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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.
Scripture
So Jesus was baptized. And as soon as he came out of the water, the sky opened, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down on him like a dove.
*Matthew 3.16, CEV
Spiritual Teaching
Tonight, I enjoyed the meditation class and sit at the church. We have an excellent, spirit-filled woman who leads us. We read from a book for thirty minutes, the next thirty minutes we sit in the dark in meditation. Well, tonight I especially felt in harmony with Love. After coming out, I bowed with folded hands, and kissed my hands – a sign of respect to the Sacred. I did the sign of the cross, then greeted the leader and got in my truck.
When on the road, to get groceries, and feeling very light and open, I turned on the radio. This was odd, for I rarely listen to music in the truck. A song by the Eagles came on, and more music during the trip.
What came to my attention was the harmony within the two experiences I experienced. In one hour, here is Brian, reading and sitting in Silence. Following, he is listening to rock-n-roll riding down the road, and swinging to the beat – as best he could in the pick-up truck.
Do these go together? Yes. Our spiritual evolving is to unify apparent opposites. I can pray deeply in Quiet and, later, listen to the Eagles “Already Gone,” as I drive down the road in my bright red Chevy. They go together. I am not more holy just for praying and meditating, and I am not less holy for listening to the Eagles.
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This spiritual awareness is called nondual consciousness. Monism would say, “All is One.” Dualism would say, “This and that are, and they are opposites.” Nondualism would say, “This and that are both two and one.” This is Edenic Consciousness: that is, the innocence of the Garden of Eden story.
Another example of this awareness is in the experience of loneliness and aloneness. I have heard persons say things like, “I do not get lonely. I call it aloneness.” See, the person is rejecting one and accepting the other. Of course, this sounds enlightened, but better to be honest and say, “I experience both aloneness and loneliness.” Persons think to say, “I get lonely,” is not spiritual. There is nothing not spiritual about feeling lonely. Indeed, more precisely, aloneness refers to solitude, while the sensation of ache in being separate physically speaks to loneliness. So, see, to practice nondual spirituality is to hold the two together, in One larger whole.
This reminds us not to vilify the natural order as corrupt, or our flesh as sinful. Jesus models for us the nondual of flesh and spirit. Jesus is a reminder to us that the Path is not simply an other worldly affair, it is both an other worldly and this worldly affair. We discover the joy of fellowship with the Divine both in immanence and transcendence. We hold these as complimentary, not opposites.
In God, who is Wholeness, all apparent contradictions are a consummate, infinite Unity. This is Love – the Unifying Force within and beyond all we know, and can know.
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In our Scripture today, we see this inter-penetrating of apparent opposites in Harmony. Jesus, in flesh, on earth, arises out of the water. This symbolizes resurrection. What does he arise to? The unification of all Life in God - Who is the Life of life. The Spirit comes down, from the sky, descending on Jesus. Spirit speaks of the mediating Divinity-Vitality unnifying the transcendent – Father – and the immanent - Christ. We could even say, as the Latin Church, the Spirit is the bond of Love between the Father and the Son. This Spirit descends. Jesus experiences within and about the unification of all in His experience as God-Man.
This Harmony is the call of every person. This is to follow Christ. We follow the Christ, with His way and teachings, to experience His experience. We, too, long to be redeemed from disharmony, a disharmony often championed in religion, and often in different spiritual movements.
So, in conclusion, God is the Whole of all qualities. God is the Harmony of all things – God is not merely the One in which all finds harmony, God is Harmony. This is why the Christ can be called “Alpha and Omega” in Scripture. In the Word, everything, like every letter of the alphabet, is held in a divine order that does not annul separateness and individuality, yet holds these in Oneness, but a Oneness that experiences Itself through the individuality and multiplicity of the created order. This is why the theme of return is so prominent in mysticism: return is a way of saying, "We only find our wholeness in God, who is Wholeness, and our longing for wholeness is our longing for Wholeness."
Responding
As we grow closer to God, in Christ we experience more of the uniting power of the Holy Spirit. In what ways do you see yourself experiencing more harmony in your life – within you, and in your outward behaviors and relationships?
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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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