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Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you prayerfully into a heart experience of Divine Presence, Who is Love. I hope persons of varied faith paths will find inspiration here. Please share this ministry with others, and please return soon. There is a new offering daily. And to be placed on the daily OneLife email list, to request notifications of new writings or submit prayer requests, write to briankwilcox@yahoo.com .
Blessings,
Brian Kenneth Wilcox MDiv, MFT, PhD
Interspiritual Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader, Spiritual Counselor, and Chaplain.
You are invited to join Brian at his fellowship group on Facebook. The group is called OneLife Ministries – A Contemplative Interspiritual Fellowship. Hope to see you there. Blessings.
SPIRITUAL QUOTES
Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.
*George Iles
When our hope is pure, it no longer trusts exclusively in human and visible means, nor rests in any visible end. The person who hopes in the Divine trusts the Divine, Whom the person never sees, to bring one to the possession of things that are beyond imagination.
*Thomas Merton. No Man is an Island. Modern adaptation.
SPIRITUAL TEACHING
In the 1988 movie “Patch,” based on a true story, Hunter "Patch" Adams is adrift. Lonely and suicidal, he checks into a mental institution to try to work through his problems. While there, he learns the healing power of helping others and desires to become a doctor. In medical school Patch finds power in joy and laughter, but his innovative approach to medicine is not accepted among some of his professors.
After building a free clinic in the mountains, all seems to be going well for Patch. The woman of his dreams, a fellow doctor, confesses that past abuse led her to hate men, to wish she were a butterfly so that she could get away. Now, she has found new hope and love with him. Just when things seem not able to get better, Patch is informed that his girlfriend has been murdered by one of their patients.
Disillusioned about the value of his work, he decides to quit his profession. For a last time, he goes to the site upon which he one day hoped to build a free hospital to replace the clinic.
There he challenges God. Patch stands on a cliff top, looking out over the landscape. He starts talking to God. He asks, "What now? What do You want from me?" Patch moves toward the edge of the cliff and considers jumping. He tells God that he could jump, and he knows that God would not stop him. He says, "So, answer me, please. Tell me what You're doing?"
Getting no audible answer, Patch says he will look at the logic. The way he sees it, God creates a person, who lives a lifetime of pain and dies. Patch argues that God should have thought out creation a bit more. He informs God, "You rested on the seventh day, maybe you should have spent that day on compassion." Again, he looks over the edge and kicks a rock down the cliff.
Patch, in a final act of defiance, looks up and says, "You know what? You're not worth it." Patch turns and begins to walk back to his car. He stops, amazed to find a butterfly on his suitcase. The butterfly takes wing and lights upon his chest, near his heart. Patch reaches out his hand. The butterfly crawls onto his finger. He looks at it. He laughs. As the butterfly takes to the sky, soaring higher and higher, Patch laughs again.
God has taken a small creature of beauty and spoken to his heart. Possibly, at this moment he realizes his dear soulmate had only flown away, free. Possibly, at this moment he realizes that as she did not run away from her suffering but found true love with him, he, too, can find meaning in life, again.
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At times, we might feel somewhat like Patch. Possibly, Jesus, being fully human, was tempted to question God. We do not know. Christian Scripture does not present us a portrait of his psychological state. However, Scripture presents a plausible basis for assuming Jesus struggled more with his natural humanness and emotions the way we do, than many seem to assume. One example indicative follows:
14That is why we have a great High Priest who has gone into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. Let us cling to him and never stop trusting him. 15This our High Priest understands our weaknesses, for he faced the same temptations we do, yet he did not err. 16So, let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive the Divine mercy, and we will find Divine grace to help us when we need it.
*Hebrews 4.14-16
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Ironically, Patch, in his despair, faithfully laments to God the same way the Psalmists often prayed and sang laments. His contending against God, much like Job, is an expression of love for God. His doubting God was made possible from faith in God. If he did not love and trust God, he would have never gone to that cliff and challenged God. God, in a simple gift of nature, answered the prayer of Patch. God seemed to have no problem with Patch confronting God.
That we challenge God, does not mean we do not love God. Spirit is so loving as to see that our challenging may be a way we are really crying out for help.
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The butterfly is the thread of hope woven into the story of Patch Adams. Faith allows us to see a thread of hope woven throughout our lives, too. We can live hope-fully, for we know God responds faithfully to our need. And, like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and Patch on the edge of the cliff, we are assured that even our disappointments with God can lead to honesty that expresses deep love for God and longing to trust that all will be well. We can, out of sincere, richly-textured affection, through a love seemingly vanquished by hurt, disappointment, or betrayal, faithfully lament, argue with, and find blame with God. We will find that God loves us so much that God would never want us to be other than fully honest about in our relationship with God, with Her.
© OneLife Ministries. Jan 31, 2010.
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*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian Kenneth Wilcox, SW Florida. Brian lives a vowed life and with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis. While within the Christian path, he is an ecumenical-interspiritual teacher, author, and chaplain. He is Senior Chaplain for the Charlotte County Jail, Punta Gorda, FL.
*Brian welcomes responses to his writings at briankwilcox@yahoo.com . Also, Brian is on Facebook: search Brian Kenneth Wilcox.
*You can order his book An Ache for Union from major booksellers.
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