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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.
Thoughts on Love
Read each one of the sayings below. Feel the meaning.. Translate each into an affirmation - I offer suggestions. Spend some time meditating on each affirmation.
Love cannot be added to you. It can only be released from you.
I already have all the love I need within me, now, I am releasing it to everyone I meet.
Love is the most natural part of you, because it is the substance of God.
Love is the most natural part of me, for Love is the being of God.
Love is a divine activity, a cosmic force, a spiritual gift.
Love moves in and through me as a divine activity, a cosmic force, a spiritual gift.
*Quotes are from Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla. The Quest.
Spiritual Teaching
A little girl had a dad who was not very attentive or nurturing for her. He knew he was not a good dad, but he was not willing to work to change.
One day, while the dad was reading the newspaper, the daughter felt lonely. She said, “Dad, would you please let me sit in your lap and have you love me?” He looked at her and said, “No. Can't you see I'm reading?” The little girl learned, therefore, that it was not okay to ask her longing for love to be met.
Sometime later, the daughter asked, “Daddy, would you please play with me?” Actually, she was saying, “Will you please love me?” But, by now, she had learned not to ask to be loved. Her dad replied, “No. Can't you see I'm busy?” The little child learned, thereby, that she would need to code her messages for love even more subtly.
Finally, the little girl spoke, later, “Dad, I'm hungry. Would you make me a sandwich with jam and peanut butter?” The dad put down a paper, on which he was writing, and made his daughter a sandwich. He did this, never realizing what she was really saying: “Dad, would you love me?”
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Every human being longs for the same thing: Love. Many persons have been trained to feel they must code their message of desire for Love. This coding can be unconscious, so much so that the person has forgotten that he or she is saying, “Will you love me?”
Also, a person can become guilty of expressing the need for Love. He or she can come to feel that such a desire is selfish. Religiously, this can be, “Well, Jesus gave his all for me, and I should be doing that for others, rather than thinking so much about myself.”
We are wise to seek Love in the right places. Not all persons are prepared to receive or reciprocate Love. If a person is not able or ready, the person is not able or ready. Without being judgmental, you can be discerning about whom you want in your life or out. The closer you get to the Divine – that is, the more spiritually evolved you become – the fewer persons you can share your heart-content with. So, do not think it selfish to take care of yourself, withholding Love and giving Love. You can seek to live peacefully with all persons, but you are meant to grow in Love by making wise choices about whom you get close to, whom you do not, whom you let stay in your life, whom you put out.
There is nothing selfish about avoiding someone or discontinuing even a religious or "spiritual" group. Indeed, to take care of yourself spiritually, and be more prepared to serve others, there are persons you will likely need to put out of your life. You do not owe everyone your presence or attention. Almost without exception, when a person or group is toxic spiritually, you need to absent such from your life fully, or as much as possible. Your effort to appear loving and brave by continued involvement is likely a manifestation of your pride, not true humbleness. Humbleness can have a kick-out to it.
Be conscious about your need for Love. You may code that need in many ways. For example, you may give too much of yourself to others. Often persons do this, then, they complain about that. Well, stop it. Get more balance. Realize that likely your excessive giving of self to others is a coded way you are saying, “I don't feel very loved.”
There are other ways we code our longing for Love. Each person has his or her own way of saying, “Please, Love me.” Some of these may be unhealthy, others healthy.
Responding
AN EXERCISE
Harnessing the Passion of Love
The sensation of Love is a passion. If we can feel Love when aware of any person or object, the same Love-sensation can be transferred to another person or object. The following exercise, adapted from the Russian saint Theophan the Recluse (19 Century) uses passion productively. The aim is to observe, see into, and transfer energies.
1.Go into the Quiet and calm yourself. Close your eyes. Be aware that all you experience arises out of God – that you desire to be loved and to love is a gift from God. Whatever is within, whatever is without, all is of God – an expression of the Thought of God – the Logos.
2.Let awareness focus mentally on someone you feel – or felt – Love for. Feel the passion – or energy – of Love this person or object stirs within you.
3.Hold the passion in awareness-bodily, becoming aware of the Divine shining through the passion: feel the energy-texture, trace the energy back to God. Let the energy flow through you. You are not to try to express or retain the energy.
4.Now, as you experience the flow of Divine Presence in this Love-passion, mentally transfer it to another person or object that arises to mind. Do this as long as you wish.
5.Now, let awareness focus mentally on someone or something whom you feel – or felt - loved by. This could be a person or an animal, or another being or aspect in the Universe.
6.Hold the passion in awareness-bodily, becoming aware of the Divine shining through the passion: feel the energy-texture, trace the energy back to God. Let the energy flow through you. You are not to try to express or retain the energy. Do this with as many someones or somethings as you wish.
7.Come to rest in the sense of Love in all things about you and within you.
8.When ready, simply rest beyond all expressions of Love, in the I AM, in Whom you live, move, and have being.
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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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