Quality controlled by God

Have you ever said: "They just don't make things the way they used to"? Do you want to do something about it? Half of the 7,000 households asked by the American Society for Quality Control believe there has been a decline in the quality of American products over the past five years. However, a spokesman for an automobile assembly plant widely known for its superior workmanship, says this about his plant's success: "Most important are attitude, relationships. If you want to get corny, it's the golden rule applied." n1

n1 Oklahoma City Times,m April 29, 1981

If every producer maintained the high standard of the Golden Rule in company-customer relations, consumer complaints would undoubtedly dwindle. Nevertheless, consumers are not helpless until this eventuality is reached. Whatever standpoint we're working from, we can improve our position by practicing the Golden Rule ourselves.

Christ Jesus' words "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise" n2 frame much more than a maxim. The Golden Rule is a divinely based moral law that we put into action by fulfilling our part in the equation, and treating others as we would have them treat us.

n2 Luke 6:31

Consumers who feel concerned or cheated can, by practicing the Golden Rule, so improve the quality of their role as to bring out the manufacturer's capacity for quality goods and services. Honest acknowledgment that divine justice actually governs all, and calm, merciful insistence on rightness over carelessness and irresponsibility, will restore our peace of mind, our most valuable possession, and effectually guide us and others in attaining correction where needed.

Frustration and anger are as defective a pair of products as the carnal mind has ever mustered. Can defect correct defect? Only rightdoing can cancel wrongdoing. Following the Golden Rule will direct us intelligently. It will help restore right action, rectify mistakes, and replace faultiness with fairness.

If you made a mistake costly to someone, wouldn't you want the opportunity to apologize and make amends? Should we expect less of our fellowmen and women? Or want more?

God alone is free from error.He alone is perfect. He has given us, through His Son, the Golden Rule to help us realize the perfection we express in our real identity as His idea -- His Godlike, ideal man. In proportion as we adhere to the Golden Rule, we draw into accord with the infinite harmony of eternal perfection where no one needs to change and, in fact, nothing can change. And in that proportion, the troubles the carnal mind seems to hand us are dissolved, becoming lessons in love.

We err if we believe our present plight can be improved only if someone else decides to initiate practice of the Golden Rule. Because the foundation of the Rule is all-inclusive divine Principle, God, when onem is applying the Rule scientifically, allm must feel its power.

Christian Science might well be called the Science of the Golden Rule, since the very Tenets of the religion incorporate the Rule, and the religion itself systematizes its practice. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of this Science, writes: "Through the wholesome chastisements of Love, nations are helped onwards towards justice, righteousness, and peace, which are the landmarks of prosperity. In order to apprehend more, we must practise what we already know of the Golden Rule, which is to all mankind a light emitting light." n3

n3 The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,m p. 282.

Consumers, producers, and middlemen have a crucial opportunity -- important to a healthy world economy and absolutely essential to individual Christianization of thought -- to improve the quality of their work. Ultimately , quality is a divine condition that never varies from perfection. As we exchange our false beliefs for spiritual understanding of the divine worth of the real man and live under the divine standard of perfection, we'll find around us more and more the good that is imperishable. DAILY BIBLE VERSE He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. Deu teronomy 32:4