Thoughts for Lent

One of my favorite devotional books is Keep a True Lent by Charles Fillmore, it's a text from the Unity School of New Thought, which I really enjoy drawing inspiration from. In this particular book it gives a guided plan for study and prayer for the season of Lent, which teaches "that we can keep Lent best by denying ourselves not "things" but negative thoughts and feelings," and that through study and affirmative prayer individuals can participate in the divine through the imitation of Christ.

Their daily reading in this book for Ash Wednesday states, "I keep a true Lent by denying limiting beliefs of the past and by laying hold of positive ideas that are life-giving. Thus I spiritualize my thinking and transform my life."

This affirmation really sets out the entire series of spiritual exercises of the Lenten period, and I tend to agree with this and follow it in my own way.

First, the idea of "denial" is more metaphysical than how we generally understand it, and is more with the understanding that you actively work to not let negative thoughts and emotions to control you, you 'deny their power and being' which is a bit different from denying they exist. However, it's particularly the second aspect that I love the most, to actively take up positive ideas that are life-giving that will assist in spiritualizing one's life.

So rather than give up something material for Lent, I prefer the alternative to take up something positive and spiritual. In this case, I'm going to commit to reading from The Spirits Book by Kardec every day for this period of Lent. I've read the book before, but never really with a purpose of meditating and studying the messages and wisdom it offers. I've been slowly working my way through the book, bit by bit, but it hasn't been as consistent as I'd like it to be. So for Lent, I'm going to follow this plan of prayerfully reading The Spirits Book.

I found a reading from today pretty nice to start off the season, "the sympathy which attracts one spirit to another is the result of the perfect concordance of their tendencies and instincts" If we follow Spiritism, if we cultivate lovingkindness and abide in Faith, Hope and Charity, we draw closer to the divine, become more balanced, and allow the actions of the Good Spirits to better flow through us and manifest our gifts to assist others.