Our family has always loved working together on a jigsaw puzzle. It is fun to see what seem to be unrelated bits and pieces come together into a cohesive picture. Each piece is an important part of the whole. No piece can be made to fit into the wrong spot or be replaced by another, incorrect piece.

So it is with each of us. We each are individual and are loved by God as His spiritual creation. Humanly, we see such a variety of nationalities, religions, customs, histories, and backgrounds that sometimes it becomes a puzzle as to how we can all work together. When we classify and stereotype everyone into neat categories, there is a temptation to blame difficult problems such as unemployment, territorial and legal disputes, lack, or disease on certain groups of people. There is the temptation to see the individual pieces without seeing the whole picture. Sometimes it would appear that the only route to solving a problem would be to eliminate the group or individual blamed for creating it.

When we are working on a jigsaw puzzle and the pieces don't seem to fit, we don't just throw away those pieces. It is the variety of color, form, and individual shape that makes the puzzle interesting and challenging. In human relations, however, prejudice and bigotry arise when we just can't seem to see how the pieces fit. There doesn't always seem to be room for all these different nationalities and backgrounds!

This is just the type of fragmented thinking that is totally opposed to what God knows about His creation. God's love is never exclusive or narrow but is infinite, impartial, and all-inclusive. God's cherishing of His dear children brings with it an unending supply of good, and yet it is tailored to each one's specific need.

Christ Jesus' career revolved around teaching and demonstrating God's love for each and every one of His children by presenting man's unity or oneness with God. The brotherhood Jesus taught was based on this spiritual unity, not on material origins. He said, "Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven" (Matt. 23:9). His teachings and actions make clear to us that our real fellowship with others is based on a spiritual foundation. It never rests on material elements.

The contrast between the spiritual and the material is well described in this statement by Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "In divine Science, the material man is shut out from the presence of God. The five corporeal senses cannot take cognizance of Spirit. They cannot come into His presence, and must dwell in dreamland, until mortals arrive at the understanding that material life, with all its sin, sickness, and death, is an illusion, against which divine Science is engaged in a warfare of extermination" (p. 543).

Prejudiced thinking really leads to exclusionary activity. We need to stop identifying others as the "cause" of evil and see that our warfare against evil is not directed at people but at the illusion of material life and all the division and inharmony it includes. We need to wage war against the suggestion that anyone can truly be cut off from God, good. We don't eliminate people in order to solve our problems, but we can certainly eliminate the false concepts that stir up thoughts of lack, hatred, crime, or disease. We can replace these concepts with the understanding that God created a universe filled with wonderful qualities expressed in diverse ways. We can do that by understanding how God tenderly loves and nurtures all.

In The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, Mrs. Eddy writes, "As an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good" (p. 165). So we can identify everyone as the active, alert, intelligent, complete, and harmonious idea of God, never lacking, never a misfit, never odd, never an outsider. Rather we can see each individual as complete, including everything he needs to be "an active portion of one stupendous whole."

I recently had an opportunity to eliminate a false concept and to see how divine Science exterminates the illusion that sin, in the guise of racial hatred and discrimination, could have power in my own diverse neighborhood.

When an ugly racist remark was made by a neighbor, it threatened our relationship. Not wanting to let this happen, I turned to God in prayer, asking what I needed to know in order to heal the situation. This message from the Bible came to me clearly: "Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother ...?" (Mal. 2:10)

To me, this meant that I could exclude what the five material senses were telling me about my neighbor. I could stop believing that we have such different backgrounds, parentage, cultures, and interests that we could not possibly have any common ground. I understood that there needed to be no treacherous retorts or thoughts. God, as our Father-Mother, loves us equally, knows each of us as not only individual, but also as a spiritual identity in His valuable and flawless family. Understanding this not only eliminates the ignorance of bigotry but removes from us the thought that we can ever be tempted to say, think, or do unkind things. With this prayer, the hateful controversy with my neighbor dissipated and harmony was restored. We continue to share our different experiences with each other and the neighborhood, thus enriching all of us.

When neighborhoods, churches, countries, governments, or individuals have unity, a oneness of purpose, a continuity without infighting, hatred, or exclusion, it supports and strengthens each person involved as well as the organization. When this condition of harmony is actively seen and felt, it brings out the best in all of us. We are all strengthened by seeing each other as our Father-Mother God sees us, as valuable, wonderful, and complete, each in the proper place. Nothing can make us less than perfect, an all-inclusive fit.