Love makes the world go round ...

That familiar saying is based on a concept which many of us pray with every day of our lives, and it has a more profound meaning than is often realized.

Christ Jesus, quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 , commanded his followers to love God and their neighbor as themselves (see Mark 12:30, 31 ). The writer of the First Epistle of John emphasized that God is Love, and reiterated Jesus’ teaching about the necessity of loving one another (see I John 4:7, 8 ). And Mary Baker Eddy highlighted the importance of love throughout her writings, and wrote of its key role in healing. In so many areas of life, love is the essential ingredient.

In 1898, in the last Normal class Mrs. Eddy taught, she asked the question: “What is the best way to do instantaneous healing?” After various answers were given, she said, “I will tell you the way to do it. It is to love! Just live love—be it—love, love, love. Do not know anything but Love. Be all love. There is nothing else. That will do the work. It will heal everything; it will raise the dead. Be nothing but love” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Vol. I, pp. 296–297).

Mrs. Eddy quite often pairs Love with Truth, another synonym for God. She writes, “Love is priestess at the altar of Truth” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 454 ). To me, this is a very telling statement because it suggests that in order to understand truth and apply it practically in our lives, we need to love; otherwise truth remains on a theoretical level and is not fully utilized and made our own.

Love unifies, causes all things to relate harmoniously.

In my study of Christian Science, I’ve come to realize the importance of the qualities of affection and compassion, which relate to the concept of spiritual love. They help pave the way for the healing Truth to replace the misconceptions called discord or disease. Love removes the element of disease called fear, creating trust in God, good, which results in healing.

Those who show compassion in its highest, spiritual, sense, may understand where an individual is coming from and what they’re going through, but ultimately they see them as an idea or image of Love. This understanding heals physically and morally. This form of love—this firm grasp of our God-given nature—is what Jesus represented, and made him the most successful healer the world has known.

To follow Jesus’ example, as he urged us to do, we need to gain a better idea of what divine Love is and what we are as its expression. It’s also important to know that Love and its reflection is one, and that we are always embraced in the healing law of Love.

In my everyday experience, I have come to realize more fully that divine Love is the only power, holding everything together. Infinitely beyond the conceptions or misconceptions of material sense, Love unifies, causes all things to relate harmoniously.

Love is the essence of healing, as I have proved many times in my own experience. For example, at one time money was stolen from my wallet in a sports bag I’d left in a locker room. After I’d quelled some initial resentment, I prayed for a better understanding of God as Love, supplying all our needs, sometimes in unexpected ways. Although I didn’t get the stolen money back, I’m grateful to report that at about that time I received two checks in the mail—one from a family member who had sold some long-forgotten belongings for me after I’d left home, and the other a business-related refund—which more than covered the amount I had lost.

On another occasion, when I was coming back from a field trip in the Canadian north, along the way I encountered a flight attendant and a pizza shop cashier who appeared to me to be very unloving. But my perception of them and their behavior completely changed as I held in thought their inherent spiritual nature, and all was well. I have since come to appreciate that when we succeed in removing our misconceptions about others, what Love is already knowing about them is revealed.

All of us, by reason of our unbreakable relation to divine Love, naturally reflect loving qualities, and have an innate capacity to bring deep caring and healing into every corner of our lives. If love seems far removed from our experience, we need first to gain some acceptance of these spiritual facts as true. Then we need to let God’s love lighten up our lives by dispelling the various fears we may harbor. I’ve found that as we better understand—and demonstrate—the healing power of divine Love, the greater our dominion.

Everyone has the right to love and to be loved. Becoming aware that we live in the atmosphere of divine Love, we can prove its “activity and power,” and show that love does indeed make the world go round.