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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.
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.
Scripture
12 But I will continue doing what I have always done. This will undercut those who are looking for an opportunity to boast that their work is just like ours. 13 These people are false apostles. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ. 14 But I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
*II Corinthians 11.12-14, NLT
Spiritual Teaching
St. Paul recognized “deceitful workers.” These he wrote act under “disguise.” They claim to be “apostles of Christ,” but are not. He appeals to the “dis-guise” of absolute evil.
This same kind of comment could be made in any major spiritual path. Teachers will arise who distort the tradition for their own benefit. That is, they do not merely expand the tradition, unfolding hidden potentials, they are untrue to the tradition, thinking they can make it whatever suits themselves.
Some of these persons will disdain ancient authorities in the tradition. Some will claim themselves to have special, new, and novel insight. Some of these deceitful, even self-deluded, "teachers" will make much money off persons sincerely seeking for Truth.
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Recently, my dog Bandit started running toward the highway. I saw a vehicle coming up the road. I yelled, “Bandit, stop!” He stopped just before entering the highway; immediately, the vehicle went by. One of my first thoughts: “I'm so glad I taught him that command.”
In that moment, I was an authority for Bandit. Not only was I an authority, the word “Stop” was an authority. That one word embodied Wisdom. Possibly, Bandit cannot process the meaning and significance of that word, beyond the physical “put on breaks,” but the authority in person and word likely saved his life that day.
Bandit needed the power of an authority over his will, someone who could represent Truth, someone who could guide him. We need the same in our spiritual maturation.
We need authorities, personal and written, that teach us and hold us accountable. We need presence and words as means of the Word, wisdom that is universal and will represent Truth – amidst all the claims to truth.
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Jeremiah cautions us well. The scripture reads about a people leaving the ancient, proven paths, to explore the newer, the novel:
But my people are not so reliable, for they have deserted me;
they burn incense to worthless idols.
They have stumbled off the ancient highways
and walk in muddy paths.
*Jeremiah 18.15, NLT
“Worthless idols” is anything that gives the appearance of Truth, but is lacking the substance of Truth and Wisdom. Not every path of spirituality or religion that looks good is Truthful. Yet, the “worthless,” or ineffectual, the sure to disappoint, can be appealing to persons who have been hurt by a traditional path. Then, they swallow up something that appears to offer the alternative.
These worthless ways are “muddy paths.” What happens in mud? You get bogged down. And the more you try to get unbogged, you can spin wheels and get deeper in the bog. This can happen with pridefulness refusing to respect traditional paths. A person can mix and mingle all kinds of apparent spiritual truths, when he or she could be true to one path of Truth and find it work much better.
No, I am not saying everything traditional is positive and needs respect. Indeed, much that goes as tradition needs to be let go of. I am saying the Truth appears within traditional paths, and we need to be careful of what appears helpful, but will prove to be little more than worthless and a slough finally to disappoint.
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Last, this leads us to the shift in authority we are undergoing. Corinne Ware, in Saint Benedict on the Freeway, refers to the difference between two forms of authority: the experience of authority and the authority of experience. This does not mean the latter means jettisoning the former, as many are now doing, and to their harm. Says Ware, “More people are giving value to their own spiritual experience, and seeing the value of historical and contemporary religious authorities primarily in terms of how they can assist us to recognize the presence and unique whispers of God in our personal lives and in the lives of the various levels of community to which we belong.”
This shift is positive. A person, in whatever major spiritual tradition he or she belongs, will respect the tradition, with its teachers and teachings. Yet, the person understands the tradition is present and to be honored to the extent it facilitates the experience of the real Presence of the Divine and the way the Divine continues to speak to us each alone and in community. Then, as Ware notes, this will be communal. I recommend that a person not respect anyone as a spiritual guide who does not respect tradition as a living linage, and community as the facilitative, nurturing, and corrective Body that spiritual communion will always be.
Responding
1)How do you see the experience of authority and authority of experience mutually helpful in your spiritual growth and service?
2)What spiritual guides have been important to you within your tradition? What are some of the lessons they have taught you?
3)In what sense can a person and a teaching serve as authority in religion and spirituality?
4)Is there one person in your tradition – other than the founder -, who has most been a guide and inspiration to you? Give thanks to God for this person.
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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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