I parked in a large parking lot at a shopping mall and began walking to the bookstore. I passed some teenage boys on skateboards, and one of them crashed into me and almost knocked me over. I kindly told him it wasn’t safe to skateboard in such a busy parking lot, but I knew of some nearby parks.
He responded with many words better left unsaid, and it might have taken a whole bar of soap to wash his mouth out! But I was a schoolteacher for thirty years, and I had always prayed to see my students in their true nature as children of God, pure and innocent. These prayers had always brought me great joy and freedom, and I believe they did the same for my students, so I immediately decided to love this boy in the same way.
I found a comfortable seat in the bookstore and prayed, knowing that this boy and I were God’s loving children forever, and that fact had never been interrupted. In God’s reality there had never been any clashes between us, either in body or word, and we were perpetually living in harmony.
