UPFRONT September 4, 2006 Issue

The healing embrace of unconditional love

MAIKE BYRD, CHILDREN'S EDITOR

Imagine hugging 30 million people. Impossible? Not if you're Amma, an Indian guru, who's been holding hugging sessions during the past 35 years all over the world. Amma has literally lived her heartfelt desire to bring comfort to people by expressing unconditional love to all she meets. As The Christian Science Monitor reported, she wants to awaken in people "the healing qualities of universal motherhood"—a motherhood that she equates with divine Love, or God (July 27, 2006).

Of course, this infinite, divine Love is the foundation of many religions, and it is the heart and soul of Christianity. To love without partiality or hypocrisy, but with deep affection and compassion, is to love as God loves. It's a love that heals.

A deeply Christian woman of the 19th century, Sentinel founder Mary Baker Eddy, knew of the power of Love to heal humanity's woes. Many who turned to her for help were restored to health. Asked how she accompanied her remarkable healing work, Mrs. Eddy is quoted as saying, "I saw the love of God encircling the universe and man, filling all space, and that divine Love so permeated my own consciousness that I loved with Christlike compassion everything I saw" (Abigail Dyer Thompson, We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, p. 68).

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