The heavy-metal guitar music blared, as my 11-year-old daughter glared at me. She'd hoped to enjoy her first dance without her mother's watchful eye as a chaperone. Camille knew that certain elements of the dance would be hard for me to accept. She was right. Her friends did body slamming, a type of dance where partners run into each other at high impact, in pants barely hanging onto their hips. And as eighth-grade girls announced the titles of upcoming songs, I recognized language not fit for any playground.

I quietly stood in a corner trying not to let my disapproval be too obvious. And I thought I was doing quite well—until one of Camille's teachers came on the dance floor, revealing a provocative tattoo on his forearm. Let's just say, that put me way out of my comfort zone as a mother.

Yet I couldn't help but remember that earlier in the day I'd been praying to feel only God's love in my heart. A rash of poison oak was spreading blisters over my face and hands, and I knew that my prayers to heal the condition needed to include the recognition that God, who is Love itself, is the only Creator. My prayers involved treatment that was specific and purely mental in nature based on the laws of the Science of spiritual being called Christian Science. Within these immortal laws—which are spiritual not human—all is the manifestation of God and is good. Furthermore, according to these laws of God, man is spiritual. My prayer treatment had involved a yearning to witness the unstoppable and pure activity of God, as well as affirmations of my own spotless spiritual nature as His manifestation.

Yet at the dance, I'd lost sight of the spiritual reality and let the disturbing aspects of the dance become a focus—and the irritation on my skin had begun to inflame. Many times in my life I'd applied these spiritual laws and witnessed healings of illness and injury, including broken bones. So right then, I humbly acknowledged the power of spiritual law to heal.

As we drove home, Camille was so happy, chatting on and on about how great the dance was. Stifling my long list of criticisms, I made an effort to find something good to say. She was pleasantly surprised. And with the sweetest smile, she hugged me as we got out of the car, thanking me for being there. It felt as if God was embracing us in that moment. Although I was still upset, I remember being in awe because I saw that this love between my daughter and me actually pointed to the Science of Christianity at work. As I exercised just a little patience and humility—divine qualities—my daughter's feelings about my attending her dance had completely turned around. In that hug I saw evidence of the healing activity of prayer.

Sometimes criticism, bolstered by self-righteousness, can be alluring and feel satisfying, even all-consuming, when we allow ourselves to be tricked into thinking that angry thoughts are ours. Yet characteristics such as aggression, sensuality, anger, even self-righteousness have never been a part of our spiritual makeup. They do not exist in Love, the Creator of all reality. Therefore, they don't exist in us as Love's reflection. "In Science," wrote Mary Baker Eddy, "man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin is not, like that of mortals, in brute instinct, nor does he pass through material conditions prior to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and ultimate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the law of his being" (Science and Health, p. 63).

Angry or hateful thoughts may come to our thinking, as our own ideas, but actually, our identity is meticulously crafted by God of childlike qualities such as inspiration and unbendable peace. Therefore, we have the right to reject coarse, material, self-depreciating states of mind. In doing so, we honor and validate for ourselves the beauty and intelligence of Mind, another name for God, and the original source of all profitable ideas. Humbly acknowledging God's authority enables our hearts to open to the gentle correcting power of Love.

That night I sat in bed, trying to quiet my irritation and to comprehend my true spiritual identity. I found myself wondering how this self, the one I called me, who felt so angry and ugly in that moment, could possibly be a spiritual daughter of the most Holy Creator.

So I opened a copy of Pulpit and Press to a sermon Mary Baker Eddy wrote in 1895, and read, "O thou 'weak and infirm of purpose.' Jesus said, 'Be not afraid'!

That simple poem spoke to me. Jesus' words "Be not afraid" echoed with authority. He had effectively practiced the divine laws of God better than anyone else I could think of. And his example continually inspires me to want to understand the spiritual scientific laws that enabled him to heal sin and disease.

Then this thought came to me. "It only takes a drop of good. You've got one drop of good in you, haven't you?" I really had to laugh. And it was easy to admit that both Camille's teacher and I, and everyone who attended the dance, had at least one drop of good. So I began my prayer—to love all I had seen that night—with the confidence that God had given everyone, everywhere, more than a bit of good. And that this truth was powerful enough to eliminate any form of malice, or poison.

As I consented to this truth, a flood of deep spiritual love washed over me. I realized more than ever that God created everyone entirely spiritual. We are not part material and part spiritual, part good and part bad, but like pure rain, every drop good. This realization dissolved any critical memory I had of the dance. God's sweet allness became a present reality, filling every corner of my thought. Truly the Science of the Christ was at work. My thinking had changed dramatically, and I could feel myself submitting to the authority of genuine Love. Under Love's authority, there is only gratitude and joy for God's sinless creation. There is no place for conflict or division. As I allowed an awareness of God's spiritual activity to enter my consciousness, I naturally let go of thoughts that said mental or physical irritation was natural, or needed. This growing awareness of the allness of God displaced seething thoughts. As a result, the itching on my body stopped immediately, and I was free to contemplate the bliss of spiritual activity—the actual activity of the evening.

The next morning, when I woke, all the blisters on my body and face had dried up. And even more important, when I visited Camille's school the next Monday, I found that her teacher had already agreed that the tattoo was not appropriate at school functions and that he would keep his arms covered. When he and I spoke later that day about some homework for Camille, all I felt was love and compassion.

Jesus said, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you" (Matt. 17:20). For me, this Bible verse reiterates the power of even a little understanding of the true nature of God. Like a drop of good, this grain of understanding—that as offspring of an infinitely good Creator, we each are innately spiritual—dissolves conflict. Moves mountains of fear or hate, corrects whatever is not good, not of God.

|css