Building harmonious relationships

It’s heartening to see how important community is to people in the midst of so much division and polarity around the world. One example that the May 20 Monitor Daily pointed out was the very effective community support of an immigrant Honduran student “as he moved from starting school unable to speak English to graduating with a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a great job.” And an article in today’s Daily points to the growing trend of group living as a way to find community.

Several different times in my life, I lived at the place where I worked. This was my local community, so to speak. Frankly, relationships were really hard sometimes. But I also found that harmony – which is so necessary in a healthy community – is possible, and that the unifying power of divine Spirit, God, is a powerful basis for building and maintaining harmonious relationships.

For a period of time in one living/working community, I was working directly with someone that I found difficult to be around. I felt a little intimidated by this person and never felt as though I did things the “right way” around her. In this particular situation, our being from different countries and cultures seemed to aggravate the situation. I began to dread our time together.

I was not at home with this feeling of dread. My study and prayer in Christian Science had showed me over and over that I could feel unity with others. I’d learned that like rays of light that individually reflect all the properties of the sun, we all come from God, divine Spirit and Love, our true source. And we uniquely express the spiritual beauty, purity, and sweetness of the divine nature.

I knew that praying with these ideas would help me again in this situation. Yet my desire to establish a harmonious relationship in this situation was not just for me but for others. I wanted to contribute to peace and goodwill – and yes, even healing – in this community at large. I saw it as practicing the fundamental element of Christ Jesus’ teachings to love one’s neighbor as oneself (see Matthew 19:19).

The discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, wrote in the Christian Science textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”: “As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being. The Scripture reads: ‘For in Him we live, and move, and have our being’ ” (p. 361).

My prayers were motivated by an effort to understand that this was the spiritual fact about me as well as this woman, and that because of our unity with God, we were united with one another. Behind our work, which involved serving others for a greater good, was the spiritual reality that we are the children of God, each made in His likeness, created to express harmony and selflessness.

As I considered these ideas, I began to notice and appreciate what a lovely sense of order and beauty this woman had. Although I felt I would have done some things differently than she did, the way I responded to that changed. Instead of making mental notes about and dwelling on those discrepancies, I saw her compassion and generosity toward others. We began to share experiences we’d had in different countries, appreciating the variety that our diverse backgrounds offered. As the months went on, I came to feel a genuine spirit of affection for this woman.

Isn’t that the way we want to feel toward those we are involved with in whatever community we are a part of? I was so grateful for this change that came about in my thinking and experience, but I especially cherished that deeper sense I was feeling of living in unity with a shared divine goodness that governs all of us.

I love the way the Good News Translation of the Bible puts these words from Psalms: “How wonderful it is, how pleasant, for God’s people to live together in harmony!” (133:1). We can start going forward today with one uncritical thought and one open-hearted, God-inspired step at a time, and find that building cooperative and amicable relationships and communities is not only possible, but natural.