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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. While it focuses on Christian teaching, I hope persons of varied faiths will find inspiration here. Indeed, "God" can be whatever image helps us trust in the Sacred, by whatever means Grace touches us each. 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.
Title: The Field Beyond Each Other: Being and Becoming in the Other
Today’s Saying: Will we let ourselves relax and just be in that field that Rumi refers to, where even the words each other no longer make sense of the union we are feeling?
SPIRITUAL TEACHING
To receive this fire without being destroyed, to be nourished and incandescent with a love scarcely endurable in human flesh, the bush that burns but is not consumed....
*Cynthia Bourgeault. Love is Stronger than Death: The Mystical Union of Two Souls.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other,
Doesn’t make any sense.
*RUMI: THE BOOK OF LOVE: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing. Trans. Coleman Barks.
Thus by ecstasy the lover passes into the beloved's own enstatic self-realization.
*Beatrice Bruteau. The Grand Option: Personal Transformation and a New Creation.
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I wrote a friend in December 2005 about how almost nothing I was reading was speaking to me. This contrasted with my past, when I had a book with me wherever I went. I would stay up late into the nights reading and get up reading. Now, I start a book and often do not finish it. And rarely do I feel the urgency to read, even though I do have moments daily of such enjoyment. So, why would a person who loves to read lose the urgency and delight in doing so for a time?
My friend wrote this back to me, regarding the above situation - “Maybe the pleasure of your company is all that is required for the moment.” I reflected on that for days, and it was – and is - true.
I grew, over years of disciplined spiritual practice, into finding a deep peace in simply being with Spirit and, also, other persons. I still read, but much less than once; I practice simply being with the Mystery a lot. I feel the need to get outside and be with Nature, too, as a manifestation of Spirit, Who manifests as Love in so many natural ways.
One Christmas Day exemplified this wonderful being-with. The day was a joyful day of Fellowship, first with other persons and, then, alone with Christ. After a mid-afternoon dinner with a family, I sat outside in my yard. Looking into the sky, I tried to express love to the Spirit. I felt so close to the Light, but I was blocked from expressing loving. I was blocked for the One was giving me love. So, I ceased trying to pray to and enjoyed prayer as receiving from the Love love.
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Imagine One who loves for that One is Love. In that One Love and Loving are in union, before being differentiated in mind. Would not that God long to receive love? Would not that God long to give love? Would not that God enjoy simply being in your presence, sharing heart-to-heart, body-with-body at a level only true lovers share together?
Will we allow ourselves, then, to soften our more powerful images of God and let come to the fore the more gentle, nurturing, maternal images of Grace? Will we let the Divine be our love, our beloved, loving us in a time of silence and aloneness each day? Will we let ourselves relax and just be in that field that Rumi refers to, where even the words each other no longer make sense of the union we are feeling? Or affirming lovingly in the absence of all loving feelings?
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If we allow ourselves to be in this Field with another person, in loving surrender to the One, we find a spiritually being-purified Loving, a new spiritual body being formed out of two separate bodies – literally connected by an energy entwining two selves into a single self. Then, the sharing between two becomes one with the sharing of each separately and each together with the One. This is made possible by each person experiencing instasy, or a standing within oneself in self-knowing, and, from there, a mutual merging-in with the other – in ecstasy. Thus, ecstasy in this sense of union is not only a feeling, this is a becoming one with another; yet, in this each more fully realizes his or her self, rather than losing self.
Then words, like a bud, open into a Mystery of Silence much like the united beating of two hearts, wherein feeling and listening together are beyond the need and desire for words. This, in Burgeault's words, becomes - a love scarcely endurable in human flesh. Then, the worship of the divine in the other, and the worship of the One, is one sacramental act of Creative Grace! Then, two together, have realized being God in God by God, Who is Love. And by their Loving have entered into God as God is Love, and they become, thereby, the means of Grace for each other.
SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
1) Remind yourself that you are a very special person and deserve and can enjoy time to simply be. Find a place, inside or outside. The place could be a closet, a room, your yard, a park, a vehicle…. For that time simply relax. Smile. If in nature or before a sacred object inside, gazing can calm and center you.
Or, you can close your eyes and focus on your breathing, for a time breathing in “Precious Moment,” breathing out “Wonderful Moment,” breathing in “Thank you,” and allowing the second outbreath to be in silence. Then, start the cycle again with the next inbreath. As you become very relaxed and your breathing is growing very calm, cease internally speaking the meditation. Simply rest, smiling, appreciating the texture of the moment, as in the sounds you hear, the sensation of the body, the feel of a breeze or the air upon your face, …
If laughter arises that is okay. If you need to cry, cry. If you feel so joyful you need to shout out, do that. If you feel an urge to stand and dance, do that. If you sense music arising, then sing. Enjoy this special time you reserve for yourself, for you deserve it, and honor your sacredness by gifting yourself with such a time daily.
2) Go into Silence. Picture someone you dearly love. Hold that person in your mind-heart. Smile at the person. Now, bring to mind-heart things about the person that bring you joy and engender your loving him or her. When through, sit in silence for a time, before coming out of your meditation time.
© OneLife Ministry. Jan 2, 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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