If you’ve ever faced someone filled with hatred, rage, and contempt, it’s not a pretty picture, and how to deal with it may feel intimidating. But there is a scientific way to respond that protects you from harm and can help the other person find peace of mind.
A first step to success, is to impersonalize the evil and see it as a wrong state of mortal mind that can be corrected with a right state of divine Mind.
In Truth, divine Mind is the only Mind reigning over all of creation, and is omnipresent to maintain order, peace, and love throughout all consciousness and awareness.
The picture of an angry mortal is a lie about God’s spiritual man, and it cries out to be reversed by the spiritual truth about God’s man who is divinely designed to express love and peace.
Rather than letting mortal mind monopolize your attention with a scene of evil, mentally reverse that scene before your eyes, and replace it with God’s reality. See the man of Love’s creating that is full of compassion, understanding, forgiveness, patience, and goodwill. Extinguish the angry thought with tsunami waves of Love.
Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of Love”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 201).
Have no fear of hatred. Face it fearlessly with Love and ensure its demise.
Faced this in my CS teacher, not a happy situation. Led to me leaving a job in a Science facility, as the teacher was seen as infallible and believed.
A painful lesson.
Promised myself I would turn away from Science, but then realised God, Love, is far bigger than these mortal hurts and wrong doings.
“Be still, and know”
Here’s a hug for you from someone who understands . I loved today’s Lift about considering “ whether it is the human mind or divine Mind that is influencing “ one. Also that divine Mind, Love is the only communicator to man. (Check S&H for the correct, exact quotes. ) Also for your final, precious realization of God’s great love for you and all.
Oh! Thank you for the hug and your comment Franceska.
I will listen to the Lift now.
Here is the link to the lift. It is an excellent one;
https://www.christianscience.com/christian-healing-today/daily-lift/whats-influencing-me
A hug for you Still Here. I am glad you are still here. :). God loves you so much!
Love knows no evil, neither shade of sadness
Love casts out every fear, lifts the heart to gladness
Love heals our every ill
All the law does Love fulfil
Love is our answered prayer…..hymn 179
Love comforts you whatever the circumstance. Xx
I experienced something very, very similar! Once I learned the lesson Evan is sharing today I found total freedom and forgiveness and so can you!
I’m not only still here but loving God and good more than ever. I promise, you will find this to be the stepping stone to your absolute best practice of CS.
Hugs to you. The results are worth any struggle to learn this lesson.
This spoke to me, this blog today. I did leave the Church in 2021 over what I viewed as mistreatment to me for many years and unkind people in my life who call themselves CS. Through much thought and prayer, I am RE-JOINING TMC and am in the process of joining a branch church. I realized the great importance of not cheating myself out of my own spiritual understanding. What other people do and their lack or abundance of understanding in the end is none of my business and God is always loving and approving of me. I am grateful I came to this discovery.
Thank you, Evan- this is exactly what I needed to hear this morning.
This years theme of the Annual Meeting of The Mother Church certainly addresses this challenge of facing the fear of hatred..
It says in part “One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man;…” S&H 340.
It goes on to conclude: “leaves nothing that can sin suffer be punished or destroyed”.
It is hard work to overcome personal sense ( a sense of being wronged by another) but in the long run it is the only way to permanent spiritual healing.
Hate-ate
We can’t let it eat our joy,
peace.
The world’s joy or peace.
That’s what hate want to do.
Thanks Evan.
Hugs,Still Here, and everyone..
❤️
So grateful, Evan. Truly helpful!!!
The’ wrong state of mortal mind..’corrected by ’the right state of divine Mind.’ Love the way you have put this Evan. Simple check point for any moment of the day.
The Christ, Love is constant, unstoppable. Love this today. Thank you ❣️
I should have added, Love is the
fulfilling of the law where hate
can’t seem to enter to eat, try to
disrupt our joy or peace.
Love is filling, satisfying, the only
presence and power.
Just noticed my first one was there
and disappeared.
I said, hate, ate.
Hate wants to eat our joy and peace.
The world’s joy and peace.
