Where we always belong

The Christian Science Monitor shared a perspective on the United States Surgeon General’s May 2023 report about loneliness and isolation as a profound challenge to public health and well-being. The report offered social connection as the antidote, and yet, as the Monitor points out, many “are struggling to rediscover their spirit of community and connection after a pandemic that left behind an epidemic of loneliness” (Harry Bruinius and Sophie Hills, “One is the loneliest number: What will help people connect again?” June 9, 2023).

We can feel lonely when surrounded by a crowd or perfectly companioned when all alone. This hints, then, that connection is more a matter of thought than of circumstance. Beginning with prayer and in communion with our true source, God, divine Love, we discover that loneliness and isolation yield to dawning inspiration and spiritual discernment. Prayer shows us that we are actually never alone and that all of God’s children are beautifully connected through their shared source.

Each of us is firmly rooted in the family of God, a “universal family, held in the gospel of Love” (Mary Baker Eddy, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 577). Awareness of this brings spiritual fulfillment and a clarity about our most fundamental connection – to God, where we always belong.

Jesus came to show us what this divine union means and does through his demonstration of Christ, or “Immanuel, God with us” (Science and Health, p. 107). The Bible tells of Jesus at times retiring to a quiet place, communing with God, his Father-Mother, in solitude. Here he must have felt divine Love’s power to inspire and lead him in his mission to heal and inspire others. Mrs. Eddy wrote of Jesus’ impact on his students, “When he was with them, ... the solitude was peopled with holy messages from the All-Father” (“Retrospection and Introspection,” p. 91).

Even during what might have been his darkest night, when Jesus acknowledged to his disciples that they would all desert him, he still said, “Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” (John 16:32). There is no feeling of separation when we lean on and understand divine Principle, Love; any sense of a void is already filled with the one constant, reliable, ever-present All-in-all – God.

When we seek to deepen our understanding of our inseparable oneness with God, we experience peace and contentment. We gain the vitality and joy that come from knowing we live right now in the kingdom of heaven, where we always belong.

This knowing of our inseparability from divine Love brings out more of the truth of our identity as the reflection or idea of God, infinite Mind. It keeps us from falling for the appearance of acceptance, affection, and belonging based on a tenuous foundation of trying to get approval from others or trying to fit in. Any fear or apprehension about what others think of us is a baseless distraction from the fullness of what divine Love is revealing to us each moment. We have confidence in our connectedness when we know the one true source of all.

Our loving Father-Mother God is continually embracing and caring for us, so we can trust that our needs are met, including the human longing for love and connection. Self-focused beliefs that would reinforce a feeling of struggling alone yield to the touch of Christ, the divine message from God that heals us and leads us forward, as Jesus showed. Breaking out of a focus on self brings us into true joy, where thought opens expansively.

When we deepen and increase our understanding of our unbreakable oneness with God, we become more aware of our natural connection to others, and we see this more fully realized in our lives. We connect to others through our connection to God. As we stay focused on the higher goal of growing closer to God as our most important relationship, we naturally grow closer to others.

Christlike prayer focused on learning to love impels us to seek to understand more about God as the source of all love. Growing in love expands our view of God and therefore of ourselves and our connection to one another. It’s Christ that makes clear our inseparable relationship to God and to all of God’s ideas in Love’s divine kingdom – and shows us that we always belong.

Adapted from an editorial published in the Sept. 4, 2023, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.