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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; see www.compassion.com .
Opening Affirmation
Go into a brief time of silence, affirming the following: feel the truth of the affirmation:
I Am always in Love.
Opening Prayer
I get tired of words. Help me find You behind all the words about You. I Love you just that much, and you Love me more. Amen.
Sacred Scriptures
6I can't understand all of this!
Such wonderful knowledge
is far above me.
7Where could I go to escape
from your Spirit
or from your sight?
8If I were to climb up
to the highest heavens,
you would be there.
If I were to dig down
to the world of the dead
you would also be there.
9Suppose I had wings
like the dawning day
and flew across the ocean.
10Even then your powerful arm
would guide and protect me.
11Or suppose I said, "I'll hide
in the dark
until night comes
to cover me over."
12But you see in the dark
because daylight and dark
are all the same to you.
*Psalm 139.6-12 (CEV)
Sacred Teaching
There is a Place
where the wind blows
where the wind does not blow
where these are the same
and not the same -
this is Love; I
will go There.
Take me
where You dwell,
eternally.
*Brian K. Wilcox, "I Will Go There."
* * *
In the breaking-through, when I come to be free of will of myself and of God's will and of all his works and of God himself, then I am above all created things, and I am neither God nor creature, but I am what I was and what I shall remain, now and eternally.
*Meister Eckhart. Essential Sermons. Trans., Colledge and McGinn.
* * *
God and the soul are uncreate Realities. Each is one before the soul takes entrance into this world through the birth of water - the conception, the first birth.
Eckhart taught of the Godhead, or God before all conceptions of God, even the "holiest" ideas - even the idea of the Trinity - for while the Trinity speaks of a mystery, the teaching is itself only a faithful hint and human distortion of the Godhead. The greater freedom in God is to be freed by the Ground of the conception of God from the will of God, which is from the will of the human ideas of Uncreate Reality.
Likewise, there is a you both pure and untouched by all in this world. This you is eternally one with God, and coming out of God into this world.
So, Eckhart speaks of "breaking-through." Wayne Simsic, in Praying with Meister Eckhart, speaks of this event as follows, explaining Eckhart:
Whereas the birth of the Word in the soul begins the journey of the soul back to its deepest reality, breakthrough is the second and final stage of the journey leading to union [with the Godhead]. The detached soul is the locus in which both the birth of the Word and the breakthrough into the Godhead take place.
Quietly Responding
Here is an exercise for practicing opening to the Ground of Being, the Godhead:
♦Place yourself in the presence of Mystery
♦Affirm within that God fully embraces you and loves you
♦Recall a name you prefer to use when praying to God
♦Repeat the name slowly, silently, letting itself form itself in the heart
♦Be aware of all people and creation gathering within you through the power of this name
♦Let go of the name, while staying silently in the presence of Mystery
♦Stay in the fertile field of silence beyond all names, attending only to your breathing
*Adapted from Simsic. Praying with Meister Eckhart.
Blessings! In Love! And Peace to All!
Brian Kenneth Wilcox
July 12, 2009
barukhattah@embarqmail.com
* * *
*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 from major booksellers.
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