Welcoming Lostness

Walking on Fresh Terrain

Feb 8, 2010

Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you into a heart experience of Divine Presence, Who is Love. I hope persons of varied spiritual paths will find inspiration here. Please share this ministry with others and return soon. There is a new offering daily. To be placed on the daily OneLife email list for notifications of new writings or to submit prayer requests, write 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 - OneLife Ministries – A Contemplative Interspiritual Fellowship. Hope to see you there. Blessings.

Most of the time I am lost. I guess you could say, I live lost. Thank God!

*Brian Kenneth Wilcox

… I assume that we dance in partnership with a Divine Spirit, … Instead of the Lincoln Memorial image of God that I learned as a child, I now conceive God as a loving presence within and around us, available to all, regardless of age or religion. It is my experience that when I move in sync with this Spirit, my life goes more smoothly, for myself and those around me. Things work out, even when they are difficult.

*Eileen Flanagan. The Wisdom to Know the Difference: When to Make a Change – and When to Let Go.

Cold, breezy, and lost, I rode along the morning of February 7, 2010. I was on my weekly 20-mile bike ride. I took a new route. I remembered getting lost in the same area many months before. I was lost again.

Did I mind being lost? I reflected on getting lost, while I was lost and alone, except for a few persons walking along the sidewalks, a few other bikers and some cars passing by infrequently.

Getting lost on a bike can be fun. The lostness gives an alertness, a challenge to the ride. When lost, I am on fresh territory; I enjoy that feel of newness. The lostness breaks up the monotony of knowing where I am and where I am going.

I found my way home. When lost like that morning, home remains my destination. Finding the way home is stimulated by the lostness.

The English “lost” is akin to “loss.” “Loss” derives from the Old English “destruction.” We often think of destruction as negative; but, here, being lost is simply the “de-construction” of familiarity, the blessing of not-knowing.

Loss of familiarity and a not-knowing are keys to the spiritual Journey. Why? This Way is an adventure more deeply into not-knowing by un-knowing. Such is the contemplative, or mystical, tincture of Gnosis – a spiritual knowing by un-knowing. We know by a Light so bright to the mind that the brightness appears dark.

I concur with Eileen Flanagan – when I walk in sync with Spirit, my life goes much better. That does not mean I do not get lost, however. To live in sync with Spirit means getting lost, getting lost, getting lost, ...

If we refuse to welcome getting lost on the spiritual path of Loving, we are not going to get far in the Way. By welcoming lostness, we welcome excitement, exhilaration, and lessons in walking by faith.

Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians of how we are to walk. We are to walk trusting, not seeing. Paul would advise us not to try to stay on familiar ground, but to invite losing our way in walking by faith.

Living sacred lostness does not mean wildish, undisciplined openness to anything and a rejection of the traditional. This kind of so-called spirituality is fashionable these days. Persons dabble a little in this, dabble a little in that, and criticize traditional religion. Many of them have no anchoring, and no direction. They are truly lost, but not in any positive sense. They talk as though enlightened, but they are directionless.

Truths and ways of the past serve to give us direction in the newness of the present. Thomas Merton, the leading spiritual writer of the 20th Century, lived as a Trappist monk within the boundaries of a monastic community. In his writings we see a man who evolved from a religiously dogmatic Catholic to a man open to other faiths. He especially appreciated Buddhism and wrote a book on Buddhism. Merton, however, remained within the tradition of his Catholic path. He found a way to grow outward, while having his native religion provide structure and wisdom. In thought and love, he moved beyond the boundaries of the Catholic Church of the mid-20th Century. He experienced, in his words, the lostness within structure and tradition, a merging of past and present into the evolving moment - this marks a healthy spiritual devotion:

Living is not thinking. Thought is formed and guided by objective reality outside us. Living is the constant adjustment of thought to life and life to thought in such a way that we are always growing, always experiencing new things in the old and old things in the new. Thus life is always new.

*Thomas Merton. Thoughts in Solitude.

1)Do you ever get lost in a spiritual sense? How do you feel about that?

2)How do you seek to live in sync with Spirit? How does your life improve when you are waking in sync with Spirit?

3)What does it mean to you to walk by trusting, not seeing? Do you welcome walking by trust, not sight? Explain.

4)Merton says we are to experience new things in the old and old things in the new. What does that mean to you? How is that true in your life?

5)What role might tradition and structure play in our spiritual Walk?

6)Do you have a particular religious tradition that provides wisdom and anchoring for you? If so, how does it specifically help you to walk by faith?

7)Is there a person, past or present, who has inspired you to walk by faith and in the unknown? Who is the person? What about the person speaks to you of walking in lostness by faith?

© OneLife Ministries. Feb 6, 2010.

*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.