Consensus—or one Mind?

There I was—sitting alone in a conference room, trying to calm down after a meeting that had deteriorated into a heated argument. The goal of the meeting was to achieve consensus on a work matter, but instead it had been a disaster. It made me stop and think about consensus from a spiritual point of view.

Early in my career, when I was promoted to president of a property management and marketing firm, there were many business articles published about the increasing role of women in management and the skills they brought to companies, especially consensus-building. I thought this was a particularly strong skill of mine. I reported to the company owner, two asset managers, two boards of directors, and hundreds of tenants, and in addition, I managed a staff of 25. There were many opportunities to work on achieving consensus!

One of the company’s services was to help its tenants market their businesses to their customers. There were many opinions on how best to do this. My staff and I worked hard to come up with marketing plans that we thought would achieve consensus. We even visited tenants individually to gain their support for our programs. For a while, I felt that my personal skill was working. I could sit with a group of people who held strongly divided opinions and achieve consensus by looking for the common ground, acknowledging the good in each perspective, and convincing everyone that in order to move forward we were all going to have to give a little.

I realized that, despite my best intentions, I had been focusing on my own abilities and leaving God out of the scenario.

Often this approach worked, but soon my efforts began failing. It became the norm for someone to point out some real or imagined flaw in the plan that would incite disagreement among the rest of the group—and we would go back to the drawing board. Other times, when most of the group agreed with a proposal, we would go ahead with our plans but achieve lukewarm results, because not everybody supported the ideas. I began to doubt my ability to succeed in the job.

What was wrong? As I sat in the conference room that day, I realized that, despite my best intentions, I had been focusing on my own abilities and leaving God out of the scenario. I considered the Bible story of the tower of Babel, found in Genesis 11. The tower was a kind of consensus that left God out of the picture. The result? God “confound[ed] the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth” (verse 9). The lesson I took from the story wasn’t that God was vengeful, but that what I had thought of as an important and valid decisionmaking technique was actually taking the focus away from one God, Mind.

Another problem was that I went into each meeting thinking there were many minds that needed to come to agreement. One dictionary definition of consensus is “general agreement: unanimity,” and the definition of unanimous includes “being of one mind.” Christian Science teaches that God is the one and only Mind. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “When we realize that there is one Mind, the divine law of loving our neighbor as ourselves is unfolded; whereas a belief in many ruling minds hinders man’s normal drift towards the one Mind, one God, and leads human thought into opposite channels where selfishness reigns” (p. 205).

I earnestly prayed for the humility to better understand God as Mind. I prayed to let go of the personal responsibility to build consensus and the temptation to try to affect many differing opinions—and instead, to focus on one Mind in every aspect of my work. What a relief it was to know that since God is good, and He is Mind, every decision guided by Him would be good.

Soon, my meetings had different outcomes. We still worked to create plans that benefited everyone. But rather than trying to achieve consensus, I prayed before each meeting to listen for Mind’s guidance. Often, an idea would come up during the discussion that nobody had thought of before. It would be recognized wholeheartedly as something we should try, and we made progress.

What a relief it is to know that since God is good, every decision guided by Him would be good.

This wasn’t to say that every meeting was a breeze! But it was obvious to me that the tone of the meetings had changed because they were grounded on God as the one and only Mind, and that made all the difference. Everyone was more respectful, supportive of one another, and willing to listen, especially me. Meetings that everyone had been dreading became more joyful activities where the participants valued each other’s ideas. I stayed in the job for many years.

I’ve found these ideas about God as Mind to be true whenever I’m interacting with others, including in church business and committee meetings. It can be so easy to get caught up in trying to convince others that certain opinions about church are right (or even more spiritual!), when what really matters is putting aside personal opinions—the concept of “many ruling minds”—and earnestly listening for God, the one Mind, for guidance.

Recognizing one Mind in all of our activities is a joy-filled task, just as this verse from the letter to the church at Phillipi reminds us: “Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind” (Philippians 2:2).