When I first joined my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, the members were struggling with a remodeling project that wasn’t going forward because of money woes. Several times over the years, members again attempted to get things moving. But it became apparent that there were divisions in the membership, sometimes involving heated and accusatory exchanges.
I prayed for my church, realizing that there is, in reality, only one God, who created each of us in the divine image and likeness, wholly good. This all-inclusive unity of God and man is the standard of perfection in Christian Science. Anything unlike this perfect standard is a devilish, or erroneous, suggestion. And it is up to each of us to prayerfully work to see and demonstrate the nothingness of such suggestions in our experience.
Though it seems that evil and hatred beget divisions, and that rancor, war, mass shootings, and diseases are widespread, I reminded myself that because there is only one God, all these evil reports are the same false claim that there is something besides the allness and goodness of divine Truth and Love—Bible names for God. This helped cut the divisiveness down to size in my thought.
