|
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
Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader, Spiritual Counselor, Chaplain
OPENING PRAYER
You are the peace of all things calm
You are the place to hide from harm
You are the light that shines in dark
You are the heart's eternal spark
You are the door that's open wide
You are the guest who waits inside
You are the stranger at the door
You are the calling of the poor
You are my Lord and with me still
You are my love, keep me from ill
You are the light, the truth, the way
You are my Saviour this very day.
*Celtic Prayer (c. 1st Century)
LISTENING TO THE SCRIPTURES
1 Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me. 2 In my Father's house there are many places to live in; otherwise I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you, 3 and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you to myself, so that you may be with me where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going. 5 Thomas said, 'Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?' 6 Jesus said: I am the Way; I am Truth and Life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
*St. John 14.1-6 (NJB)
RECEIVING SACRED TEACHING
When I feel alone
I reach for you
And you bring me home
When I'm lost at sea
I hear your voice
And it carries me
*Sung by Brenda Carlisle. "Heaven is a Place on Earth."
Our scripture for today speaks of radical, inclusive hospitality - sacred with-ing. This hospitality is the Heart of God.
In all our reaching, we reach for God, even as we are thinking we can find Home here - in another person, in a job, somewhere other than where we are, now. Sin is sin, for sin is the misguided search for God, Who is Love.
One voice will carry us: the Voice. The Word-Speaker of the Word. The Abba of the Living Temple. The Blower of the Breath.
* * *
Early Christians associated with a community around the tradition of the disciple John experienced this hospitality. They knew Jesus with-ing with them and calling them to keep with-ing with Him.
The Sacred invites, God withs. The Sacred prepares a Love Feast for us each, for all. We can relax and imbibe of spiritual consolations and strength, now.
How did the early Christians know this? They experienced the Life in Jesus that returned to be with them more powerfully than before. This occurred after the Resurrection.
The Jesus in John encourages His Followers, reminding them of a Home they are to live in with Him. This is to help sustain them in days ahead, while he walks to the cross and beyond. This hope is to sustain us also, for we are with Christ and of His Body. We are one with all in the communion of saints.
* * *
Jesus in John says, "[T]hat you may be with me where I am." This is the Heart of God - to be with. God is relational. From God springs longing for oneness with God and all creation. God is the Longing.
The Closeness is not material, temporal, or spatial, though we are invited through and in the world to this Intimacy - this with-ing.
Seeking to find this Home among created things, apart from the Divine Fount of Meaning, brings us much suffering. Look around you. Look at how society has advanced in many ways, while our neuroses have multiplied and our relationships are relegated to the background. Loneliness haunts a myriad, even when among the masses. Look at our families, torn with strife. Look at our society, clamouring after the lie that true life is found in being a consumer, only to find we are being consumed with an inner alienation, not only from God, but others and ourselves. And look at religion, as it often is soulless entertainment, and cold dogma, no longer leading us to the Tree of Life to eat and be content in Grace.
How shall we find this Home - or rather, Christ claim us? Only in Love, not in the passing loves of this world. In Love that is godly, in that Grace not subject to changes of this world, a Love, for being Love, can fill the earthly sky with an infinity of hues of Divine Resplendence.
* * *
Since Jesus speaks of a spiritual Home, we do not have to wait to a future time to live in the Home. We are in that Home, when we choose to be there.
How do we enjoy that Home? Jesus says, "I am the Way...". He embodies, he says, the Reality of God. He embodies the Home.
Does this mean only Jesus embodied Such? No. The Followers did. We can. I am not saying we are the Way in the manner of Jesus. I am saying Jesus spoke from the Spirit-within Him, and the Spirit is present to you and me. Jesus spoke out of Unity, where we are all One-in-God.
Late have I loved you, O Beauty, ever ancient yet ever new, late have I loved you! You were inside me all the time as I was running around outside looking for you.
*Donald X. Burt. Day by Day with Saint Augustine. "The Search for God."
See, there you find the Divine Love - Home. The Home is God, nothing else. Every home you find elsewhere passes. Every love will finally disappoint, except that Love found in Love, not as an acquisition, but as a gift.
* * *
We see there is no division in Love. We see this Home has no other, for in this Home we are each all. God is the Ground of our Unity. And to give Love to one, is to give Love to God, and to give Love to the giver of Love, and to give Love to all, truly. St. Augustine says to us:
How should we prepare ourselves for loving God? By loving each other! You may say to me, "I have not seen God." Can you say to me, "I have not seen other human beings?" Love each other! If you love the human whom you see, you will love God too for you will experience love itself, the love that is the God who dwells within us each.
*Burt. "Loving the Hidden God."
So, do not wait for this Home Jesus speaks of to you. Do not be Home-less. Enter Home today, everyday, each moment.
Where you Love, you are Home. If you do not find Home now, in the Radical Inclusiveness of God, by your knowing the amazing Grace of Life, and sharing sacred with-ing with other creatures, how do you expect to find Home later?
* * *
Religion cannot give Home to you, or creeds, or rites, or teachers, or gurus, or sages, .... No, Home is received in receiving of Love. Receiving Love, we see such is one gift with giving Love. And as Jesus shows us, giving of this Love - this Home - is giving ourselves from, in, and for each other.
We find God in giving ourselves to any other, for we cannot give anything truly without giving ourselves. And this applies to the giving of ourselves to any creature, however disdained by others. Home is God's radical, inclusive hospitality.
QUIETLY RESPONDING
1) When do you feel most at Home? Share with someone else your response, and ask them to share with you the same.
2) Are there particular situations in which you feel most at Home? Explain.
3) Are there particular situations in which you feel cut off from Home? What might happen to separate you from Home?
4) Did Jesus invite us to enter Heaven now, or is Heaven only a future place or spiritual reality?
5) Does having Home now exclude hope for a future existence with God beyond this life? Explain your answer.
Blessings!
Rev Dr Brian K Wilcox
May 8, 2009
* * *
*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
|
