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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.
Brian encourages support of the 4-Star Christian organization Compassion, which supports children worldwide; see www.compassion.com .
Scripture
26Then, the Eternal One [Elohim] spoke, “Let us make human beings [adam, plural] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have rule over the fish of the ocean, the fowl of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and every creeping creature moving on the earth [or, ground].”
*Genesis 1.26, Author's Translation
Note: The Hebrew appears to treat the Imago Dei, or Image of God, not as an individual matter. Such as, you and I each are in the Image. Rather, adam is plural; the Image is a collective Reality; even though we each are It, we are It as part of the entire collective of human persons. Thus, we are not It alone. Likewise, some scholars have contended the Image is a Reality pertaining to responsibility; that is, the Image is pertaining to care of the other creatures, not a Reality separate from that caretaking stewardship.
Spiritual Teaching
Lao Tzu and his disciples came to a forest where hundreds of woodcutters were cutting on felled trees. The forest had been cut down except for one big tree with thousands of branches. It was so big that ten thousand persons could sit in its shade.
Lao Tzu asked his disciples to inquire why the tree had not been cut down. They asked a woodcutter. He replied, "This tree is absolutely useless. You cannot make anything out of it, because every branch has so many knots. You cannot use it as fuel, for the smoke of this kind of tree is dangerous to the eyes. The tree is absolutely useless, that's why we haven't cut it."
The disciples told Lao Tzu. He laughed and said, "Be like this tree. If you are useful, you will be cut, and you will become furniture in a house. If you are beautiful, you will be sold at market, you will become a commodity. Be like this tree, absolutely useless, and you will grow to be a wonderful shade for people."
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Taoism reminds us of wisdom that sees importance in simplicity of being. Christian mystics, or contemplatives, speak of the same thing as the True Self. Buddhists refer to our Original Face.
Like the Taoist parable, the True Self is a paradoxical Truth. When living from the True Self, our shared Self before being shaped by creative existence in the dualities of time and space, we experience the truthfulness between extremes. This confounds the dualistic mind of human persons, persons who tend to extremes in thought.
Within the paradoxes of the True Self, the Tao [lit., the Way], we find that place of authenticity that, ironically, allows us to be useful by being useless. Jesus models this in the Gospels: being supremely impractical, he was supremely practical. Of course, this pertains to how we difine “practical.”
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Like in the Taoist story, we are who we are, not because we are advantageous to society, any group, or any person. Even when we are asleep, we have as much worth as in the midst of our daily work. Before we awaken, we are as precious as at the end of the day, when we can point out our usefulness of the day.
The True Self is inherently the Image of the Divine. That Image does not have to be useful or used to be wholly what it is: Wholeness.
Likewise, that Image is not individualistic, but communal. The Image is in communion, is communion-ing; therefore, there is no True Self that is separate. The Self – what Hindu mystics call the Atman -, again paradoxically, is shaped in each person and, yet, is the True Self of everyone else. Each Self is the personal, particular expression of everyone, of God. The Image of the Divine, ironically, parceled among so many persons, still loses nothing of the Wholeness that the Image is.
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Thus, the Christian conception of the person is communal; he or she is freed from existential loneliness that is rampant among peoples living cut off from inherent Good and in subjection to the tyranny of usefulness. That is, to say a person is cut off from God is to say he or she is cut off, as well, from the Image of the Divine, from the Self, from others as the Self. Yes, the person - better, individual -may be existing alongside other persons, but cannot enjoy communion. For communion can only occur when two persons meet each other on the level of the shared True Self, even if they are unaware of the Source of the union.
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In communion, then, we experience a mystery. By relating to others and ourselves detached from societal norms of practicality and usefulness, from the deep resources of Holy Communion the will of God arises and we are most useful to others and ourselves. My words cannot explain this: nothing at the level of True Self is explainable.
Responding
1. What does it mean that the True Self is the same Self as all other persons?
2. How can you be most useful by not aiming to be useful? How does this relate to the contemplative life? Contemplative prayer? Faith? Grace? Divine Providence?
3. What does it mean to say that we too easily allow ourselves to become commodities for other persons?
4. Is the stress on self-esteem related to the teaching of the True Self? If so, how? If not, why not?
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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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