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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. While it focuses on Christian teaching, the writer hopes persons of other faiths find inspiration here. Indeed, "God" can be whatever image helps you trust in the Sacred, by whatever means Grace touches you. Please share this ministry with others, and I hope you return soon. There is a new offering daily.
Blessings,
Rev Dr Brian K Wilcox, MDiv, MFT, PhD
Ecumenical Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader,
Spiritual Counselor, Chaplain
LISTENING TO THE SCRIPTURES
So, I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up their hands in a holy manner, without anger and arguments.
*I Timothy 2.8 (NCV)
ORIENTATION OF PRAYER
The early Church held a tradition of praying toward the East. One reason, Eden was assumed to have been in the East. From that teaching, we can draw different connotations.
What does it mean to orient? Orientation is the process, literally, of east-ing.
In the early Church was the teaching that one could east in prayer in any direction. East-ing, or orient-ing, is more than outer geography. East-ing is a matter of inward posture, the inner landscape of the Heart.
Still, prayerful orientation is an act of the entire person. Certain postures, for example, help create certain states of Heart. Likewise, certain states of Heart help shape a sense of need to posture in specific ways.
Now, if you reflect, you will see this in your spiritual experience. Has there not been a time you sensed a need to kneel in Prayer? Has there not been a time you knelt in Prayer, to find your Heart kneeling, also?
This same process applies to standing with lifted hands, sitting with palms resting on the lap or thighs upward or downward, leaning back in a recliner, dancing in a circle, silently walking with head bowed, face uplifted, waving the arms, lying down on the back in the posture of a cross, doing the Sign of the Cross, genuflection, ...
As one example of the concord between inner and outer in orientation, I cite the following:
When prostrating, people placed their full body horizontally on the ground with their faces on it, usually with outstretched arms. One of the knees remained bent in order to facilitate rising up from the ground. Prostration is rarely associated in the Bible with prayer (e.g., 1 Kings 1:47; Mark 14:35), but it is fundamentally an expression of homage and submission before a superior (2 Sam. 14:4; 14:22; 1 Sam. 28:14). In religious contexts this is a posture of worship (cf. 2 Chron. 20:18). It intensified the conviction that God was the very source of human life, the one who could preserve it (e.g., Num. 16:45; Joshua 7:6; cf. Ps. 95:6). It did not become an indispensable aspect of worship in the Christian church probably because God no longer manifested Himself or dwelt permanently in a particular place on earth, but was accessible through His Son (cf. John 4:21-24).
*Ángel Manuel Rodríguez. "Postures for Prayer." Biblical Research Institute: biblicalresearch.gc.adventist.org .
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Orienting ourselves inwardly east means we look with hope to the restoration of all things in God. No, likely there was no literal Garden of Eden. Yet, there is a real Garden of Eden. This Eden (lit., Delight) we can enjoy now, share now, and anticipate in Fullness. When we orient in Prayer, we hold hope and affirm faith that we can join in sharing the Delight of God with others, with God.
When we lose the Delight, we re-orient, and we wait to enter the Garden again. A sign of losing the delight is the "anger and arguments" St. Paul refers to in I Timothy 2.8. When we hear so much of fussy churches, how can we affirm those are placed of Eden, or proper orientation in Prayer? Yet, how often have we met that person of Peace, who is, also, a person of true Prayer? True Prayer is an affront to despair and argumentativenss, as well as to prejudice and criticalness.
The person who truly prays is a person anchored in living Hope. This is so wherever he or she prays, in whatever posture, of whatever tradition.
True Prayer knows no bounds, no tradition, but is at home in any tradition, when the Heart turns toward Life. The Abba - Father - Jesus refers to can no more be contained in any faith than the Ocean can be contained in a thimble.
QUIETLY RESPONDING
Spend time experimenting with different postures in Prayer. Note how each postures the Heart.
Blessings!
Rev Dr Brian K Wilcox
May 7, 2009
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*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian K. Wilcox, of SW Florida. Brian lives a vowed life and with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis. Brian is an ecumenical spiritual leader, open to how Christ manifests in the diversity of Christian denominations and varied religious-spiritual traditions. He is 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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