In his recent timely blog “Is there a cure for racism?” Eric Nelson challenges us to seek that deep sense of divine Love that enables us to see beyond surface differences of skin color or culture to each one’s true identify as the loved child of God. Eric’s blog was first published on Communities Digital News on August 28, 2017
“I’ve heard some people that I know and like saying quite offensive things,” said Carol Lindsay, a white, 80-year-old Londoner speaking with NPR about the uptick in racially motivated hostility she witnessed following last year’s Brexit vote. “You know, just nastiness. I think it’s like a contagion.”
Given the universal aversion to disease, Lindsay’s analogy is unsettling. Chances are, though, that on average we do far more to protect ourselves from the common cold than the temptation to see people of another race as a threat to our personal well-being.
“Floating with the popular current of mortal thought without questioning the reliability of its conclusions, we do what others do, believe what others believe, and say what others say,” cautioned Mary Baker Eddy in her Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896, addressing what she understood to be the root of all sickness, both moral and physical. “Common consent is contagious, and it makes disease catching.”
The question then becomes, how do we prevent the spread of racism? How do we alleviate the sense of mistrust born of an all-too-common failure to realize or to admit that we all share the same divine Creator? How do we treat this disease, if you will, that appears to have infected nearly every corner of the globe?
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