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Lenten Devotionals 2009
Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you prayerfully into a heart experience of the Presence of God, Who is Love. While it focuses on Christian teaching, the writer hopes persons of other faiths will find inspiration here, also. Please share this ministry with others, and I hope you return soon. There is a new offering daily.
Blessings,
Rev Dr Brian K Wilcox
Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader,
Spiritual Counselor, Chaplain
PRAYERFUL ENTERING
Let the following sentences be preparation for entering into the Inner Sanctuary of the Heart of Hearts...
Divine Love, you are here with me
You are coming from outside me
You are arising from within me
Your Spirit and my spirit are becoming one.
You are meeting me
in many ways
in many places
through many persons.
You are
changing me, more and more,
into the Likeness of YourSelf.
I am here
I am receptive.
I invite you fully into my self
my body
my heart
my mind
my soul.
*Brian K. Wilcox.
LISTENING TO THE SCRIPTURES
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
*Revelation 22.13 (NLT)
RECEIVING SACRED TEACHING
For the Christ to pronounce, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End," is to pronounce, "I am Everything." Or, "I encompass All, There is nothing in time outside of My Self outside time - Who births time and all in time."
Bede Griffiths is one of my favorite authors in the Christian faith. He lived in the 20th Century and for much of his life in India, as a Benedictine Monk.
Theologians have noted three aspects in Griffiths' christology:
1) The Historical Jesus
2) The Psychological-Mystical
3) The Cosmic
*Bruno Barnhardt. The One Light.
One might say, what does this have to do with "me"? Well, if you are a Christ follower: everything.
1) The Historical Jesus ... Christianity is based on the real existence of the man, the Word (Logos) become flesh. Any faith that denies the fleshly incarnation of the eternal Word is not historic Christian faith - is not Christian faith.
2) The Psychological-Mystical ... Here begins the Inner Life in Christian faith. And this allows persons of the external form of Christian confession to see and experience Christ in other faiths, too. Christ is much more than a man who lived about thirty years. Christ can, under varied means, manifest to persons. The extent of that is not known to us. Assuming Christ is infinite, being the God-Fullness, we can surmise there is no limit to the ways of Christ revealing to persons.
3) The Cosmic ... We discover in Christ-mysticism, not only the Inward Life of Christ, but the Universal Life of Christ. That is, as the New Testament teaches, Christ fills all things.
What we find in Christ, then, is not a linear teaching. To speak Christ is not to say, "This is Christ...," but "This is Christ and this also ...".
In Christ we find a paradoxical Reality presenting tensions at every turn. In Christ, we find consistent tensions: spirit and matter, past and future, masculine and feminine, duality and nonduality, confrontation and integration. In Christ is brought the God-Fullness into human thought and experience. (Barnhardt)
This entails necessity of tensions inhering in bringing of Transcendence into Immanence. The Harmony in the Word contains all the potentials of creative, Christic tension. The intent of the Spiritual Life is to enter and live among the tensions.
At different times we may sense one "side" of Christ and later another "side." We can have amazement at feeling close to the Jesus who walked and talked, was born and lived and died, and breathed, ate, and slept. At another time we can receive the sense of Christ as the Inward Presence, and this can occur by dreams, visions, locutions, and intuitive sense of Being - of Inwardness -, ... We can move from one of these first ways to the experience of Christ, Who fills all, inward and outward.
Yet, only at the level of mind are the tensions experienced as opposites. Now, the mind can say, "The Christ aspects are a Harmony." But at the level of mind no one, regardless of how intelligent, can experience the Harmony of all in Christ as One, and as Christ. Only beyond mind does this occur. Therefore, the person who says no to mysticism, says no to experiencing the Christic Harmony - and regardless of his or claims otherwise.
As we move through Lent, we are journeying with Christ. We need to see as important a welcoming of the Whole Christ, and we need not be fearful of any way Christ appears. We ought not be surprised if Christ, indeed, challenges or shatters preconceptions we have of Who Christ is.
Yet, to know Christ in any way does not diminish Christ in any way. To know Christ more fully, for example, as Jesus, we can know Christ more fully as Mystical Person and Cosmic Person.
In closing, let us think of a deeply loving relationship. Two persons are deeply in Love. Would not each one want the other to know him or her as fully as possible? Would not each one want to know the other as fully as possible? Would not each one be disappointed if the other said, "I only want to know what I know about you, nothing more." Are we, then, not loving Christ by saying, "Christ, I want to know all of you. Prepare me to know more and more about you. I want you to expand my knowing of you, even though it might mean losing something I believe about you are seeing that what I think is only a small part of the truth about you?"
QUIETLY RESPONDING
1) What are the Christ aspects you experience? Which of the above three modes do you experience most often?
2) Go into the inner Silence. Offer Prayer, inviting the Spirit to teach you more about Who Christ is.
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*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian K. Wilcox, of SW Florida. Brian is pastor at Christ Community United Methodist Church, Harbour Heights, FL, and Senior Chaplain for the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office, Punta Gorda, FL.
*Brian welcomes responses to his writings or submission of prayer requests at barukhattah@embarqmail.com .
*Contact the above email to book Brian for Spiritual Direction, retreats, or workshops. You can order his book An Ache for Union at major book dealers.
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