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Love is 'dawning over every nation'

A Christian Science perspective: Divine Love is greater than hate, fear, and division.

  • By Robert R. MacKusick

Today’s news media bring to us immediate reports of trouble spots around the world. I’ve found comfort in this phrase in a hymn in the “Christian Science Hymnal”: “Love now is dawning over every nation;/ Showing true brotherhood, publishing salvation” (Margaret Morrison, No. 179). This message applies to areas of the world fraught with strife and conflict – Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, and many others.

The Master, Christ Jesus, didn’t travel far from his home in Nazareth, but his influence has been widespread since the moment he began teaching in his local Aramaic language. What he taught of God’s perfection, goodness, and love has reached every corner of the world. His love for the world was not for the comfort and material riches of the world, but it was a deep compassion for humanity’s salvation, unity, and peace.

Jesus said to his disciples, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:20, 21).

Divine Love is universal, reaching to every corner of the world. That Love embraces every single one of its children. That divine Love is at every conference table, tribal campfire gathering, and conference call designed to bring disparate opinions together for the greater good.

A key element in feeling and experiencing divine Love’s infinite blessing is to sacrifice self – self-interest, self-will, and self-promotion. This yielding of self, whether we are actually on the site of the conflict area in question or thousands of miles away, can open the way for divine Love’s infinite embrace to bring peace and salvation to the world.

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, wrote, “Individuals, as nations, unite harmoniously on the basis of justice, and this is accomplished when self is lost in Love – or God’s own plan of salvation” (“The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” p. 283).

The Christian Science Monitor brings special insights and perspectives that help readers focus their prayers so they can be most effective and beneficial to our world. We don’t need to be discouraged if reports of turmoil and strife in the world keep coming. We can have confidence and trust in harmony, justice, and in the power of divine Love “dawning over every nation;/ Showing true brotherhood, publishing salvation.”

Divine Love is greater than hate, fear, division. Infinite Love is just that – infinite and ever present. God is all He is, in every place.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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