Message From The Minister March 2018
Lent: A Journey of Awakening
As this season of Lent continues, and the storms of the world seem to intensify, let us remember this is a time of great opportunity for spiritual growth and development. This is a season which begins the final journey of our experience separation to the glorious resurrection of the Christ in us.
Charles Fillmore wrote in his book, Keep a True Lent, “Lent is a season of spiritual growth, a time for progressive unfoldment. When we can blend and merge our mind with God-Mind, the way is open for the Lord to glorify us and to lift us into a higher, more purer, more spiritual state.
The only thing I might add to that from our Unity perspective is: the Lord of our being is not a man separate from us, but the Christ within. This is a season of opportunity for each individual consciousness on Earth to experience that merging and blending with God-Mind, that resurrection of our minds into the sphere of Oneness and awareness of our eternal nature.
The simplicity of awakening lies in our desire for the transformation of our world, through the transformation of our own hearts and minds. If I want to eliminate something during this Lenten season, it is the way of seeing others as outside of myself, it is the way I speak of others and of myself in terms the limitations of the separate mind. I want to eliminate fear and judgment and anger and suffering.
If the dead thoughts of separation has led me to a world of suffering and sorrow, then I have to transform that world by bringing the awareness of Oneness and healing, first to my own mind, and then to the ones around me. A Course in Miracles has a wonderful statement of truth concerning this. It says: “The Light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.”
The true path to resurrection might then lie in the action of forgiveness. When we allow our mind to merge with God-Mind it will necessarily include all of creation. To understand what forgiveness really means is a journey of true courage and commitment; but what we are committing to is becoming our own perfect self, established in God and as God. This divine reality is what we discover in the process of our own personal transformation. The Bible says in (Romans 8:11), “If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies…”
This is evidence that our own journey of transfiguration and resurrection is not only inevitable, but it is available to us here and now. The immanent reality of the manifest Christ in us… that is what we are making room for in our spiritual practice of Lent. Keep it a True Lent.
Always Yours in Christ Consciousness
Rev. Tony