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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. There is a new offering daily. 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.
QUOTE
The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
*Thomas Merton
SPIRITUAL TEACHING
A monk asked his abbot, while they were walking beside the Sea, “Father, why don't you teach me, as many teach, to imitate Christ?” “Because it's futile to teach you to imitate Christ,” replied the abbot. “Why is that so?” inquired the monk. The abbot said, “My son, stand here and try to imitate that Sea?” The monk spoke, “Father, that's impossible.” “Likewise,” said the abbot, “as futile it is for you to try to imitate Christ.” Inquired the monk, “How shall I grow in Christlikeness, then?” “To be like the Sea, you enter the Sea, live in the Sea. You no longer strive to be like the Sea. Likewise, with Christ, to live in Christ and Christ in you means to be like Christ.”
*Brian Kenneth Wilcox. Story "Like the Sea."
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The concept of imitating Christ is common in Christianity. One of the devotional classics to exert a strong influence in this direction is an anonymous work titled The Imitation of Christ. Traditionally, the authorship of the Imitation has been assigned, though now questioned, to Thomas a Kempis.
The mystical view is that imitation of Christ arises from experience of communion-in-union with the Christ. Possibly, this is a reason why many Christians show little evidence of Christlikeness, and often efforts to be Christlike come over as little more than a surface morality or dogmatic, shallow religious sentimentalism.
In John 15 Jesus is seen teaching the Abiding Life. He compares himself to a vine and followers to branches. He says in verse 4: "Stay inside me, as I stay inside you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit without staying inside the vine, so neither can you unless you stay inside me."
In verse 9 Jesus affirms that he loves his followers as much as his Father loves him. He says, therefore, “Stay in my love.” So, to remain in Jesus is to remain in his love; to remain in his love, is to remain in him.
If Jesus loves us and Merton is right that true love wishes the other to be fully himself or herself, not a mere imitation, the same would apply to the Divine. The Divine has no interest in making little Christ-Automatons – mere walking, talking replicas of Jesus, or of anyone. Christlikeness, for it is of love, honors the uniqueness of each person. Christlikeness means a person living his or her expression of the universal True Self.
Merton, consequently, in The Wisdom of the Desert, writes: “What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?”
The source of the fruition of the Christ follower, then, is the mutual indwelling of love, wherein the person respects the self of the other and finds an acknowledgment and loyalty to his or her own unique self. This means love alone is the determinative quality of the Christlike person, regardless of what faith or spiritual persuasion. All that Christ signifies, that is known to anyone who lives in love and love in him or her, for the signification transcends the historical boundaries. Love includes All.
REFLECTIONS
1)In what ways are you seeking to abide in love and allow love to abide in you?
2)What are particular challenges you face in abiding inside love and love abiding inside you?
3)What are some qualities of Christlikeness you see growing in and through you?
4)If you are of another faith path than Christianity, what would equate to "Christlikeness" in your tradition?
© OneLife Ministries. Feb 8, 2010.
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*Thomas Merton quote under "Quote" was found at Quoteland.com .
*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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