A co-worker at a learning center where I am employed suddenly began to make unkind, snappy, sarcastic remarks to me on a daily basis for several weeks. I strove not to react, but rather to respond lovingly or to say nothing. This, however, was not solving or healing the situation, and it was causing me to be unhappy at work.
As I more diligently prayed about this issue, I was reminded of a procedure the United States Treasury Department follows in identifying counterfeit bills. On a tour of the department in Washington, DC, many years ago, I remember hearing that they spend very little time studying the bills for signs they might be counterfeit, and most of the time studying them for the markings that indicate they are real.
Mary Baker Eddy, in her book No and Yes, likens a counterfeit to mortal man. She writes, “A material, sinful mortal is but the counterfeit of immortal man” (p. 25). I began to think that if, in my daily metaphysical preparation, I was endeavoring to see myself as only good, as an immortal idea of God’s creating—and not a counterfeit, a mortal man capable of saying and doing unkind things—should I not include my co-worker in that same light? From that point on, I reflected on what was real about her—that she expressed only the infinite goodness and love of God. I didn’t bother mulling over the opposite, counterfeit picture of her.
