Love more for every hate

There is so much to ponder, consolidate, and act on in our book Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer (by von Fettweis and Warneck). 

Mrs. Eddy was a prolific letter writer. We might sometimes think we have much to do and cope with: she had so much more, but accomplished all she did through an absolute reliance on God's direction and an outpouring of love for mankind. 

Her reliance on God's message coming to her from the Bible is well illustrated in the example given on pages 95-96. After teaching a class in March 1872, she felt the need to do more for her students but wasn't sure what was required of her. The book quotes from the flyleaf of one of her Bibles (she had many), where she had written:

    Before writing Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, I had asked God for weeks to tell me what next I should do, and each day I opened the Bible for my answer, but did not receive it. But when I grew to receiving it, I opened again and the first verse I looked at was in Isaiah 30:8. 

The passage in Isaiah reads: "Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever." She had grown to receive God's message! And she obeyed the direction!

Her outpouring love for mankind included her wish that Christian Scientists love more. A letter to a student observed this, which again is based on Scripture (p. 166):

    Oh may this Easter Sunday carry you my prayer..."Little children love one another" ... you must love all. No matter if they persecute you even, you must love all. But you must love especially the brethren. You must meet with them, cheer them, in their labors, point the way of love to them and show them it by loving first, and waiting patiently for them to be in this great step by your side, loving each other and walking together. This is what the world must see before we can convince the world of the truths of Christian Science.

Walking together is a lovely idea. I recently read about an ad hoc group of women who get together to walk and chat. The article in The Christian Science Monitor is titled: Walking, talking and bonding: Why social strolls are on the upswing. No jogging. No coffee shops. No set agenda. No money. Just walking and talking. Listening and sharing. 

A poem by Mrs. Eddy comes to mind: Mother's Evening Prayer, which we sing often in church (hymns 207-212 and 539-540). Here's a verse from that poem, which surely came to her as a result of her own experience:

O make me glad for every scalding tear,

For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain!

Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear

No ill, --since God is good, and loss is gain.

This prompts the question: how can I love more (dictionary: affection, enjoyment, concern, delight, benevolence, kinship) and not hate (dictionary: anger, contempt, disgust, bias, aversion, hostility)? Christ Jesus is our example, but that might be a discussion for another day.

Julie Swannell