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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 – An Interspiritual Contemplative Fellowship. Hope to see you there. Blessings.
SPIRITUAL QUOTES
Cherishing is the act of concrete, loving, specific actions. It removes love from the arena of emotion and places it squarely in action, its proper home.
*Julia Cameron. God is No Laughing Matter.
You flowers and trees, you hills and streams, you fields, flocks and wild birds, you books, you poems, and you people, I am unutterably alone in the midst of you.
I try to touch you, but I cannot touch you, and I am abashed, solitary and helpless, surrounded by a beauty that can never belong to me.
But this sadness generates within me an unspeakable reverence for the holiness of created things, for they are pure and perfect and they belong to God and they are mirrors of His beauty.
*Thomas Merton. In Thomas Merton. The Modern Spirituality Series. Ed. Aileen Taylor. “The beauty of all created things.”
SPIRITUAL TEACHING
She looked at me, after the wonderful dinner, saying, “Brian, I'm really sorry, but you know I'm so busy with my new business, it's really hard having time to share with you.” I had not asked for time with her, but she seemed to need to remind me she did not have time, even if I had asked for it. I understood, more than she intended me to understand.
This came from a woman I had just had a meal with, with two other friends. What did those words say to me? What did I feel? She was essentially saying, and had before, “Work consumes me, so much I have no time to cherish our friendship.” My feelings? Well, it put a damper on the whole evening, and I felt it a show of disrespect.
Her comment reminds me of the deadliness of our frenzied pace of life. A life without space and silence to cherish is a life where relationships cannot thrive and we cannot thrive, therefore, either.
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This writing pertains to a spiritual practice of taking the time to love, to cherish. The frenzied pace of our lives deaden us to cherishing and provides a ready, though pitiable, excuse not to cherish rightly. I wonder, when you die, will you wish you had spent more time at work, or more time cherishing the persons and things that decorate your life with celestial blessings?
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What is potentially the most over-used, most-misunderstood word in the English language? Okay, ready? Love. That is right, love. We throw the word around as though it is as common and accessible as fast-food burgers and fries.
No, we do not need to disown the concept love, and certainly not the practice of loving. Down deep inside us each is an inborn, undying longing to love and be loved. We are most fully human when we are giving and receiving love.
Yet, we might help ourselves to see more closely the many ways we can feel, say, and enjoy love. How about that word “cherish”? Let us look at cherishing as one way of loving. Could cherishing be one aspect of Love to practice, focusing on that Love-quality to nourish Loving.
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Some of us remember the song “Cherish,” sung by the Association in the 1960s. This beautiful love song is about desiring the love of a woman, but she does not reciprocate:
Cherish is the word I use to describe
All the feeling that I have hiding here for you inside
You don't know how many times I've wished that I had told you
You don't know how many times I wished that I could hold you
You don't know how many times I've wished that I could
Mold you into someone who could
Cherish me as much as I cherish you
The song reflects part of the frustration we have with love and its aspect cherishing. Cherishing, like love generally, does not come by molding persons into someone who will cherish us. Cherish, like love, like grace, is freely given. Things and persons are about us everyday, waiting to be seen and appreciated.
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The English “cherish” derives from the Old French “to hold dear.” This is like saying, “I love you, Dear,” or just "Dear...". The words imply, “I hold you dear,” or “You are dear to me.” “I cherish you,” therefore. Holding someone or something dear implies love and appreciation.
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Can cherishing be a spiritual practice? Well, yes. Julia Cameron, in God is No Laughing Matter, writes, “Cherishing is a spiritual art.” She notes how we seldom see the celestial origin of things we could cherish, if only we recognized them as heavenly gifts. Even, she notes, a tiny pot of homemade jam can tell us someone loves us, but that God may love us also.
Cherishing says you took the time to stop, look, and listen to your friends. It means you remembered to buy a housewarming gift. It means a sick friend got a potted plant. It means a friend facing a tricky operation received a soothing CD. Cherishing is an act of willful rebellion against the frenzied tempo of the times. “You matter,” the cherishing tells the recipient. To cherish a friend is to acknowledge that friend's dignity, to offer an act of witness in difficult times.
Each morning I give my doggies some treats. I talk to them, and I act all excited about giving them the goodies. What am I saying? I am saying, “I cherish you.” See, cherishing is as simple as mindfully expressing, “You are dear to me. I value you. You are worthy, and wonderful.” Cherishing is as simple as being grateful for what others no longer see as special, as heavenly, as Divine.
I get suspicious regarding persons who seem so celestially minded they seem cut off from the preciousness of the everyday blessings of this place and time. I mean, so what if you think you saw and climbed Jacob's Ladder? Or have become enlightened? Received visions? Heard voices from angels? So what? - if you do not live a life of cherishing the gifts that are strewn all along the way you walk.
So, yes, cherishing is a spiritual art. Like all art, we can become better at it with practice. Let us consciously, daily practice cherishing. We shall feel the better for it, and others shall too.
© OneLife Ministries. Feb 6, 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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