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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.
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A distant God, however alienating, is a convenient God. How much more troublesome and demanding is the notion that God is eminent, available to us in all times and all circumstances – always ready to fuel and guide our endeavors no matter how small or large. There is no evading responsibility with a God so close, so personal, and so available. In very circumstance, at every turn, such a God may be called upon for insight, inspiration, and right action. Is it any wonder we prefer the idea of a distant God that must be cajoled and flattered?
*Julia Cameron. Some People Say … God Is No Laughing Matter. “Prayer.”
Spiritual Teaching
Some persons say, “It does not matter what you believe, as long as you are sincere.” Of course, this is not true to reality. Why? What we say otherwise proves we do believe that sincerity is not the final arbitrator of truth. We disapprove, for example, of any religious or political expression that champions racial discrimination, or violates the rights of minorities, or supports unjust war – or maybe war period.
Also, our God-image matters. Why? A religious image of God shapes what a devotee believes that God can rightfully do, say, and stand for. This shapes what the devotee believes he or she can rightfully do, say, and stand for. If God kills the “infidels,” those who see God as able to kill “infidels” can find it justified to do likewise, or support those who do on behalf of “God,” or democracy, or the nation, or the world. When we see the violence attributed to God in the Christian Bible, no wonder Christianity has proven a bloody religion, along with Islam. If “God” or “Allah” want the “pagans” killed, then, the devotees can see their doing the killing as serving “God” or “Allah.”
I picked up some material the other day. The writers affirmed that our sin makes God angry and God has to punish us. I could not relate to that. Why? My God-image has changed, and I believe that is a “God” I would not respect. If I am not to get teed off at other persons' sins, why does God get by with it? My image of God says God does not go around getting all out of joints about our mistakes. God does not punish persons. We may suffer from making certain choices, but a God that must spank the children, well, that is a childish view of a God so much bigger than that.
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Likewise, as Cameron notes, matters change when we view God as a Being close to us, as close as our breath, in contrast to a God far away above the clouds somewhere. Our Prayer and Practice of the God-Presence is enriched in intimacy in knowing the Divine is immanent, is intimate – even part of our being, and we each and all as His, or Her, Being.
God is a Being, a Universal Presence, a Love Energy, pervading all things, and this One is so intimate with us that creation is the Body of Spirit. This changes our awareness and our way of praying and living, in contrast to the distant sky “God” – which many Christians still worship.
Cameron shares the experience of a man named Thomas, a recovering alcoholic, in a move toward a more intimate discourse with the Divine Presence:
”For the first ten years of my sobriety, I prayed only for knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out [stressed in Alcoholics Anonymous],” says Thomas. “I found that, as a result, I was keeping my true goals and dreams a secret both from God and myself. Tentatively, feeling like a heretic, I began to pray for help with what I needed and wanted as well as for the knowledge of God's will for me and the power to carry it out. Immediately, I felt a heightened sense of spiritual companionship. As my prayers were answered, I began to feel security that God did, in fact, care for me.”
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Cameron speaks of diverse ways we can pray to this constant companion, who is so close to us that we are His, or Her, body, and He, or She, is our body:
Prayer is talking to God. We can talk in a whisper. We can talk in a shout. We can talk in body language. We can talk in pictures. We can talk through music. We can talk through rhyme. What matters is less how we talk than that we talk.
Of course, we can learn to meditate and enter into a deep Silence, beyond words and thinking, where we are deep at rest in the Divine. This is a most intimate experience. Persons who have not learned to enter this, do not know the heightened intimacy of contemplation.
Still, as we grow in prayer, we seek to integrate the whole spectrum of prayer. We need prayer that includes use of all aspects of being – body, mind, soul, spirit. These include the physical, the intellectual, the devotional, the mystical, or contemplative. All these aspects of being pray.
By engaging in a whole-self spectrum of prayer practices, we practice the Reality of God being involved in each aspect of our wholeness. Each aspect of our being is an expression of God and loves God in returning that expression in practical ways.
Responding
1.Share an image or images that you once had of God and that you no longer have? What about the image does not agree with your present thinking about and experience of God?
2.Share an image or images that you now have of God that once you did not? What about the image agrees with how you now experience God?
3.Give at least five names or titles you use for God? What images gravitate around each of these? What do they imply practically about faith and life?
4.What are ways you pray? How does each relate to the aspects of self given below?
a. Body - physical
b. Mind – intellectual
c. Soul – devotional
d. Spirit – contemplative/mystical
*Some spiritual teachers place "matter" before "body." These arise from Hindu mysticism, and are only one of many series of aspects found in varied traditions. A brief explanation:
a. Matter - pertains to physics, and the energetic basis of body.
b. Body - pertains to biology, and the physical form of each of us.
c. Mind - pertains to philosophy, theology, logical metaphysics, and the intellectual in us.
d. Soul - pertains to religious devotion, and the "heart" aspect of love between the Divine and each of us.
e. Spirit - pertains to contemplation, or mysticism, and union with God, Source of all aspects we are.
5.Is there a way of praying you want to explore? I encourage you to explore that prayer practice.
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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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