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Honored guest

At times it can seem civility has left the party, so to speak. But each of us is divinely equipped to treasure and express graciousness, thoughtfulness, and patience toward one another, as this poem conveys.

  • By Elizabeth Mata

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
– Christ Jesus

It seems like civility slipped out in broad
daylight, leaving a shadowy, empty place
at the table – an apparent bald-faced void
seen in some uncaged remark, some
indiscriminate crossing of a line.

Yet this thought gives rise to a quiet
uprising of a winning grace within,
sparking a fresh welcome of civility in
our heart – a welling impetus to truly
esteem another’s feelings, to shield
someone’s dignity through silence, to
stifle the impulse to find fault.

This unceasing impetus – pure spiritual
goodness that flows from God, divine
Love – washes over and away the splitting
disregard of cold opinion with the truth
of our inseparability from Love.

From this spiritual reality of unity,
we – God’s children, lovely reflections
of Love’s own nature – are moved to act
thoughtfully, graciously toward each other.

The table now set within, civility softly
slips back in to break bread with us.

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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.”

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