Article December 2, 2019 Issue

From ‘the liberal’ and ‘the conservative’ to friends

Ingrid Peschke

A version of this article appeared in The Christian Science Monitor’s Christian Science Perspective column, September 26, 2019.

Early on in my teaching career, there was a colleague I worked closely with whose views clashed with mine on everything from food to politics to fashion. I tried to get along with this individual but had a hard time seeing past our differences, which I chalked up to our upbringing in very different parts of the country. It was clear one of us was “the liberal” and the other was “the conservative.” (Sound familiar?)

One day I went home stewing about yet another conversation with my colleague that had left me feeling annoyed and even slightly unwell. That night, it finally dawned on me that I couldn’t change her, but I sure could change how I had been thinking about her.

A daily goal of mine was to find solutions to any challenge I faced through prayer, to consider things from a spiritual vantage point in quiet communion with God. I’ve seen the value of this kind of approach many times. “The habitual struggle to be always good is unceasing prayer,” wrote Mary Baker Eddy (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 4). Well, I wanted to be good, and this situation sure wasn’t making me feel good. So I prayed.

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