During a church service one Sunday, I was praying deeply to realize the unity we have as children of one God, one Mind. This unity is something so natural and beautiful, but not always visible because so often we are challenged by divisions, factions, and disagreements within human organizations.
As I prayed, I considered divine Mind’s allness, infinitude, all-inclusiveness. I saw that man expresses only the purpose and will of the Father, and that we are all the outcome of His holy purpose and plan. I reasoned that fulfilling our Father’s plan for us is not so much a choice as it is the nature of our being as God’s children, and in accordance with the words of our beloved Master, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19). I was beginning to see the impossibility, in divine Science, of many minds and, therefore, many opinions, many agendas, and many differences.
Just as light emanates from the sun, harmony emanates from the divine Mind, our common source, and we reflect this Mind. Therefore, there can be no contention or dissension, for we are likeminded—of one accord, of one mind—and having the same love, are able to live peacefully with one another (see Philippians 2:2).
Mary Baker Eddy writes, “Our church is built on the divine Principle, Love” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 35). I could see that our unity and oneness are established by divine Love, and that our individual identities express the very substance of Love.
This led me to contemplate the beautiful description of unity in Ephesians: “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19–22). I began to feel a sense of oneness with God and with my fellow church members, as well as brotherly love, pervade my consciousness and uplift thought.
It became so clear to me that since we are “builded together”—are all part of the same spiritual structure—we have an indestructible relationship to God and to our fellow man. That structure is the true meaning of Church: “The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle” (Science and Health, p. 583).
I saw not only our own members but also everyone, everywhere, included and enveloped in the unity of this structure of divine Truth and Love, God’s holy temple.
