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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 briankwilcox@yahoo.com .
Blessings,
Brian Kenneth 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 Prayer
Save me from entrapment in the things of this age, that I might focus on relationships with others and you. Teach me the graciousness of silence, that my words may mean more when I speak. Give me calm amidst disturbance, and clarity amidst confusion. Grant that my presence may be a witness to others of the Peace that arises from dying to all but you and, thus, finding all in you. Amen.
Today's Scripture
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he or she has cannot
be my disciple.
*Luke 14.33 (ESV) Inclusive Adaptation
Spiritual Teaching
St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), the eminent Spanish Carmelite mystic who was close friends with St. Teresa of Avila, sees the spiritual Journey as one to the summit of Mt. Carmel. Geographically, Mt. Carmel is a luxuriant mountain in a largely barren land. And on the spiritual Carmel of contemplation, one ceases reasoning and reflecting on even the written Gospel or other spiritual texts. One experiences the fruitfullness of Divinity within a land of spiritual dearth.
St. John tells us to “desire to enter for Christ into complete nudity, emptiness and poverty in everything in the world” (The Ascent of Mt. Carmel, trans. K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez). This is the Way of Nothingness, the todo y nada. This Way of darkness, nakedness, emptiness, the Way of Nothingness, is based on interpretation of the Gospel:
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he or she has cannot
be my disciple.
*Luke 14.33, ESV, Inclusive Adaptation
* * *
Contemplation entails what the New Testament calls metanoia, “a returning, a repenting.” This turning is reconciliation with the Basic Ground, which is without addition. Everything, I mean everything, you identify as you is renounced in contemplation. Therefore, you cease to exist, you have died in Christ and for Christ.
In contemplation you know, immediately, your self as an expression of the Basic Ground, but you cannot know your self as other than the Basic Ground, even as wind could not know itself as other than air. Your birth, like the birth of the Word in Nazareth, is a manifestation of Formlessness, evidencing as a nativity of form.
* * *
Therefore, to contemplate “for Christ” is to realize that, like Christ, your birth, which is the birthing of self identity, is a nativity, and within that birth is a manifestation of non-identity. Here, manifestation and nativity are different aspects. You are a particular articulation of the Word, in time, for in Eternity you are one with the Word, for the Word in its prior state is the Basic Ground from which springs every “word.” The Spirit is wording Creation into existence, and you are part of the wording.
Likewise, in contemplation you are unclothed of emotion and knowledge – though these typically do not cease existing. The metanoia is return to the Basic Ground from which every thought and word, every belief and theory, every religion and philosophy, and all feelings, including feelings of religious awe and adoration, arises.
Nada, nada, nada
Nada, nada, nada,
Aún en el monte
Nada
Nothing, nothing, nothing
Nothing, nothing, nothing,
And even on the mountain,
Nothing.
* * *
Therefore, contemplation cannot be called, strictly, prayer, though we often refer to “contemplative prayer.” For contemplation is the manifestation of prior union with the Basic Ground, while all other prayer is nativity.
Other forms of prayer are means to an objective. Contemplation is objectless. Contemplation is a return to a union in which there is no prayer, though prayer arises from the Basic Ground. Therefore, contemplation is the experience of a state outside causation. Within contemplation a person cannot cite a cause for the contemplation or a goal for the contemplation.
You could ask, “Why, then, when experiencing contemplation, do emotions and thoughts continue to arise, if contemplation is a prior simplicity before manifestation?” Because these realities arise from the Basic Ground, for the nature of the Basic Ground is to create and Suchness is always creating, in each present, and within Interbeing, what has never been before or shall be again. “Why?” For Basic Ground is prior to “what has never been” and “or shall be.” Basic Ground unfolds and enfolds, and that is manifestation: Basic Ground makes possible “ascension” and “descension.”
* * *
You might ask, “Then, in contemplation what shall I do?” If I say anythinghere, then, I would be leading you from contemplation. So, my only response is Nada, Nothing. That is right, Nothing. You will soon discover how you resist the return to the Basic Ground, largely out of guilt, based on separation from the joy of oneness with the Basic Ground and conformity to a culture resisting the Nothingness that is the summit of Mt. Carmel.
Return to Nada, Nothing, again and again. In a mysterious way, you will find in this simplicity the love, joy, and peace that most persons long for but never enjoy. Then, you will bring that love, joy, and peace into activity, and others will sense a depth to your being among them that they will seek, likewise. They will not understand what they are sensing, but they will want it, too.
Quietly Responding
Sit in silence for twenty minutes. When a thought arises, notice it, and let it go. When an emotion arises, notice it, and let it go. End the time with a prayer of gratitude. Arise slowly, after resting for a couple of minutes.
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*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian Kenneth Wilcox, SW Florida. Brian lives a vowed life and with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis, with friends and under a vow of simplicity. Brian is an ecumenical-interspiritual leader, who chooses not to identify with any group, and renounces all titles of sacredness that some would apply to him, but seeks to be open to how Christ manifests in the diversity of Christian denominations and varied religious-spiritual traditions. He affirms that all spiritual paths lead ultimately back to Jesus Christ. 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 briankwilcox@yahoo.com . Also, Brian is on Facebook: search Brian Kenneth Wilcox.
*Contact the above email to book Brian for preaching, Spiritual Direction, retreats, workshops, animal blessing services, house blessings, or other spiritual requests. You can order his book An Ache for Union from major booksellers.
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