I Grew up in a neighborhood where almost everyone's skin color was the same as mine. I didn't really know how I felt about people of other races, even by the time I had gotten to high school, because I'd had so little contact with them.

One of my first "introductions" to another race was when I was leaving a distant neighborhood gym after an informal basketball game. I was jumped and beaten by a gang whose members were of a different race. This left me with some distinct feelings about people of another color, and unfortunately the feelings were deeply hateful. The memories of being punched, kicked, stoned, and chased with baseball bats only because of the color of my skin were hard to forget.

I had another very different experience just a few months later. My constant, angry arguing with my parents had gotten so severe that my dad said I needed to stop being so disrespectful immediately or get out of our home. I left, but the reality of having no place to live set in within moments. Neighborhood friends of my own race gave me much sympathy, but no one offered me shelter.

Unexpectedly I spoke that day to a young man of a different race whom I'd recently met while playing basketball. He lived with his grandparents near the center of our large, midwestern city in the tiny attic of a tiny house. When I mentioned what had happened at home, he didn't express sympathy. He immediately said, "Well, you can come live with us for as long as you need to." I gratefully accepted his offer. The time I spent living with my friend was brief, but I was completely immersed in a neighborhood where almost no one was my color, and I was treated wonderfully by everyone. In fact, the wise counseling I received from my friend's grandmother played a large role in my reconciliation with my parents and in moving back home.

There was a lot to sort through during this time, but I began to try to resolve some of the difficulties in my life. I was left with a tough question to answer regarding my attitude toward other races: What was the real truth about people of other colors? I was left with two conflicting views on the subject: either (1) they were untrustworthy, just like the ones who had jumped and beaten me; or (2) they were wonderful, just like my friend who'd taken me into his home.

Unknown to me at the time, there was a third perspective. What helped bring that perspective more clearly into view was the fact that about this time I started attending Sunday and Wednesday services at the Christian Science church in my area. There wasn't any particularly special moment I remember; but I do recall the overall feeling I got from going there each week and listening. The Wednesday Bible readings often seemed to include a lot about God's unconditional love for each of us and the need to love and forgive each other. They emphasized how God is everyone's true Parent and how much He cares for us, and that what's important is how we act and what we think—not the color of our skin or some other physical characteristic. That's because He knows us only as His wholly spiritual likeness, His obedient, loving children.

And then there was a book called Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy. I had never heard anything like Science and Health's message in my entire life! This book explained so logically that there was no problem too big for God to heal; that God made only good, as the Bible says; and that sick, wrong, or hateful thoughts and acts couldn't really victimize or hurt us at all, because they weren't rooted in God. They couldn't actually have power.

I wondered how anyone could even dare to hope that something this good could actually be true! What excited me most about the message of Science and Health was the promise that, if I would really consider in my heart God's supreme government and His laws and if I would really try to live as kindly, lovingly, and unselfishly as Christ Jesus did, I could—right now, today!—heal and be healed through reliance on God alone; and God's love would change all the things in my life that were not good, for the better. Because God is ever-present good, I did not have to wait to be good or to see good around me.

I was amazed by these promises, and even though I doubted them, they were expressed with such conviction, the same kind of conviction in God's power that I'd always imagined Christ Jesus must have had. I began to wonder how these promises might affect me and my life.

Little by little, I began to pray to God in a different way. Instead of begging Him, I would affirm with newly felt conviction that we were all God's children—including my parents and the gang members who had given me trouble. I didn't want to carry that fear and hatred in my heart anymore, and I knew I didn't have to, because it surely had not been put there by Him. I read the Bible more and really paid attention to things like the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments. Also, I got a copy of Science and Health and memorized a statement in it called "the scientific statement of being." It concludes with these two sentences: "Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual" (p. 468). That did it for me! I saw that there is no "us" and "them," and this transcended the two conflicting views in determining my feelings about other races. The true perspective, the only logical one to adhere to, was that man is not a mortal, part of a particular race, but spiritual and harmonious, free from all limitation and conflict.

It was clearer to me than ever before that God didn't make any groups to be at odds with each other. Each one of us is, right now, a spiritual, unlimited, like-no-other expression of God's own being. Therefore with each person we deal with, regardless of age, color, background, or sex, we can recognize something of man's spiritual nature, which consists only of God's own perfect qualities—qualities such as joy and peace. The more we do this, the less we'll hold to stereotyped, false images, and this helps us overcome limitations and conflict. We'll see man as he actually is—God's pure and perfect child.

An honest reminder: It takes a lot of courage, commitment, and prayer to maintain this pure view of man, especially when the truth of man's spiritual nature may not seem evident all at once. We can be sure it's there, though. The effort to discern it is more than worth it, because this will help heal and change you. It brings you closer to God, the Parent of us all.

This view of man as spiritual healed me of hard feelings toward that gang, and it healed me so completely that for many years my job has been helping people of all races learn how to get along better with each other. Now, when I'm asked, "Where do we start to solve our racial problems?" I always answer, "With God." If the feelings in your heart toward other races are not what you'd like them to be, "with God" is where you'll find your help and healing, too.