Articles

With many crossings over the border into the eastern sector of Berlin, I was confronted with the necessity and, at the same time, the opportunity to correct false views—on both sides of the border.

Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, António shares how he prayed about the situation from a spiritual perspective.

It’s fun to dress up in a fancy dress. I remember the parties my parents organized at home to celebrate Mardi Gras, when I was growing up.

It was 1997. I woke up one morning with a strong pain in my stomach.

When my oldest daughter was a child, we lived in El Prado, a very nice area of the city. She loved to go biking with her friend.

Do you know people who are experts in tearing down a wall? I´m not talking about construction workers who, equipped with hammer, pickaxe, and shovel, remove stones. Although their work is important, I’m talking about a different kind of worker: people who are removing mental obstacles through their pure and determined thinking and their clear conviction that each man, child, and woman, as God´s beloved child, is destined to be free.

When one considers history between 1989 and 1991, the fall of the Berlin Wall certainly offers the strongest symbolic significance among other important events connected with freedom, such as the breakup of the USSR and the abolition of apartheid in South Africa. All these events remind me of the way Paul and Silas, who had been unjustly imprisoned, found their freedom: “At midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God … And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed” ( Acts 16:25, 26 ).

Christiane shares her experience with Christian Science while living in the former German Democratic Republic where Christian Science was then banned.

When I was a child and out with my mom doing errands, holding her hand was natural. If we were confronted with situations that involved potential danger, she would remind me to take her hand.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote a wonderful article called “Love Your Enemies” (see Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, pp. 8–13 ).