When we walk into the room

When I was employed by the United States Naval Air Systems Command years ago, I worked with the military. Many tough decisions had to be made, and at times in meetings the room could be filled with fear, self-righteousness, jealousy, and anger.

One time we had an emergency meeting when one of our facilities came under alert. I dreaded going into the room, but before I entered, I remembered something the discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, wrote in her “Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896”: “We should measure our love for God by our love for man; and our sense of Science will be measured by our obedience to God, – fulfilling the law of Love, doing good to all; imparting, so far as we reflect them, Truth, Life, and Love to all within the radius of our atmosphere of thought” (p. 12).

The Bible conveys that God is Truth, Life, and Love, and that we are made in God’s image. So we all have an innate ability to express qualities such as kindness, loveliness, honesty, and energy. We reflect these qualities, whose source is God.

It’s like if you look at a lake and see a reflection of a nearby mountain. The mountain is not really in the lake, but you’re glimpsing something of the mountain in the reflection. We are not God, but in our true, spiritual nature we reflect what God is.

I recognized right then that we can’t fulfill the law of divine Love by walking into a room clinging to fear or doubt, or with a mistaken view of the individuals there. To truly love our fellow men and women means seeing them not as unavoidably arrogant, afraid, willful, or angry, but in the way that Jesus taught. That is, identifying them as God’s creation, the intelligent, peaceful, and harmonious offspring of God, Spirit – recognizing and loving them in their true, spiritual light. Not just with human affection, but acknowledging the good they express as God’s children.

So that’s what I did. As I entered that meeting room, I held with conviction to the spiritual fact of everyone as God’s child. This made it easier to let go of my own willfulness about making something productive happen, and instead to let God show me what He saw in the people in that room: Love’s perfect man and woman.

This helped me be more alert to the intelligence being expressed by one individual, justice by another, sincerity by another, harmony by another, kindness by another. And it ended up being a very peaceful meeting, with every decision being made harmoniously. I truly felt God with us all in that room, uplifting the “atmosphere of thought.”

That experience years ago changed me. From that point on, I’ve started going into every meeting by first acknowledging that God is in the room (so to speak), and so Love is already there, peace is already there, Truth is already there, ready to be expressed and felt. I’ve found myself wondering less about what each outcome is going to be, and instead knowing that it can be reached harmoniously because all involved are capable of expressing trust, harmony, and love. It’s not about bringing a personal agenda into the room, but about recognizing what God already has in the room.

Every time we walk into a room, we can prayerfully rejoice that God is present. And each of us can bring into every room, each day, an honest effort to better reflect the Divine.