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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 wisdom paths will find inspiration here.
Blessings,
Brian Kenneth Wilcox
MDiv, MFT, PhD
Interspiritual Teacher, Author
You are invited to join Brian at his fellowship group on Facebook. The group is called OneLife Ministries – A Contemplative Interspiritual Fellowship.
QUOTE
Nobody dies from lack of sex. It's lack of love we die from.
*Margaret Atwood. Canadian novelist and poet. Born 1939.
SCRIPTURE
For this is the Divine Will, your being set apart as pure and consecrated to the Good: that you refrain from sexual immorality; that you know how to use your body in sacredness and honor, not in the passion of lust … For the One has not called us to impurity, but in holiness.
*I Thess 4.3-7
SPIRITUAL TEACHING
Author Susan Howatch made a fortune writing novels. She had houses in several countries. She drove a Porsche. After divorce, she had a number of transient liaisons.
When aged 30, Susan spoke of her religious conversion. She said, “God seized me by the scruff of the neck and shook me until my neck rattled.”
Susan became a follower of Jesus. She reflects, now: “I was promiscuous, but finally one morning I woke up and said, 'What am I trying to prove and to whom?' I knew exactly what – that even though my marriage broke up, I could still attract men. The fact that I could control men boosted my fractured ego.” Her conclusion on sexual promiscuity: “Promiscuity is a sign that you're not aligned right with God or yourself.”
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We tend to struggle to find a middle point between sex as a loving, pure act and sexual promiscuity. Sadly, we lack balance. We see one extreme and the other. One extreme evidences little embracement of the joy of sex as a blessing to be enjoyed in itself. Another extreme objectifies other and self in a love-less, lusty ritual of beastly instinct.
All the major religious faiths give wise guidelines for sexuality. One reason is that sex is such a powerful energy. Likewise, sex is about relationships - not mere fun or physical release - with another and self.
Our view and use of sexuality is a look into our character wholly. No one who takes spirituality seriously can avoid taking a serious look at proper exercise of sexuality.
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Susan Howatch reminds us sexuality is about alignment with self and Spirit. Alignment with self concerns honoring your body as a sacred vessel of the Spirit. Alignment with Divinity addresses the fact that you do not belong to yourself to do as you wish. God represents the Wise Governance of all our energies, so that we act nonharming toward others and ourselves.
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I have spent most of my life celibate, and have been considering taking a vow of celibacy for many months. Also, I was a virgin when I got married at age 22, when being a virgin was looked upon as weak and out-of-date: even wierd. I am not less the person for honoring my body and refusing to objectify other persons to satisfy natural instincts. Rather, dignity is in knowing how, and having the courage to, align oneself with higher Principles of love, kindness, and grace. Dignity is not doing just what feels good, it is about about choosing to delay something good for the right reasons and until the right time.
© OneLife Ministries. Feb 15, 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.
*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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