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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.
Today's Scriptures
29Aren't two sparrows sold for only a penny? But the One who gives you life knows when even one sparrow falls to the ground.30Even the number of hairs on your head the Spirit knows. 31So, don't keep being afraid! You are worth much more than many sparrows.
*Matthew 10.29-31, CEV
To God belong the East and the West;
whithersoever you turn, there is the Face of God;
God is All-embracing, All-knowing.
*The Quran 2.115. World Scripture
* * *
All Truth is God's Truth;
every being and object has
its version of the One Truth;
And where Truth is, God is, for
God and Truth are One;
For all of God is in God and is God,
and all in God is with God as God;
Therefore, there is no place, being, or object
without God.
*Brian Kenneth Wilcox
Spiritual Teaching
Taking Wings
Let your Prayer
take wings and fly,
cling not to its
unspoken intentions
For the finite mind
can not conceive
the plans of Wisdom
for Her Creation
A prayer, spoken or unspoken,
is only a single thread
of a universal design
eternally in the Mind of God
A myriad petitions
is only a gentle whisper
of the ineffable Word
pouring out into all the Creation
So, frame your words
in voice or silence,
but let them pass on
from you freely
Do not seek to contain
the Eternal longing
within your own
limited vision
Noble aspirations
are refractions of the Light
shining through you,
illumining all beings on their way Home.
*Brian K. Wilcox. An Ache for Union. 2003. Revised.
The void is where God is. Empty places, empty moments are not really empty; they're pregnant. God is the potential fullness gushing out of every empty space, the ever-present possibility of a magic moment or miraculous thought. Off the blank page jumps a cosmic summons. Out of the silence came the opening chords of Beethoven's Fifth.
*Marianne Williamson. Illuminata.
* * *
Prayer is an act of trusting in the presence and all-knowingness of the Divine. In Prayer we do not deny our feelings. We do not suppress our emotions. Yet, neither do we accept that afflictive feelings is the Divine will for us. We are not being created to live in constant internal suffering. And the outer sufferings of our world are merely a reflection of the inner poisons that darken our mind and heart to Love. These afflictive feelings will come and go, correlated with faith and doubt, insight and ignorance, surrender and self-will. Voice your aspirations, verbally and silently, then, rest in Love, allowing the Wisdom of Grace to soak you in its mystery and grace. This quiet being-with brings healing. Each act of coming back to the moment in Love is an act of Love on behalf of all beings, and brings a little more healing to the world, and to you. Amen.
Responding
1)Set aside times daily to Pray. Let quiet silence be part of these times. Practice offering a petition, then, resting in the trust that the Divine Mind heard your prayer, even before it was voiced into words.
2)Take time daily to remind yourself of the sacredness before you: this might be the godness reflected in a natural object, the holiness within the person before you, the luminosity of your own longing, the beauty of a thought, the majesty of an insight from a reading,
3)In meditation, allow your afflictive feelings to dissolve in Peace, Peace, Peace.
* * *
*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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