Love dissolves intractable hate

I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore. I just couldn’t sit back and accept all the killing and fighting and hatred and anger in Iraq that I read about day after day after day. Then in a moment of heartfelt prayer, I was struck by a clear spiritual realization. Love “with a capital L, a Biblical name for God” is right there where entrenched conflict appears to be. I knew I could (and should) keep praying and accepting the fact that Love is the real power in Iraq.

I realize that may sound naive, but I’ve seen evidence of an all-good and loving power operating in the universe and in our lives, even though it isn’t always readily apparent to the physical senses. I’ve found that sincere prayer can help me feel this invisible power and see evidence of it operating.

For example, I once was in the middle of a work experience that mirrored, though in a much more subdued way, what is happening in Iraq today. I hated a co-worker. There were the attacks from one side and revengeful counterattacks from the other. There were even the “public bombings” the humiliation and attacks in front of others. It appeared as if hatred, anger, self-justification, and self-righteousness were ruling the situation, and my life.

It was evil, depressing, and even affected my health. At one point I felt like I just couldn’t take it anymore similar to how I felt in reading about all the hatred and killing going on in Iraq. So I began to pray.

I’ve learned how to pray from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. In this book, she makes it clear that Love is the only real power. And this being the only power, it does not share its power with the so-called powers of hatred and evil.

I’ve found that we give hatred and evil the only power they seem to have by believing in them. As we relinquish our belief in them, they begin to disappear from our lives, and this blesses ourselves and others.

The situation at work was a perfect opportunity to prove this. I began doing what Jesus told his disciples to do when they pray. He said, “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

I went into my “closet” to pray to God. My closet wasn’t a space for storage, but rather a quiet mental space where I could shut out the human “battle” that seemed to be going on and accept the spiritual reality that divine Love is in control. I’ve read in the Bible that it is important to “look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

It was challenging to pray for a spiritual view of things — to see something that was not evident in the situation — just as it is in praying about Iraq. The lack of love between me and my co-worker seemed so real that it wasn’t easy to see the opposite as the true state of things.

My prayer acknowledged that God, Love, was the only ruling power, the only creator of anything, including myself and my colleague. I struggled to affirm as true what I’ve learned from the Bible: that we are all made in the image and likeness of Love. I reasoned that in the Creator’s eyes we were loving individuals, expressing kindness, goodness, unselfishness, and helpfulness.

Most of the time, it seemed that the image and likeness of evil existed and overruled the image of Love. But after many weeks of praying to see what God sees — a universe of love — I began to actually see it, even at work — even when my colleague was mean to me. I began to love him as the child of God that my prayers had shown me, and I treated him with kindness no matter how he treated me.

Soon the whole ugly situation just dissolved. He became very supportive, helpful, kind, and generous toward me. The love had always been there, but we had accepted the evil as real for a time, and this was what had made it a power in our lives. But of course it was a false power. It only took one of us to accept that Love is the only power— the only reality —to see it manifest.

While this was a very tough situation in my life, I know that it’s not as intense as what people in Iraq face. But one evidence of healing—the healing of intractable hate that gave way to permeating love—proves the possibility for change wherever hate has hold.

My experience reminds me that Love and its children are all that really exist in Iraq. Love is the only power and it overrules hatred and evil. I will continue to pray this every day, and together with others’ prayers, I expect to see the killing lessen and eventually stop.

Originally published on www.spirituality.com, June 2006.