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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
18 All this is from God. Through Christ, God made peace between us and himself, and God gave us the work of telling everyone about the peace we can have with him.19 God was in Christ, making peace between the world and himself. In Christ, God did not hold the world guilty of its sins. And he gave us this message of peace.20 So we have been sent to speak for Christ. It is as if God is calling to you through us. We speak for Christ when we beg you to be at peace with God.
*II Corinthians 5.18-20, NCV
Spiritual Teaching
A traveler was walking along the road one day when a man on horseback rushed by. There was an evil look in his eyes and blood on his hands.
Minutes later a crowd of riders drew up and wanted to know if the traveler had seen someone with blood on his hands go by. They were in hot pursuit of him.
"Who is he?" the traveler asked.
"An evil-doer," said the leader of the crowd. "And you pursue him in order to bring him to justice?"
"No," said the leader, "we pursue him in order to show him the way."
Reconciliation alone will save the world, not justice which is generally another word for revenge.
*Story and comment by Anthony De Mello.
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What a liberating Word - “God did not – does not - hold the world guilty of its sins”! Now, that is a message of Grace. No wonder some persons do not want to be in churches, when too many are filled with messages of how unworthy we are, how guilty we are – rather than the Good News - “God holds you innocent of all! God wants you to know nothing stands between you and God, not from the side of God. Come to God. For only your self-condemnation stands between God and you. Let it go, receive peace about your past and your self.” Jesus was a living, breathing, fleshly incarnation of this Good News of making peace – or reconciliation.
We have a choice. We can be pulled into what Caroline Myss, in Defying Gravity, calls “the gravity field of our pain,” or, we can work at staying in “the field of grace.” In the field of grace, we are means of Peace between and among persons.
This can entail some risk. A friend and fellow-clergy of mine had a knife pulled on him in his church sanctuary. Why? He was peace-making. Two brothers were arguing before the Communion Table - how ironic. My friend intervened to help resolve the argument. One of the brothers pulled out a knife and put it slightly into his abdomen. However, for most of us, the risk is emotional and relational, not physical.
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One of the most powerful acts of power we can enact is peace-making, or reconciliation. Yet, to do this, we need to identify with our own healing, our own reconciliation to the Divine graces given our soul to manifest to bless those about us. Our healing prepares us to be healers of others, menders of brokenness among others, and in society at large.
I recall years ago, when I was manifesting deep hurt from the church, that this appeared in my writings. A reader wrote me, asking, “Just what happened in the church that you are so angry about? You seem so angry at the church.” This man could see, or sense, that my writing was more about judging a system that had hurt me, than about sharing a message of peace-sharing. He was right.
No, I still carry wounds from over thirty years in professional ministry. Yet, I have no interest in investing my energy in the blame-game. I am interested in the God-given power of my soul, of Love, to touch the lives of persons daily. I can be a co-creator with God of peace in this world, through small acts daily. Sometimes this means doing something proactive, at other times it means not taking personally an act that I could take personally.
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As a jail Chaplain, I am in a system of justice. Our goal is rehabilitation. If justice operates well, there is a consequence appropriate, but, likewise, means of reconciliation to society, when that is possible. Sadly, in some cases that is not possible, due to choices by an inmate. Also, possibly, some agencies still operate under a penal mentality, not a rehabilitative – or reconciliatory - one.
If we see a person continue to get incarcerated, we could say the system is being penal for him or her. We cannot, however, assume the lack of reconciliation to the norms of living in society is the fault of the justice system. We have the freedom to resist reconciliation. While we may want my freedom, we may want a freedom that violates freedoms of others. This occurs among the criminal and noncriminal population – and among religious persons and groups.
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Jesus did not teach simply a narrowly-defined religious definition of Truth. Truth applies in all areas, not least in the area of social justice and communal reconciliation.
I have heard persons say things like, “Well, he killed someone, and he deserves to be killed.” Is that justice? Or is that revenge? Or does it depend on the heart of the person saying that?
Yet, beyond social justice, we each face justice daily. For example, when a family member does not speak to another member of his or her family, nursing a hurt for many years or the rest of life.
A friend of mine had a church split in two groups, which would not talk to each other. One group sat on one side of the sanctuary, the other group on the other side. Now, what a picture of Christian kinship!
What we cannot do, or ought not, is fail to apply the Jesus teachings on either a communal or personal level. We have major issues around the practice of justice socially and in the personal arenas of our lives.
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One day, I spent time in the jail hearing the anger and complaints of several inmates. After first being confronted by an inmate, I almost asked the officer to let me out. Yet, I prayed and stood, listening to the frustration and reasoning – or lack of it – of inmate after inmate, and regarding a new application of policy pertaining to my area of Chaplain services.
Yes, I had to pray. For I represented Christ, and wanted to be Christ-like in how I listened and responded. That did not mean giving in to any manipulation, such as, “Now, you say you are a man of God, and so....” No, my role as a representative of Christ and the agency, which are unified in my work, is to maintain policy and seek to be just and reconciliatory. My role that day was to seek to clarify how the policy was in the best interest of the equal treatment of all inmates, not the application of privilege to a minority. Indeed, the consistent application was a matter of justice toward all inmates. Such equality is vital to reconciliation, for no true, lasting reconciliation can occur without equality. Reconciliation is hindered within an application of inequality.
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In Christ's Life and Message, we see embodied the message of spiritual reconciliation. Reconciliation is our realignment with the Divine Order, which unifies us as one people under One Source of Love. Ultimately, Christ, and all major religions, remind us that reconciliation is finally a spiritual act of Grace. We, in our ego will and strength, do not have the power to enact justice and reconciliation at all levels. We must draw wisdom, resolve, and Love from the spiritual Realm. And Christians must remain conscious of being little christs in the world, anointed by the Spirit to embody and share the message of reconciliation.
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Our soul is shaped to share in harmony with others, to forgive, and be forgiven. We must work toward the application of justice as a means to these spiritual ends, or we will not have true justice, we will only have a version, or many versions, of justice, or retribution mixed with revenge.
Jesus was strongly opposed by religious leaders who were invested in tradition that kept persons apart from each other, and from God. Sadly, I see that the church can easily be a means of separating persons from persons. All means of the church need to be doors that invite a person to spiritual healing together with beings of shared intent and devotion, which entails a reconciliation with God – as a person best understands God - , reconciliation with others, and reconciliation with one self.
Responding
In what small ways can you practice spiritual reconciliation daily?
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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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