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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, I pray persons of varied faiths will find inspiration here. Indeed, "God" can be whatever image helps us trust in the Sacred, by whatever means Grace touches us each. Please share this ministry with others, and I hope you return soon. There is a new offering daily. And to be placed on the daily OneLife email list, to request notifications of new writings or submit prayer requests, write to barukhattah@embarqmail.com .
Blessings,
Rev Dr Brian K Wilcox, MDiv, MFT, PhD
Interspiritual Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader, Spiritual Counselor, Chaplain
Brian encourages support of the 4-Star Christian organization Compassion, which supports children worldwide; for more see www.compassion.com .
Opening Meditation
I cooperate in loving, thoughtful ways with the divine energy that is bringing about wonder in my own life and the lives of those in my world.
*Daily Word. "Expect Good." June 29, 2009.
Sacred Scripture
Who can measure the wealth and wisdom and knowledge of God? Who can understand his decisions or explain what he does?
*Romans 11.33 (CEV)
Sacred Teaching
An interesting story - likely legend - is told of St. Augustine. He is trying to make sense of the Trinity. One day, exhausted with his long inquiry into this mystery, he decides to take a walk on the beach to clear his mind.
Along the way, St. Augustine comes across a little boy pouring water into a hole in the sand. He cups seawater in his hands, to empty the water in the hole. St. Augustine observes this little lad running back and forth from shoreline to hole in the sand, over and over.
After a while, St. Augustine asks the boy what he is doing. "I'm trying to fill this hole with the ocean," replied the boy.
"But, that's impossible," speaks St. Augustine. "You'll never fit the ocean in that little hole!"
"Nor will you be able to fit the mystery of the Trinity in your mind," replies the boy.
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I have found a value of engaging reason in pursuit of Truth, not so much that it gives the answers I seek, but greater gifts. First, I discover the point at which I can joyfully embrace in certainty what my mind cannot understand. Also, I embrace the humility that recognizes with awe the immensity of God. Therefore, in my unknowing, my ignorance, I know God more than in my knowing.
The central tenets of Christian faith were taught from early times to be mysteries. There is no Christian faith without faith in teachings and ways that defy the logic of the human mind at its present stage of emergence.
Certainly, not every matter mysterious in Scripture has to be taken literally. However, even within much Christian study today, there is a bias toward discounting the miraculous as merely symbolic - later artistic tales of the early Church.
The assumption against mystery is not an adequate basis for the denial of it. Coming to conclusions about mysteries based on a modernistic, scientific, and materialistic bias against the miraculous is itself illogical.
This does not mean the mysteries are illogical, or unreasonable, only that we, presently, do not understand them. Indeed, that which seems to break the laws of Nature may only do so in the sense of not agreeing with what we presently know about Nature. Possibly, some day, many of the mysteries will make perfect sense to human reason.
Quietly Responding
1) Is faith and reason contrary to each other? If so, explain how. If not, what is their relationship regarding the sacred mysteries of Life?
2) Are you able to embrace the mysteries of Life that your mind cannot grasp? Explain.
Blessings! In Christ!
Rev Dr Brian K Wilcox
June 30, 2009
barukhattah@embarqmail.com
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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-interspiritual 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 . Also, Brian is on Facebook: search Brian Kenneth Wilcox.
*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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