Thanks Evan.
Hugs, still Here, and everyone.
“Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you.” S&H Pg. 571:18-19
Jesus was the perfect example of this being demonstrated.
Thank you Evan love, Sheree
‘We Live in Love, not fear’:
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/2dp1dlpzodi?s=e
Thank you dear Evan ; I have not feared others’ anger…. I am fearful of my own these days!
After reading the article Dear Angie posted, I read
“…[my] harmony is no more to be invaded than the rhythm of the univers,-“ from Retrospection & Introspection
And this week’s Lesson opens with this Golden Text citation: “The Law of the Lord is perfect….”
I am turning my attention to the Supreme Law & Lawmaker, God & Her Law, the Governor of my/our being.
It takes persistent work to counter the venom which appears to permeate our present world. I never want to be one who expresses anger or hate.
Oh let me live in Love
I’m finding it so hard to maintain equanimity
Praying to remain undisturbed
I value our precious SoiritView community & it’s tender support of each other, knowing that this compassion reaches far beyond our group of readers
There is So Much Love
If Infinite Love fills all space, IS All-in-all, this must include me, & mine, & all….
Ah, how blessed we are to have Christian Science to lead out of dark despair back into the radiant noon of Everlasting Love
My eternal thanks
Annie, I too, “pray to remain undisturbed” and I share your desire to never be one who expresses anger or hate or animosity — none of these are part of us as God’s likeness, just as they are not a part of the ones who seem to “make us angry.” This is why Evan tells us to impersonalize error. A very important concept that I’m starting to understand better.
Grateful to Evan and to everyone here, lots of love.
Angie great post Thank you just what I needed this morning
I am reminded of “The broadest facts array the most falsities against themselves, for they bring error from under cover. It requires courage to utter truth; for the higher Truth lifts her voice, the louder will error scream,
until its inarticulate sound is forever silenced in oblivion”. (S&H pg 97:24)
There seems to be a lot of screaming and hatred in the world today, but
divine Love is supreme in its goodness and power.
♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
Perfect outlook for summer’s HOT DAYS. This will make all the difference today. Thank you.
I have experience the healing from this spiritual reasoning from truth and the simplicity of this grace throughout my life. When I truly believed and embraced it, it could be quick and powerful and bring about practical safety and solutions.
And I have also had hard challenges when I was too abstract and theoretical about this, following it with a version of, “Yeah, but…”. What made the difference for me was during those times of personal sense, I would look at the hateful behavior of the obvious abuser/terrorist/violent criminal and the far more harmful dishonest neglectful victim-blaming bystanders and justifiers of the harm… in a different light.
Yes, they certainly did clarify what is evil and strengthen my commitment to not be like them and to instead actively engage to prevent or stop evil, to intervene, to calm the aggressor and activate the passive-aggressive complicit bystander, help, to be the good that they were not. Yes, their self-deluded or self-denying hatred help me connect more with the biblical prophets’ courage and conviction to tell truth to power, demand repentance toward social justice and obedient reverence, and greater empathy for our Master and Leader who were so viciously personally attacked by the antichrist and smug apathy of the victimizing and self-putting majority/sinners. Yes, it strengthened my courageous resistance to peer pressure to go along to get along with evil.
But that was not enough.
I obsessed over trying to figure out why They were dishonest, unfair, and mean. Outside and inside the Christian Science movement. Were they mean so they could enforce their dishonesty and unfairness like the overt profiteers from slavery or genocide or fossil fuels/military industrial complex or slumlords? Did they think that that would justify increasing the gap between the haves and have-nots by cheating their workers, customers, corrupting government and wrongly using tax dollars orv not paying their fair share of taxes? Were they dishonest so they could enforce their meanness? Like the abusers, Klan, the slave-catchers/cops, soldiers/torturers blaming their victims? Then I thought that it didn’t matter because their thinking/acting or self-righteous refusal to act kindly was still based on a lie that could never be right and could never respect everyone’s rights, and it hurt everybody. It is insanity and inanity and it cannot make sense since it has no authority from God.
