I was asked, “When we die, do we have to deal with mean people who passed on before us?”

I replied, “God didn’t create mean people. The troubles mean people give us are not so much from the person we identify as cruel, as from our evil thoughts about them. Get rid of the evil thoughts, and the meanness of that person will not bother you.”

“That is interesting,” she commented. And then went onto explain that a person she considered to be one of the cruelest and meanest individuals she had ever known had recently died. But she was still very troubled by him.

We concluded that it wasn’t the person’s physical presence and actions that had troubled her, but her thoughts about him, and those unforgiving views were still hanging around.

I find three passages from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, helpful in claiming immunity from other people’s hurtful ways.

• “It is error to suffer for aught but your own sins.” p. 391:13
• “It is self-evident that we are harmonious only as we cease to manifest evil or the belief that we suffer from the sins of others.” p. 346:13
• “The sins of others should not make good men suffer.” p. 189:13

Typically, we are troubled by others because our self-indignation, arrogance, self-righteousness or pride gets offended. The spiritual demand is to purge ourselves of sin, of the “self-stuff” that prevents us from having a consciousness filled with love. Once the “self-stuff” is dispensed with we can successfully love our enemies as Jesus taught, and prevent them from paining our existence.

So, “Do we have to deal with mean people in a later life?” I answer, “In spiritual reality there are no mean people. It’s our view of them that needs to reform. But sooner or later each of us need to behold the correct view of every one of God’s children, and there’s no better time to get that right spiritual view then now!”