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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 - OneLife Ministries – A Contemplative Interspiritual Fellowship.
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A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt to be dangerous.
*Alfred Adler (d. 1937). Founder of school of individual psychology.
When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.
*Anais Nïn (d. 1977). French author.
If what you believe is not leading you to be a more joyful, loving, peaceful human being, more in touch with the humanness and sufferings of others, you need to question what you believe. All such so-called truth and spirituality that does not lead one to immerse herself in the common condition of other creations is not worth devotion in an age that calls, as much as ever, for heroic lives of compassion. The closer I get to God, the more I see I am truly one like all others.
*Brian Kenneth Wilcox.
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My dear friends,
many false teachers
have gone out into the world.
Try the spirits, to discern what is
and is not of God.
*I John 4.1
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A man and his wife went to visit friends in another part of the country and were taken to a racecourse. Fascinated by the sight of horses chasing one another around a track, the two of them kept betting all evening till they had no more than two dollars left.
The following day the man prevailed upon his wife to let him go to the course alone. There was a horse with a fifty-to-one odds on it in the first race. He bet on the horse and it won. He put all the money he won on another long shot in the next race and again he won. He kept doing this all evening and his entire earnings came to fifty-seven thousand dollars.
On the way back home he passed by a gambling den. An inner voice, the same that seemed to have guided him in his choice of horses, said, "Stop here and go in." So he stopped, went in, and found himself standing in front of a roulette wheel. The voice said, "Number thirteen." The man put the entire fifty-seven thousand on number thirteen. The wheel spun, and the croupier announced, "Number fourteen."
So the man walked back home with nothing in his pocket. His wife called out to him from the porch, "How did it go?"
The husband shrugged his shoulders. "I lost the two dollars," he said.
*Anthony de Mello. Heart of the Enlightened.
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In our scripture for today, we read of discernment of spirits. We do not have to limit this to unseen spirits. We need discernment in all the outer voices, also. Especially, now with technology, many words of advice and apparently spiritual wisdom come at us. And many voices claim to have the only truth; and many of these hide behind words like “truth,” “God,” “orthodox,” …
Now, as much as ever, we need to be discerning. And not only as to truth from falsehood, but what is for us and not for us. Something for someone, may not be for you.
Choose wisely. Do not follow just any spiritual-sounding “voice.” Do not fear to learn from new sources and new ways. But neither be so open you swallow anything that first sounds good. You may grab what shines, and find it is just the light reflecting off a piece of stinking dung. Seek the light.
©Brian Wilcox, and OneLife Ministries. 03/20/2010.
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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 is a member of United Communities of Spirit: A Global Interfaith Initiative, for advancing the cause of understanding and peace among persons of different faiths and beliefs. OneLife Ministries seek to share this spirit of unity among all peoples of faith and humanity as a whole.
*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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