They use strategies to try to get their needs met, but those strategies never work to make us safe, happy, fulfilled. Because that dysfunctional mentality from a culture of self deception and destruction only perpetuates and worsens the problems, instead of solving them. Let go of those strategies,
When I was a toddler, Wondering why my father was so violent to me, I mentally heard God tell me, “ He’s just a toddler. He is scared and confused and disconnected. He thinks that by acting mean and angry he will scare away his fears and feel powerful and safe. He just doesn’t know any better.“ Before that mental answer I had never heard the term “disconnected”, but I understood what it meant. I had never heard such a tone of voice before or for decades after, that was so compassionate towards me and my father and the violence-complicit silence/negligence of bystanders. . I had never had toddler temper tantrum‘s because it was too dangerous, so I learned the self control my father at 89 still has not learned. I could look back at an abusive childhood as full of gifts to help me in my personal and spiritual growth so that I can be of greater help to others. The obvious evil that others were impersonating help me not believe or align with the faults authority or the false promise of appeasing and pleasing those who could never be appeased or pleased. The greater gift was that I could turn to God directly because there is no comfort or popularity to risk losing or worshiping. I never got so fooled or addicted as the majority in our culture, so I instead enjoy safety, self-respect, and dominion, independent of others’ violence toward me. Peace not experienced by those. When the haters think they don’t belong and try to make everyone else feel inadequate that they don’t belong, and when I did not want to be around such meanness and dishonesty, God kept telling me that I belong as an example of the love and integrity to practically help others. That warm comforting gentle empowering loving tone of voice in my mind kept me alive and learning and serving. For decades I had never heard a human voice with that tone and I tried so hard to become an example of that tone and that message, and to vigilantly not be like those I would have labeled simply as a toddler as “ the bad guys.”
But sometimes that was not enough. Per Marshall Rosenberg’s NVC, non-violent communication or compassionate communication, I learned to give myself and the others far more empathy and compassion by seeing us as humanly innocent in that we mistakenly believed a scary story that was not true and did not realize that we each have within us all of our needs and values met through our very birthright of those spiritual qualities. And we can let go of counterproductive and tragic strategies by going directly to the expression and experience of those universal needs/values/spiritual qualities. Instead of fighting over what restaurant to go to, or what negative label to put on someone, we can affirm what feeds our body and soul and let go of our personal attachments to labels and judgments. When my Christian Science teacher refused to teach Love’s Science or answer my questions or express any caring curiosity or empathy or compassion and most of our students seem to not only leave the association but to leave the movement, I could find the teachers and experience of church and forward movement that heals and bless us all through other means of better living Christian Science. One teacher along the way expressing so much humility, compassion, understanding, and inspiration that I needed at the time was Byron Katie, doing the work, reminding me that we are each innocent spiritually and humanly. And we get that liberating joy when we question our taken-for-granted granite beliefs: is it true? Can I absolutely know that it is absolutely true? What am I when I believe that thought/story? What would I be without that thought/story? What are at least three examples that I know are true for each opposite of the words in that thought that I can turn around? Recognizing the truth corrupting that earlier thought that we were attached to give someone a great sense of freedom enjoy and more compassion for oneself and others.
And then I could find more help when I saw the personal patterns of hatred and fear across the dominant culture and in various cultures around the world, and I could see them not as personal traits that someone was stuck and being a hater or a hated victim, but merely internalized dysfunctional bullies from a culture that they are blind to. And I could see that they were not universal truths or personal truths because I could see how different cultures or different individuals resisting that culture were bravely kind and honest and fair. In the USA there’s been a lot of work to heal the culture and to wake up from the denial and apathy of hate/fear with an economy that is based on genocide, ecosy, slavery, greed. To instead work for environmental and social justice for and through personal transformation and societal change and to create a culture of regeneration/healing justice at every level and detail. At the interpersonal level and the international level, personal sense/mortal mind follows the same stupid script and the same healing/liberating solutions work.
