“Where is the voice coming from?” is the title of a short story written by famed Mississippi author Eudora Welty on the day civil rights activist Medgar Evers was murdered outside his home in Jackson during the summer of 1963. Welty’s story describes to a tee the racial climate in Mississippi and much of the United States 54 years ago. Unfortunately, that deep-seated but irrational hatred, so powerfully portrayed by Welty, continues to rear its ugly head around the United States and the world.

What is this “voice” that would impel someone to randomly murder persons in a movie theater, to enter a church and shoot nine persons attending Bible study, or to deliberately drive a vehicle into a group of innocent pedestrians? Is there a way we can head off these malicious thoughts or voices and the actions stemming from them? There is. Everyone has the God-given ability to discern what he or she is thinking and reject malevolent thoughts. The psalmist tells us “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts; And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting” (139:23, 24).

Even in biblical times people were questioning the source of hateful speech and unprovoked violence. The psalmist asked “Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?” The Apostle Paul, often beaten, stoned, imprisoned, and even once left for dead as he went about his ministry (see Acts chapters 14, 16, 20, 21), identified the source of this hatred as the “carnal mind,” which he defined as “enmity against God” (See Romans 8).

Christ Jesus gave us a parable to help us do just that: “…the kingdom of heaven is like a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away” (Matthew 13). It is up to each of us to discern every thought as it comes to distinguish good thoughts from bad thoughts. Good thoughts come to consciousness from the divine Mind or God, while bad ideas or temptations have their origin in the carnal mind.

Christ Jesus also counseled his followers “…what I say unto you I say unto all, ‘Watch’” (Mark 13:37). I take this to mean, watch what you hold in consciousness and what you say about your fellow man. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discover and Founder of Christian Science, likewise, gave the following counsel: “Watch, and pray daily that evil suggestions, in whatever guise, take no root in your thought nor bear fruit. Ofttimes examine yourselves, and see if there be found anywhere a deterrent of Truth and Love, and ‘hold fast that which is good’” (T he First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, pp.128:30—129:2). It takes practice but when we learn to do this consistently, the nocuous “voice” is vanquished.

As we become more alert to what we are nurturing in consciousness, it becomes more apparent whether we are holding on to Godly conceptions or giving in to temptations from the carnal mind. And since thinking always precedes action, this becomes a game changer, blessing ourselves and everyone around us.

(A different version of this article was originally published in the Clarion-Ledger on July 31, 2015.)

Henry Teller

Christian Science Committee on Publication for Mississippi