If there is any venue where it is essential to be neutral, it is in the sacred region of the heart where prayer takes place. In this elevated sanctuary, thought can witness spiritual reality unembellished with personal agendas, emotion or habit. It is a place where personal will submits to the unchanging spiritual nature of things and the heart responds with a humble, “Thy will be done.”

But does this neutrality mean the spiritually-minded person cannot be committed to one side of a controversial issue in human affairs? In democratic countries, for example, there is an obligation to vote. Voting is essentially a partisan activity, even if one is not formally aligned with a political party. The voter registers approval or disapproval based on an assessment of which candidate or proposition best aligns with the voter’s honest convictions about the issues. To be fair in this situation means to thoughtfully consider all the positions in play before casting a ballot.

At times, there may be few significant differences among the various choices. Or the issues may not be seriously consequential. This does not diminish the importance of voting—the act of voting itself registers affirmation of the democratic process.

But sometimes the differences are stark and the consequences grave. In such cases, being “fair” isn’t always appropriate. Paul Krugman, op-ed writer for The New York Times, makes the point in a lighthearted way by using a hypothetical controversy about a claim that the earth is flat. It would be a distortion of fairness, he notes, if a news headline were to state: “Shape of Earth: Views Differ.” To be “fair” in such an instance would be to give the truth an equal footing with falsity, which not only trivializes respect for truth but attempts to change the facts.

In more realistic, and more serious, controversies, the rightness or wrongness of a position may not be obvious at the time. Slavery, for instance, was an essential and accepted part of the US economy for two hundred years. However, when those whose love for humanity prompted them to speak out and take action, this evil institution was eventually seen for what it was and eliminated.

“Love is the liberator.”

Mary Baker Eddy, who lived at the time of the emancipation of the slaves in this country, acknowledges the sustaining power of spiritualized thought and actions in her book Science and Health: “The history of our country, like all history, illustrates the might of Mind, and shows human power to be proportionate to its embodiment of right thinking. A few immortal sentences, breathing the omnipotence of divine justice, have been potent to break despotic fetters and abolish the whipping-post and slave market; but oppression neither went down in blood, nor did the breath of freedom come from the cannon's mouth. Love is the liberator.”

Reformers in all eras have not diluted their commitment to a just cause by deference to a false fairness. One notable reformer, Jesus, spoke out freely against injustices, indicting the highest levels of the reigning establishment. And history provides many other examples of bravery and courage on the part of those who “voted” in their thoughts and actions to save the victims of all forms of oppression.

Seek the divine perspective and hold to it.

“The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.”