With all of the harsh winds blowing throughout the US election cycle, how can anyone possibly see through all the divisions, negativity, and polarization to gain a sense that we are all actually one? Is oneness possible? And does it even matter?
The cover story in this week’s issue suggests it does. Noble efforts that value oneness and replace partisanship and self-interest with the greater interest of the community become a force for good with ramifications that have broad-reaching effects. But how do people, across the United States or any nation, heal the tender bruises from a raucous election and move toward positive actions that instill unity?
Christ Jesus pointed to an answer when he taught his students to pray starting with this pure idea: “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9). He was saying that we all come from one creator – one power, one intelligent lawgiver, and one source of infinite good. Through his healing work, he showed we are truly the children, the spiritual expressions, of this one Father or Mind, who is all-embracing Love. Emanating from this divine Mind, we must reflect the same consciousness of Love; we must really dwell in one universal, indivisible family of God’s ideas.
Oneness, then, is a spiritual fact in which there are no divisions and no counter forces. Nor are there evil conspiracies working in favor of or against any of Love’s children. God’s children are not at cross-purposes, but are of one heart. Just as each ray from the sun shines from the same source and collectively radiates the same light, so all of us, as God’s individual ideas, emanate from the same source and express the goodness of the one God without conflict.
Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of this publication and of Christian Science, writes, “It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love. Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brotherhood of man will be established” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 467).
To expect to experience oneness is not pie-in-the-sky thinking. But it requires deep, sincere prayer from each of us to awaken to the inseparable relationship we have with each other as children of God and to silence the negativity, inharmony, enmity, lack of forgiveness, and criticism that seem to separate us. We must reject the temptation to be fascinated by divisiveness by taking a mental stand, vigilantly insisting that we are attracted only to the goodness, purity, and love that originate with God.
Such spiritual efforts enable us to understand that we are truly one under the government of one God. We are one family, one global brotherhood and sisterhood. To the degree we are willing to see this, we can go forward in harmony, expressing our full and noble potential to bless and be blessed.