Article August 15, 2005 Issue

THE FREEING POWER OF LOVE

By Kay Olson

"LOVE. WHAT A WORD! I am in awe before it," wrote theologian and Church founder Mary Baker Eddy. She continued, "the underived, the incomparable, the infinite All of good, the alone God, is Love" (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, pp. 249–250). And in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures she referred to God as "unchanging wisdom and Love ... impartial and universal" (see pp. 2 and 13).

How freeing it is to be able to rest all one's hopes and cares on a Love that will never let you down, "casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you" (I Pet. 5:7). This Love is infinite and universal; therefore, not one of us can be distanced from it. Love is busy every moment, loving each one of us, correcting and redeeming us. We can turn to Love itself and be cured—freed from anything that would obstruct health or happiness. It is awesome to catch even a glimpse of Mary Baker Eddy's vision of Love. Love that by its very nature dissolves all that is unlike itself.

Theologian Henry Drummond, a contemporary of Mrs. Eddy's, published a book on love, The Greatest Thing in the World. She once said "she had intended to write such a book herself, but Professor Drummond had done it so well that he had saved her the effort" (Kate Davidson Kimball, "Love fulfills law," The Christian Science Journal, May 1913, p. 84). Based on First Corinthians, chapter 13, Drummond's text includes what he referred to as "The Spectrum of Love: Patience, Kindness, Generosity, Humility, courtesy, Unselfishness, Good Temper, Guilelessness, Sincerity." These ingredients, he wrote, "make up the supreme gift, the stature of the perfect man" (p. 14).