love is always, always with us. It's there to help us find and love the child of God in everyone. And it's there to help us be the innocent child of God that Jesus said was the model for true Christianity, humility, and love. "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven," he told his followers. Then he went on to say, "And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me" (Matt. 18:3, 5).

And how does a person find the "child" in grown-ups—especially grown-ups that seem anything but lovable? Mary Baker Eddy's description of children as "the spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love" in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures offers a pathway. And what if the person you see before you falls far short of that ideal, and seems more like an enemy than a friend? Well, the second part of Mrs. Eddy's description says that view is a fraud. Such "children" are "sensual and mortal beliefs; counterfeits of creation, whose better originals are God's thoughts, not in embryo, but in maturity; material suppositions of life, substance, and intelligence, opposed to the Science of being" (pp. 582–583).

So what appears to be the enemy is really no more than a "counterfeit" of God's child. Just knowing that is enormously empowering. It makes Jesus' words "Love your enemies" an attainable reality (Luke 6:27). It gives literally everyone access to the kind of committed spiritual love that's woven through the tenets of virtually all the world's great religions. The kind of love that makes you and me feel one with God as our universal Father-Mother, and with all God's daughters and sons as sisters and brothers.

The fact is, our real, spiritual nature tells us that love is a universal imperative. More than that, divine Love is the very substance of who we are. And that's why Love simply has to be manifested in us. It has to find expression. Love is an irresistible spiritual desire—one each of must, sooner or later, yield to. Even in the face of an "enemy."

A young soldier I met on another recent flight I took (yes, I've been flying a lot lately) helped me understand this better. He was on leave from service in Iraq, and had just stepped off a military transport plane on his way home to Oregon.

What impressed me most about this young soldier was his love for the Iraqi people, and especially for their children. He's so deeply committed to helping these kids, to protecting them from the dangers all around them. As a dad himself, he loves kids—and spends most of his off-hours visiting with children in the villages near his base. Some of them are orphans, and he and his buddies love bringing them little gifts and supplies they need. His face shone with love as he talked about these children and what he plans to do for them when he returns to Iraq.

He talked about some of his missions, too, and how hard it was when a friend in his company had been killed in an incident three weeks earlier. But it's worth the sacrifices, he said in effect. "The Iraqis need us," he said, "and we have to stand by them."

A couple of hours of conversation with this young soldier gave me a whole new view of what military service can be—if it's motivated by love and caring, not hatred for an enemy. Were his feelings unusual? "No," he told me. "Sure, some guys just want to go home. But most people feel like I do."

I'm thankful for these recent lessons in love—in love for all God's children. They hint at an infinitely comforting fact the Science of Christianity reveals: that God's laws of love are always, inevitably operating to soften every hardened heart, to unify and heal every breach, to bring out the friend in every enemy. To help each of us find the child of God in everyone.

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