Harmony is a spiritually scientific fact and not merely a pleasant material arrangement of notes, colors, forms, people, movement ... whatever. It represents the unity, the essential oneness, of the divine universe. "God is harmony's selfhood," ^{Unity of Good, p. 13.} Mrs. Eddy writes. In this true harmony there is no friction, nor can there be vacuums or lapses, for spiritual harmony is a divine connectedness.

The human heart fears estrangement or meaningless, dishonest involvements, but may feel that these are the only alternatives to discordant relationships. However, even a glimpse of the spiritual fact that God's universe is one unified whole reveals ways to resolve discord into harmony, to heal, and to draw us closer to one another.

Christian Science teaches that in reality there is one Mind which is reflected in the true consciousness of each one of us. There is one body—one infinite individuality—expressed by each. Reflecting the divine individuality, we, in a sense, include each other—but that's a subject for another editorial. There is nothing external to man's knowing, for there is nothing outside God, the divine Mind that man reflects. To the degree that we understand this, we find immunity from the discords of diseases and personality conflicts, and escape the isolation of unrelated lives.

The way to achieve greater health and harmony, as well as heal estrangements, is not confined to rearranging matter or relationships. "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint," ^{Ps. 22: 14.} the Psalmist cried. Can you imagine trying to bring wholeness to that experience through human means? Yet it is divinely natural for everything in our universe to be properly connected.

This spiritual fact was communicated to Ezekiel in an unusual way when, as he relates, "The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones." And Ezekiel was told to say, "O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord." And he recounts, "So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone." ^{Ezek. 37: 1, 4, 7.}

The drawing-together power that comes through recognition of the harmony of the universe has no limits. Ruptures of both heart and body have been healed through this divinely natural power. The pull of mortality, however, is toward disunity. When we see such forces of evil at work, we need not yield to despondency. Our prayers will help build a higher, more sound and stable unity—a harmony we may never have perceived before—if we remain faithful to our vision of spiritual unity.

Mrs. Eddy writes, "Pale, sinful sense, at work to lift itself on crumbling thrones of justice by pulling down its benefactors, will tumble from this scheme into the bottomless abyss of self-damnation, there to relinquish its league with evil. Wide yawns the gap between this course and Christian Science.

"God spare this plunge, lessen its depths, save sinners and fit their being to recover its connection with its divine Principle, Love. For this I shall continue to pray." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 200.}

Praying for all to recover their connection with Love requires more from us than a pleading with God that erring ones be reconciled to Him. We need to recognize the divine connectedness of being, insisting in our own consciousness that such a one is in reality forever at one with God, eternal Mind; that this one, as ourselves, is now engaged in living the life of Love, entertaining intelligent ideas, governed by wisdom. Praying to reconcile with the spiritual reality our concept of one from whom we may feel estranged will eventually reconcile that one with us.

But trying to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship— whether of marriage partners, parent and child, corporate affiliates, or international alignments—with purely human methods may be a Humpty Dumpty operation that falls short of success. Finding the divine connection of each with unerring Principle, and thus with each other, evolves a process that cannot fail. Our Master, Christ Jesus, prayed for his disciples and for those who would believe on him through their word: "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." ^{John 17:21.}

"The time is out of joint," ^{Hamlet, Act I, scene 5 .} Shakespeare's Hamlet cried, and so may we as we ponder some situation, or feel an inharmony of mind or body. But let us never forget that Christ, Truth, is ever available—is indeed the very core of man's true knowing—to restore order, to heal separation. And while Hamlet's maneuverings make an exciting play, filled with interesting insights, it cannot match the drama of Christly action that pulls lives together in genuine joy and love where there has been estrangement; that frees bodies to move harmoniously; that resolves out-of-joint times into the unity of heaven.

Sometimes we may eschew what appears to others as harmony, feeling it a cover-up or at least a head-in-the-sand attitude in the face of fearful world discords. Or we may feel some things classified as dissonant are but an unfamiliar harmony. Whether or not we always agree on what we call harmony in the human scene, the fact remains that spiritual reality is a harmonious whole. And the more we know of the divine One, God, the more clearly we perceive the rightful connectedness of all that is. We demonstrate more progressively a genuine harmony in our lives—a harmony that brooks no estrangement but is inclusive of orderly, beautiful, inspiring relationships.

BEULAH M. ROEGGE