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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 Chaplain, Teacher, Author
You are invited to join Brian at his fellowship group on Facebook. The group is OneLife Ministries – A Contemplative Interspiritual Fellowship.
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I find it odd that the most frequent, by far, question I have been asked by other professing Christians is, "What church do you belong to?" A better question is, "To Whom do you belong to?" My response, "Christ and the world."
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"Prisoner at the bar," said the Grand Inquisitor, "you are charged with encouraging people to break the laws, traditions, and customs of our holy religion. How do you plead?"
"Guilty, Your Honor."
"And with frequenting the company of heretics, prostitutes, public sinners, the extortionist tax-collectors, the colonial conquerors of our nation-in short, the excommunicated. How do you plead?"
"Guilty, Your Honor."
"Also with publicly criticizing and denouncing those who have been placed in authority within the Church of God. How do you plead?"
"Guilty, Your Honor."
"Finally, you are charged with revising, correcting, calling into question the sacred tenets of our faith. How do you plead?"
"Guilty, Your Honor."
"What is your name, prisoner?"
"Jesus Christ, Your Honor."
Some people are just as alarmed to see their religion practiced
as they are to hear it doubted.
*Anthony de Mello. Taking Flight.
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Love is not simply a nice word, about a feeling good toward all persons. Love may lead us to stand against some persons and, consequently, for other persons. Love may lead us to a holy unfaithfulness, when we move against the prejudices of those aligned with us in faith, spirituality, or politics.
Love is not about tolerance. Love transcends tolerance. Tolerance can too easily lead us to allow what is not Loving.
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I met with a man of another faith tradition this week. Many, indeed most in my faith path, would call him as belonging to a cult. He is a Muslim. I related with him as my brother; I felt the Love move between us. I related to him as equal with me. In that, many of my so-called spiritual brothers and sisters would call me wrong. I do not care. He is as much, or more, my kin as those who would judge him doomed to hell, or at least wrong. God is not a Christian, God is not a Muslim... God is not divided, even if we are.
Religion will never unify us. John Lennon was at least partly right: “Imagine there's no religion.” This is not because religion is wrong. Rather, we use religion to deny Love, and thus to deny our brother and sister unlike us. Then, we claim God told us to. We may even quote old scriptures from persons caught in the same fearful prejudices we are bound to. Of course, under all this is a feeling of haughty self-righteous.
Love alone will free us. Religion serves Love, or it is an idol erected in its own name against Love.
No, I do not agree with persons who say we do not need religion. Religion is an earthy means to unify us, not only within a particular faith but across boundaries to other faiths and no faith. Religion provides practices and community to unify us inside more, so we can unify more outwardly. By uniting the unlike elements in ourselves, we are prepared to do the same outwardly.
Persons over the years have been amazed at how well my dogs respond to me. Why? Simple. I have a gift at unifying the distance between them and me. This is a sacrament of empathy. There is an apparent-distance bridging that is Love. Love does that. We could even say Love is the act of connecting over that apparent-distance, or the rite of dissolving that apparent-distance. So, Love is most seen to be Love when we connect with one that seems most dissimilar to us.
That is what Jesus did, for he saw with Love, not politics, religion, or culture. Rather, all the elements outside and inside him were subject to the principle and process of Grace, which is Love in action.
©Brian Wilcox, and OneLife Ministries. 03/03/2010
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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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