Phillips Brooks, an Episcopalian priest in Philadelphia, visited the Holy Land in 1865. As the story goes, he was so inspired by the peaceful Christmas Eve view of Bethlehem from the surrounding hills that he later put pen to paper. The result was the Christmas carol "O Little Town of Bethlehem," the first verse of which reads:

These words of hope and peace—roughly 140 years later—are well known and beloved. Yet hope and peace are not the words that usually come to mind when one is thinking of modern-day Bethlehem and the communities surrounding it. The picture is more often one of harsh dissonance than uplifting harmony, brutal revenge than blessed forgiveness, fierce rivalry than beloved brotherhood. Where is the promise of peace and "good will toward men"? Where is the "everlasting Light"?

As I've been praying for a fresh, healing way to view the volatile situation in the Middle East, I've thought about the story of the city of Babel (see Gen. 11:1-9). According to the Bible, up to that point all the people of the earth spoke one language. Then they decided to build the great city of Babel, with a tower high enough to "reach unto heaven." The Bible says that the people were actually building a monument to their own achievements, rather than honoring God. As a result of their pride and materialism, God caused them to speak different languages so they could no longer understand each other. The result was confusion, a scattering of the people, and a loss of their common identity.

How similar this picture of a fractured humanity seems to today's Middle East, with its blatant injustices, economic disparities, territorial disputes, political rivalries, religious extremism, and brutality. Middle East experts cite a range of complex human causes for these situations. But from a metaphysical standpoint, the question is, "How do we break through the mesmeric picture of Babel to the peaceful promise of Bethlehem?"

In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy described the spiritual significance of Babel as: "self-destroying error; a kingdom divided against itself, which cannot stand; material knowledge" (p. 581). If pride and materialism separated God's children, humility and spiritualization of thought must be the pathways to healing. A good place to start is to ask how we view our own identity and the identity of our fellow men and women.

Perhaps nowhere in the world is there a greater struggle over identity than in the Middle East. From a human standpoint, common identity brings with it a sense of belonging, purpose, and security. When people feel there is no common purpose or link with others, feelings of division, rivalry, and often enmity may arise. In the Middle East of today, this takes on heightened importance as people ask questions like these: Is a person Muslim or Christian? Sunni or Shiite? Israeli or Palestinian? American or European? Arab or Turkish? The answer to the question "Who are you?" can have serious, even lifethreatening, consequences.

But this is where Christian Science can provide common ground that will bring people together. This Science teaches that because we're spiritual, we're all the children of a loving and all-powerful God. Our true brotherhood and sisterhood have nothing to do with the human circumstances of birth. They have everything to do with the profound, unchangeable nature of our identity as the reflection, or expression, of Truth, Life, and Love. We can look past the material picture of deep divisions to the primal fact of a shared spiritual parentage. This is not some far-off possibility. It is everpresent truth.

A conviction of our common spiritual heritage permeates the teachings of Christ Jesus, whose encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well, for example, showed his willingness to look past her personal heritage and behavior, to give her and her neighbors the higher message that God is Spirit and is with each one of us everywhere (see John 4:1-26).

Jesus—the great master metaphysician—wanted his listeners to discover that spiritual reality is the only reality, and then to live accordingly. His teachings could not be clearer: "Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; ... and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again" (Luke 6:27-30).

Jesus' teachings were far from pacifistic. He was a man of action in a very profound way. Mrs. Eddy described him as "the most scientific man that ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause" (Science and Health, p. 313). She also stressed his message to humanity, that God and man (meaning both men and women) are inseparable, as Principle and its idea, Mind and its reflection.

These aren't just theories; they are realities that Jesus proved and urged us to prove also. A willingness to plunge beneath the material surface in praying about the Middle East, and also to perceive the unshakable unity of God and man, will bring our prayers to a new and more profound level.

From time to time, I've stopped and asked myself how well am I living and proving the truth of these fundamental concepts? What mental models am I holding in thought? Do I sometimes fall into an "us versus them" paradigm? When I hear reports of a bombing in Iraq or Israel, do I ever think how grateful I am that the violence is happening "over there," instead of stopping to pray for peace and harmony for all humanity, at all times, everywhere? Do I give evil a foothold by believing that one group is more subject to violence than another, when—since each of us is spiritual and good—violence can only be a lie about all people? Do I ever take pride in the belief that "my group" acts with more wisdom and goodness than another, instead of taking a stand for wisdom and goodness for everyone? These thoughts of division can be subtle, but they still lead astray.

Christ Jesus clearly demonstrated that the true remedy for all human discord is a more profound understanding of our spiritual identity and our unity with God. To be confident of our relationship with Him takes away the rivalry and fear that lead to war. The jagged barbs of mortal thought that would wound and divide humanity melt away in the light of divine Love. As Mary Baker. Eddy wrote, "In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error,—self-will, self-justification, and self-love,—which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death" (Science and Health, p. 242).

In this war, on which side are we fighting? Are we entertaining the pride, materialism, and division of the Babel model—or are we opening the doors of thought to the peace, brotherhood, and "everlasting Light" of Bethlehem? CSS