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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, and Chaplain.
Brian encourages support of the 4-Star Christian organization Compassion, which supports children worldwide; for more see www.compassion.com .
Opening Affirmation
Go into a brief time of silence, affirming the following: feel the truth of the affirmation:
Joy fills every cell of my body.
Opening Prayer
Grant me grace, Best Friend, in the midst of unrest and malice, to be a person of peace - strong but gentle, loving but just, yielding when such is right, unyielding when such is right. In all things, grace me to act wisely, and to you I belong, and to you only. In Jesus Christ's Name. Amen.
Sacred Scriptures
57 So the people were upset with Jesus. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is honored everywhere except in his hometown and in his own home." 58 So he did not do many miracles there because they had no faith.
*St. Matthew 13.57-58 (NCV)
Sacred Teaching
After St. Francis of Assisi adopted a life of poverty, his appearance palled the citizens of his hometown. He dressed in rags, and he begged for his meals. Francis was a cause of shame to his well-to-do family.
His father was furious over money Francis had gotten secretly from the family "bank" to repair a church. And the father was upset about his son's odd, "disreputable" behavior. So, the father took Francis home, shackled his feet, and locked him up, until his mother freed her son. The young man quickly returned to the church to begin repairs of the church.
The father, enraged, brought public charges against his son. He insisted Francis return the money or renounce his patrimony and return home.
April 10, 1206, the bishop had summoned Francis to account for his behaviors. Francis stood before a crowd in the square of his hometown, not far from his family's home.
The bishop told Francis to return the money and trust God. The latter did what he was told. Francis spoke that the clothes he wore was his father's, and he would give these back. Francis stripped himself of his clothes. He laid them at his father's feet. He stood naked in the square.
James Martin, in My Life with the Saints, continues the story, with interpretation:
The gesture would be just as shocking today. The bishop wept, stunned by the force of Francis's actions, and wrapped the young man in his cope. The symbolism was thus complete: Francis had stripped himself of his allegiance to his father (and, incidentally, to his father's business as a cloth merchant) and was wrapped in the protection of the church. He had thrown himself entirely on God's providence. He had abandoned the pride of his youth. He had embraced a life of radical poverty, in imitation of Christ. "Sister Poverty," would be "the fairest bride in the whole world, in imitation of Christ." And he had engaged in what would have been seen at the time as an act of public penance.
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Few persons are called to renounce all things materially to follow Christ. Yet, the Christ Path expects of us complete renunciation of our selves to the good of our brothers and sisters, indeed, all creatures, in this world.
This does not mean we do no take care of ourselves, as though we are not important as individual persons. We do cherish and nourish ourselves, so we can better give loving support and graceful presence to the world.
This means we may be led to engage in - what seems to others - odd behaviors, or to make apparently illogical commitments. Yet, if we are aligned with Spirit, as Francis was, then, we open ourselves to the Voice of Spirit to guide according to a wisdom of love, one that does not fit neat categories of morality, religion, spirituality, and fitting in.
* * *
Francis did not overnight, so to speak, gain the vision and fortitude to renounce his father's wealth and home. He was graced to follow Christ. The many ways, over time, he grew from that prideful, pampered, and selfish young boy to the spiritual man he became, we cannot know.
Likewise, decisions and actions that seem impossible for us, now, may not be so another day. In this moment we do not know the service Spirit is preparing for us to give in another day. We can only trust daily, seek to be faithful daily, and wait to see later what possibilities are now being conceived in us, to be born in compassion for others later.
Quietly Responding
1) Share a time when you did something you know you were graced to do, something you could not have done in your own strength or within your own ability.
2) In what way, or ways, are you serving that you realize Spirit took a long time to prepare you for? Share ways you sense Spirit prepared you.
3) Have you ever felt God led you to make a commitment you felt unready for, and you followed the Divine Leading? Explain.
Blessings! In Love! And Peace to All!
Brian Kenneth Wilcox
July 10, 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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