Every day my cell phone gets filled with messages of people who are trying to counter the culture of hate that would dehumanize and vilify, to criminalize and to brutalize, to terrorize and to rob, and profit off of the people they label impersonally as “the Homeless.” These dear ones exchanging text messages on how we can be more effective providing specific support for specific individuals we recognize and cherish and respect, through mutual aid, mending and providing tents, hauling water, putting our bodies between them and the haters, documenting how housed people dump their garbage at Houseless camps, repairing trucks, providing gasoline or bus tickets, providing babysitting or help with wheelchairs, demanding changing corporate and public policy and housed neighbors online hate talk. Being honest, kind, and fair… Being generous with grateful grace and transformative inclusivity HEALS us first and then our perspectives about others and their responses.
People are working together to courageously be honest and get out of their hate culture, such as through doing the hard introspective personal work of SURJ Showing up for racial justice. Having those courageous difficult conversations within their churches and families and workplaces to replace racism and white supremacy’s white fragility With the courage to honestly acknowledge and address the us versus them avoidance of accountability.
One person I knew who had been a violent neo-Nazi recruiter through the prisons and post-prison community was transformed one day when his white sister’s son with a black father looked up in terror at the uncle, asking “Are you going to kill me?” His uncle instantly recognized that confused pain and terror in the sweet little boy that the man had been feeling and that he had seen in all his victims, and he was immediately flooded with compassion for the little boy in front of him and inside of him and inside all those adults he had vilified and victimized. It moved him with incredible courage to leave the hate groups that are heavily funded and promoted by powerful institutions, to repeatedly risk his life as he tried to persuade haters to instead love. He calls himself a Former, And he has bravely gone to different groups across the political spectrum calling to each to be more compassionate and to let go of the false beliefs of us vs them, strategies they used that only perpetuated the harm of hate. He tries to convince civilian neo-Nazis to leave the gangs, but it’s hardest to get the police to leave their profitable addictive hate gangs. He tries to get the silent majority whose silence is violence empowering the overt violence, but these smugly self righteous, cowardly, self identifying “Christians“ refused to leave their cruel apathy and complicity. He tries to convince the anti-racists, anti-fascists to act with more compassion and grace to provide a safe space for the racist/fascist/murderers to become humble and rethink, and then feel safe enough to bravely leave their community and identity to become the opposite. Instead of labeling others with contempt and distancing, we need to see that sweet innocent child in each of us and to commit to providing that safety and compassion and comfort and peaceful play.
We need to totally change our culture and our personality. It is urgent and important work and it’s necessary that we do it now. Yes, it is challenging and uncomfortable; but it is far worse when we delay it.
The spiritual truths that Evan stated so concisely and generally are what make the specific changed thinking and acting possible. And those specific human examples above of re-thinking and repenting help us understand and practice the generalizations that Evan wrote. When we combine the general and absolute of divine science with a specific and relative human change thinking and acting of the Christian Science, we experience and express healing at the individual, interpersonal, family, work/school/Community/National/international level. The generalizations that Evan wrote make the specific transformations possible and the testimonies of these specific transformations strengthen our understanding of and commitment to practicing the absolute and the general.
Edith,
Thank you for sharing this. I love that a “neo-nazi recruiter” was able to break through a limitation to love and a little child helped him through that boundary. How freeing for him to learn Love never put that boundary there. How many people think love has boundaries or limitations because society has said it does? How many are brave enough to venture beyond them and discover the truth? Jesus did not see human hatred as a boundary or limitation to love those that hated him. He had no boundaries to the love he expressed. Did not allow another’s hatred to place a boundary or control his thinking and thus never allowed hatred to enter into thought.
Edith, you write very clearly and what you say is very informative. This is a good subject and thanks to all who contributed as well. I was looking online for something, and the Spirit View of May 7, 2021, popped up. Evan’s message and What you wrote in that blog about nursing and working with patients that were practitioners was great. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Evan and all commenters. I’m so appreciative of this topic and also the topic from 6/23, “If bothered by another”. The ideas are very freeing and comforting!
“He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him In!”
― Edwin Markham