We hear a great deal about the generation gap, the labor-management gap, the race gap, have and have-not gap. Gaps separate people. How can they be eliminated so that harmony, trust, and cooperation reign among individuals, groups, races, and nations?
Social and economic gaps are said to cause misunderstanding. Christian Science shows that it is actually the misunderstanding of the true nature of man that causes apparent gaps among men. To restore, promote, and maintain harmony, trust, and cooperation, a better understanding of man is first required. This understanding works to destroy the fears, resentments, and suspicions that divide mankind. It wipes out frustration and discrimination and heals rifts.
Man must be understood as he really is, as God's child, His idea, made in His image and likeness. In the light of Christian Science, the basic gap that must be eliminated is the one seeming to separate people from this truth of their real being: that their source is God, not matter. Mrs. Eddy states, "The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense of man's origin."Science and Health, p. 262; We gradually eliminate the effects of this basic gap from our own experience, and help eliminate them from the experience of others, by diligently holding in thought the spiritual concept of man. It is only to material sense that there appears to be a gap. In reality, there can be no gap, since man is one, the man of God's creating. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health, "Generically man is one, and specifically man means all men."p. 267;
