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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 hope 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 please 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.
Spiritual Teaching
Asleep, I rested in myself apart until
I rolled onto my other side, My Love,
and my head rested upon your right arm
cusped under your shoulder, I awoke from a deep sleep
and your eyes shown with the Light of Heaven.
No wonder sleep now flees me,
for I have awakened to only this one thing -
Love.
This is another way of saying, My Love,
I am now awake only to You -
All else is the shadow of this
One glowing Sun.
Someone said,
“Brian, here is a drink
of the best of the grape juice”
I laughed, saying, “Well, okay,
but not for me, for the silent fermentation has
resurrected me out of my own mind."
When like this, under this red influence,
I often can say only this:
“Wow! How beautiful You are!"
A holy scripture burned
in a Fire - first I wept,
until You said, "Nothing, now,
between you and Me, tonight."
*Brian Kenneth Wilcox 090409
* * *
There's the story of the disciple who went to the master and said, "Could you give me a word of wisdom? Could you tell me something that would guide me through my days?" It was the master's day of silence, so he picked up a pad. It said, "Awareness."
When the disciple saw it, he said, "This is too brief. Can you expand on it a bit?" So the master took back the pad and wrote, "Awareness, awareness, awareness." The disciple said, "Yes, but what does it mean?" The master took back the pad and wrote, "Awareness, awareness, awareness means - awareness."
*Anthony de Mello, S. J.
* * *
When a teenager I was returning home late one night. I fell asleep. I awoke to find myself driving on the wrong side of the highway. Fortunately, this was a little traveled rural highway. I veered back onto my side of the pavement. Immediately, a car passed in the lane I had driven into while asleep.
* * *
To speak of being awake, or aware, may sound mundane, not spiritual. However, being awake is a sacred experience. This is the experience of the Sacred in the moment, the now - and this is Eternity.
Buddhists often call this wakefulness mindfulness. We Christians speak of the Practice of the Presence of God.
Practicing the Presence of God is not going around with some vivid focus on God. Rather, the Presence of the Sacred becomes more like the background of our lives, or like a consciousness pervading us and our surroundings.
Trying to live this would throw you out of it. We grow into this experience by dedication to daily spiritual practice - especially practices that train the mind to be awake to Spirit. So, I speak especially of meditation practice. No practice has been found to be so effective in heightening awareness as meditation.
* * *
Awareness, as spiritual practice, is not simply being alert in a physical sense. Many persons are alert and spiritually asleep. A jack ass can be alert, but that does not make the jack ass enlightened; a person can alertly commit a felony, but that does not mean he was being spiritual when he alertly committed the crime.
Awareness spiritually is an openness and spontaneous intuition of the Sacredness of life. Our ordinary awareness, which may, if at all, experience very brief moments of wakefulness, is transformed slowly into spiritual-subtle consciousness. This is like moving from getting a brief glimpse of Light once in a while, with it quickly passing, to living under a constant shower of the Light. Most persons live most of their lives asleep, and some go to sleep and never wake up, never experience the Light or a moment touched by awareness of Sacredness.
* * *
When we begin on the path toward this awareness, we have been asleep so long that waking up seems unnatural. We resist it, for it seems easier to keep snoozing. Gradually, however, it becomes easier to be awake and more difficult to be asleep. Finally, we might forget what it was like to have been asleep all the time, and we may grieve some that we spent so many years sleeping.
We are led by Grace toward a state in which being wakeful is as natural to us as being asleep was once. Being awake, then, we understand as a deeply spiritual experience, a raising of our awareness to an effortless knowing of the Presence of Love, in moments of bliss or grief.
Responding
Sit in silence. Do not think about anything. Simply note the arising and falling of all phenomena - feelings, thoughts, sounds, ... This is the dance of Spirit. Being awake to what is, this is being awake to God, the Sacred, the Life Force, your True Self, the Universe, to Life, the Christ, Love.
* * *
*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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