Fasting and Feasting: 40 ways, days, to the Golden Rule

Spiritual and religious themes are relevant in the Spring, a time of planting seeds, growth, rebirth. They coincide. Firm roots, greenery developed from the brown, care, and nurturing, offer hope and positive thoughts. It is cyclical. Tending to religious matters is personal. Most serious religions offer a consistent strain of goodness, caring for others, summed up in the Golden Rule. The methods and ceremonies often vary, however, there is more common ground, even though too many naysayers seek to plant seeds of negativity. By a Christian calendar we are in Lent, a time of denial that leads to Easter.

One reader of The Voice, Jeanette Hirt, of Batavia, sent a 40-day practice for Lent, of Fasting and Feasting, left on this page. She reminded that the positive and the negative themes, 20 each, can be taken as a whole, or each one stands on its own. The strain starts with fasting from judging others and ends with the feast on the power of prayer. In silent moments we all thoughtfully can consider, reach deeply, and practice the 40-day helpful guides. They transcend religion.

Other thoughts of events to be examined in the filled issue of The Voice are worthwhile:

• The fundraiser support is continual in Aurora for the responders in the February 15 shooting deaths;

• The Luxies Club–Together We Will Heal for the above tragedy will be March 22-23. 7 a.m.-4 a.m..

• Red Oak Nature Center’s annual Maple Fest will be from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, March 16.

• Kiwanis Club of Aurora Pancake Day will be 7 a.m. to noon Saturday, March 16.

Fasting and Feasting
40-Day Practice For Lent
Adapted from William Arthur Ward

I fast from judging others.

I feast on beholding the Christ in them.

I fast from emphasis on differences.

I feast on the oneness of all life.

I fast from apparent darkness.

I feast on the reality of light.

I fast from thoughts of illness.

I feast on the healing power of God.

I fast from words that pollute.

I feast on phrases that purify.

I fast from discontent.

I feast on gratitude.

I fast from anger.

I feast on patience.

I fast from pessimism.

I feast on optimism.

I fast from worry.

I feast on divine order.

I fast from complaining.

I feast on appreciation.

I fast from negatives.

I feast on affirmatives.

I fast from hostility.

I feast on nonresistance.

I fast from bitterness.

I feast on forgiveness.

I fast from self-concern.

I feast on compassion for others.

I fast from anxiety.

I feast on eternal Truth.

I fast from discouragement.

I feast on hope.

I fast from facts that depress.

I feast on thoughts that uplift.

I fast from suspicion.

I feast on Truth.

I fast from shadows of sorrow.

I feast on the serenity of silence.

I fast from problems that overwhelm.

I feast on the power of prayer.

And now in the silence of prayer, I rest.

—Unity World Headquarters
Lee’s Summit, Mo..