|
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.
You are invited to join Brian at his fellowship group on Facebook. The group is called OneLife Ministries – An Interspiritual Contemplative Fellowship. Hope to see you there. Blessings.
Strange - odd, astounding, unfamiliar, extraordinary, different, un-common, un-usual...
Scripture
1I have to brag. There is nothing to be gained by it, but I must brag about the visions and other things that the Lord has shown me. 2I know about one of Christ's followers who was taken up into the third heaven fourteen years ago. I don't know if the man was still in his body when it happened, but God certainly knows.
3As I said, only God really knows if this man was in his body at the time. 4But he was taken up into paradise, where he heard things that are too wonderful to tell. 5I will brag about that man, but not about myself, except to say how weak I am.
*II Corinthians 12, CEV
Quote
I set to seriously practicing my spirituality only when I began to encounter what I found to be strange. Much of Catholic spirituality was strange to me at first, given where I had come from. But moving beyond tourism is essential to spiritual practice, and I began to dive headlong into what was strange to me, ...
*Jon M. Sweeney. Almost Catholic.
Spiritual Teaching
Jon M. Sweeney speaks of encountering the strange, and that leading him to take his spirituality seriously. I have had a journey with the strange, also. Many persons have, even as St. Paul did, even speaking of “visions and other things” shown him by his Lord. Indeed, without the strange, we have no spirituality.
* * *
Sweeney shares an experience of a disappointing trip with his family, and he relates it to going beyond being spiritual tourists:
I once had [an] experience while traveling with my wife and children on a Caribbean cruise. The cruise was a gift, which is why we were going, and our other incentive was the promise in the brochure of seeing the Cayman Islands and Mexico on our calls at port. Well, if you have ever been on a cruise – particularly since 9/11 – you know where this is going. Most of our ports of call were tourist traps owned by the cruise companies themselves. Not only did we not see anything of the Caymans or Mexico, but we didn't experience anything besides a beach and a plethora of preselected and prefabricated souvenirs. What a disappointment tourism can be!
Sweeney proceeds to say, “A feeling of mystery is vital and vivid for Catholic spiritual practices – and they draw us to the oddest practices. The pieties or devotional practices of Catholic spirituality don't make sense in the 'real' world. But these things involve us and surround us like the fog of incense at the Saturday night Easter vigil.”
No, Sweeney is not Catholic. Yet, he appreciates the one thing that much of Catholicism focuses on, as well as the Eastern Orthodox Church, and which is lacking in so many other groups: Mystery. We could call this encounter with Mystery as the experience of the Strange. Without this, we have only a domesticated faith. With doors shut to Mystery, faith becomes overly cerebral or overly emotional, or both.
A key is to encounter Something that captivates the mind, for it transcends the mind. This is not mindless, but simply outside the mind to grasp.
* * *
We need more than a religious tourism. Tourists view the scenery, they are sight-seers. Contrast this with pilgrims – pilgrims are involved, on a journey, participating, indeed, co-creators of the Way.
So, I assure you, you will not grow spiritually unless you accept the strange that soaks the way, all the way. If you do not surrender to the Mystery, you will never enjoy the faith deeply. Your faith will grow cold and stale. The strange pulls you into pilgrimage; you cannot encounter the strange, and keep encountering it, and remain a religious tourist.
* * *
I am not saying pursue the strange. The strange is embedded within the tradition. See it in the lives of great saints, stories told by friends, in your own life - remember the logically inexplicable ways God has worked at crucial times. How about that dream that gave an answer? That intuition about the right thing to do or say? That hunch that led you to take a different route than you planned on a particular road? That spontaneous assurance of the right decision for you, after you had searched long and hard to decide? That felt presence of a saint, or another loved one, that you sensed while in prayer? See, the spiritual path is full of the strange.
What about all the strangeness that might mislead us? Much we face in our society is like when Oliver Wendell Holmes, Senior, took ether. Holmes was a doctor. He was interested in the use of ether. To know how his patients felt under it, he had a dose administered to himself. As he was going under, in a dreamy state, a profound thought arose. He believed that he had suddenly grasped the key to the mysteries of the universe. When he regained consciousness, he was unable to remember what the insight was.
Because of the great importance of this thought, Holmes arranged to have himself given either again. He had a stenographer present to record. The either was administered, and just before passing out the insight appeared. He mumbled the words, the stenographer took them down, and he went to sleep confident he had succeeded.
Upon awakening, he turned eagerly to the stenographer. Holmes asked her to read what he had said. She read: "The entire universe is permeated with a strong odor of turpentine."
*Bits & Pieces, November 12, 1992, pp. 20-22.
* * *
We are to be discerning. And the closer with live with God, the more we are likely to discern when something is of God and when not. God's Spirit will never mislead us. Stay in Prayer often. Live close to the Heart of God. Remain desiring above all to do God's Will. The Spirit Within will guide you in discernment. Likewise, have a soul companion to seek help from. When needed, be open to call upon a discernment group.
Not all strange is divine, and much going as spirituality is ego prancing in disguise. Go to the local bookstore, and you will likely see any number of "spiritual" books claiming the strange, the esoteric, the spectacular mystical.
Opt to listen to the wisdom of tradition spanning centuries. Curiosity is said to have killed the cat, unbridled curiosity can be deadly, also, to faith. Be open, be discerning. If it sounds almost too good to be true, it may be untrue, or it may be God being God, just outside what you have thought or experienced before.
Responding
1)Have you experienced the strange – Mystery? What was that like for you? Were you excited? Threatened? Both?
2)What are means you apply to discern when something is of God, or not?
3)Are you receptive to Mystery? Or do you close off to what is not conventional, practical, or logical? Explain.
4)What are practices of your faith group that nurture within you appreciation for the Mystery of the Divine?
5)What are practices you engage in private devotions that keep you in touch with the Mystery of God?
6)Are there ways you could enhance the sense of Mystery in your sacred space, where you do prayer and worship daily?
* * *
*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.
|
