Raw emotion crackled over the telephone wires. One friend was furious with another friend and was telling me about it in words that stung. I have never been very good in the face of anger, and I churned inwardly and shook outwardly, struggling for the balance of unconditional, unqualified love for both of my friends.

As I continued listening to the unhappy outpouring, I realized that what I was actually hearing was a cry to be loved. With my whole heart I prayerfully insisted that the Christ, revealing God's unconditional love for each of His children, was present to meet the human need.

This freely given love is God's grace, and it is our daily bread if we will seek the Giver.

I also realized that Christly prayer includes taking up a cross. A hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal instructs:

I recognized that if I was to get through this difficult conversation with a dear friend, I had better be willing to do some cross-bearing. Optimum cross-bearing conditions, according to the hymn, are denying self and forsaking the world.

I knew, then, I didn't have to indulge a personal reaction to what I was hearing. "I will love, if another hates. I will gain a balance on the side of good, my true being" ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 104.} are words of Mrs. Eddy's that I took to heart. Such love is not of human origin, nor is it a human talent or capacity. Hatred does not unbalance it, for it reflects the divine Love that uplifts and balances present experience.

Forsaking the world meant to me, "Don't get caught up with what you are hearing, how it is being said, nor with a reaction to the one saying it." What an opportunity to forgive and to lay down human opinion in exchange for the Christ-love that would redeem us all.

I prayed to know that each of us is God's child—spiritual because God is Spirit and loved because God is Love. And I prayed to see that divine wisdom and intelligence assert these truths in our behalf, protecting and bringing peace. These steps of prayerful reasoning led me to the spiritual conclusion that I was striving to accept as my starting point—man undivorced from spiritual Love, forever at one with God.

I recalled a time in earlier years, when a law officer and I hadn't agreed. He had ticketed me, saying, "You can appeal this." I did.

There was plenty of time before the court hearing to pray. I knew prayer wasn't effective without love, but I couldn't get past self-justification to accept the presence of God, divine Love, as Christ Jesus had required of his followers. He said: "Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven .... For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?" ^{Matt. 5:44–46.}

It was the "that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven" that got me. I was pretty sure that I was God's child, but I wasn't so sure about the state trooper. The willingness to see him that way was there, but I seemed to be short on the capability to act on it.

Enter saving grace: "If you can't love him (the state trooper), then move over. Don't stand in the way of letting God love him for you."

Enter humility: "Father, You do the loving, and let me stay out of Your business."

The relief was immediate. It was easy to pray:

• To affirm that justice and mercy are primarily the characteristics of divine law and are brought by the Christ into human experience.

• To affirm that the nature of divine law is synonymously and simultaneously that of divine Love and divine Principle.

• To affirm that human law in its highest form patterns the divine law; therefore it cannot be misconstrued by human opinion.

To mere human reasoning these arguments might appear irrelevant. But referring my case to the Christ—to the power of divinity to adjust human circumstances—was relevant and effective. When the traffic judge heard my case, he dismissed it. There was no verdict against me.

Remembering the relief of letting Love its own unconditional loving in that situation, I was certain that I could refer my distraught friends to the Christ just as effectively. I recalled that Christ Jesus said to take up the cross and that Christian Science teaches us—in the words of a poem by Mrs. Eddy—to kiss the cross. Referring to God's tender love, she writes:

My "world more bright" was, first, the ability to stay cool in the heat of another's emotion; then, the desire to respond with loving reassurance throughout the conversation; and, finally, the willingness to continue to refer my thought to the Christ in the days that followed—whenever I was tempted to recall the incident and to ruminate on it.

Have you ever noticed how rumination interrupts reverence For me the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," ^{Ex. 20:3.} has its concomitant "Thou shalt have no other thought of man than My reflection." Reverence for God includes reverence for His man. Focusing on others as finite, erring mortals disobeys the commandments—it's unwise, unsafe and unhealthy. Bearing true witness to God and man, as the Christ commands, we leave off worship of graven images, and Spirit shines beautiful images of itself into spiritualized consciousness.

The proof of healing? Utter conviction of my innocence and, even better, conviction of the innocence of my friends. The friendship remained undisturbed.

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. ... Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Romans 13:8, 10