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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.
I dedicate this to all my spiritual brothers and sisters in other faith paths than my own. Bless you each, in Truth.
Opening Aspiration
May all I have written here and elsewhere not bring harm to anyone and bless all.
Title: RETURN AMONG ALL PATHS: A CHRISTIC UNIVERSALISM
Today's Scripture
27When the Scriptures say that he will put everything under his power, they don't include God. It was God who put everything under the power of Christ. 28After everything is under the power of God's Son, he will put himself under the power of God, who put everything under his Son's power. Then God will mean everything to everyone.
*I Cor 15.27-28 (CEV)
Spiritual Teaching
Just imagine, for one moment, this – every person in the world is your spiritual brother or sister. Each is destined to return to God, finally, somehow by Grace, fully reconciled to the Creator. Well, listen to these words:
Jesus defined the purpose of his mission without any reference to saving people from eternal hell: "The Spirit of the Divine is on me, because that One has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. The Creator has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Grace of the One." (Luke 4:18-19; [translation mine]). Why can't Christians take their Lord at his word? As Paul said, "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation [or, healing] to all" (Tit. 2:11 NRSV).
Now imagine that this is what you believed. Imagine yourself with a deep and abiding faith in God's plan of salvation for all people, believing that everyone in the world is your brother or sister in God's family and that He loves each and every one of us with a parental love - a love that can never fail. Imagine that you could see the face of Christ reflected in the face of every person you meet, and that someday that person will be with you in heaven, worthy of great honor and praise, cleansed of all sin and patterned after Christ, your Lord.
If you reallybelieved this, just imagine how happy you would feel, and what a blessing you could be to others.
*Eric Stetson. Christian Universalism: God's Good News for All People.
Therefore, my response to this, and my belief is firmly based on a common sense and loving affirmation:
That a Loving God would even permit a human person to suffer forever damnation and torture for temporal causes is one of the most horrific, unloving, and nonsensical teachings ever propagated as truth among millions of persons worldwide.
Of course, many Christian leaders know this. Yet, they do not speak it. Why? They are embedded in religious systems that reward them to keep their mouths shut on this matter. Indeed, if persons believed this not to be true, then, why are they not out doing everything possible to save everyone possible every minute possible? Why? Down deep, persons know this is not true – their soul knows Truth.
Now, I take a little bit of a turn in this writing, but it all connects. So, please be patient, and see the weaving as we progress.
Yet, before we do, let me affirm, as a spiritual, mystical Christian, and interspiritual, the following: 1) The Living, Resurrected Christ, the continuance of the life of Jesus, the Word, is the manifestation fully of this salvific plan of the Divine. Thus, Christ, as the Word, is the medium of connection to the “Father,” yet, this Christic Presence is not a Christian presence. This One is beyond all religion and all faith. 2) All Truth is of God, and this is honored as it appears in whatever form, including in whatever religion or spirituality.
* * *
Because we have free will, we have the possibility of tuning out, so to speak, from our soul connection. … But the soul remains … without changing its unique essence.
*Tamar Frankiel, The Gift of Kabbalah.
When love, healing, tolerance, and justice cease to be the cornerstones of the Christian faith, it is not the non-Christians of the world who are damned. It is Christianity itself – damned to resentment in the larger culture, to being marginalized as the domain of “right-wing wackos,” to eventual extinction as a relevant force in the world..
*Carlton Pearson. The Gospel of Inclusion.
* * *
Tamar Frankiel observes that the possibility of returning to the Source is built into the "structure of the universe." To return to God is to return to the natural operations of the soul (nephesh). To return to God is to return to our personalized soul purpose. This is a reason the Christian mystic and saint, St. Teresa of Avila, stresses so much the necessity of self-knowledge. By looking deeply into the self, one can see the roaring or whispering of the soul. Likewise, others can reflect back to you this soul purpose.
This return to God, with Whom the soul is one, is called teshuva in Hebrew. Indeed, the Hebrew Scripture says we are, not "have," a "living soul" (nephesh chayiim). The point from which the body-mind receives life, that is the nephesh.
* * *
In Kabbalah the crown (keter, "crown") of the head is the point of Divine inspiration. Creativity begins in the spark of the Divine. Spirit provides ongoing inspiration for creating. All creativity begins in this spark beginning manifestation, and this corresponds to the St. John teaching of Logos, the creative principle of wisdom and reason that imbues all emanation of pure Spirit into form, Nature, Creation. And coming into form is the act of creation as process, from the Void, or Godhead – the Emptiness that is Fulness, holding all potency and potential.
Therefore, in mystical prayer we practice the return. In recollection we become one-pointed and narrow down the distractions into a single point of intent. We do this to be re-inspired, or re-breathed-by-Spirit. If you hold your out-breath for a time, at the point of pressure let the in-breath return. That is like re-inspiration.
At this crown point, to Whom we return, Kabbalah rightly teaches - in agreement with spiritual teaching universally -, our will is taken into the will of Ein Sof, "Infinite One, Mystery," Who is the personal- impersonal Beginningless Beginning of all that becomes and dies and becomes in another form. So, the co-arising and impermanent nature of all things is reliant on the permanent, eternal Spirit (ruach). Whatever is permanent about us, which I conclude is the spirit-soul, is permanent for it directly participates in the very nature of the Source most immediately, intimately.
* * *
Frankiel reminds us that this soul we have – or, are -, which manifests the Divine spark, has a nature untouched by our going out and returning. The soul has a mind of its own, so to speak, which is other than the mind of which we speak when we say, "I have a body and mind." She writes, "No matter what happens while the soul is in a physical incarnation on earth, nothing can harm the soul or disrupt its connection to God. Moreover, our soul is always trying to express its true essence through our lives." This means that the body-mind is the means of emanation and the realization of the fulfillment of the dynamic and intentional operations of the soul, and these in turn flow from Pure Spirit (HaKadosh Ruach).
The soul, which St. Teresa of Avila speaks so well of, arises out of the spark and seeks to manifest through the body-mind the innate inspirational structure of the universe. This spark of inspiration will take the shape of you. That is right, "You." This inspiration will be shaped by context and all its causes and conditions. You are part of the absolute and relative contexts of Spirit. Context will frame inspiration on every level of manifestation and, thus, aspiration and manifestation will differ richly among us.
* * *
For example, differing spiritual paths have different contexts. This is why the one Divine Reality manifests in different religions and different sects in differing religions. This is, likewise, why religion native to a time and place changes when adopted in another time and place. This applies, also, to each one of us. Based on geography, opportunity, personality, … This does not mean that all manifestation is equal; however, the inspiration, or Divine impulse, which is the origin of the manifestation, is from God. Not all things are equal in relative value, though equal in Source.
So, we can differ on a relative level and rightly so. For example, a radical pluralism is dishonoring the relative causes and conditions that shape inspiration. We do not do service to the diversity we share by acting like all beliefs are equal in relative time. Indeed, some persons have distorted inspiration to do much evil in the name of religion or God. Likewise, much religious belief has not and is not very helpful at all. Thus, in these cases, the divine spark has been misused to harm or particular emphases have exhausted usefulness over time. However, different religious paths have done much good for humanity and other creatures, also.
* * *
Differing with some of conservative Christians, I have not witnessed that my native faith, Christianity, is any more ethical than most persons are, otherwise. Indeed, Jesus taught "love God" and "love your fellow person," and that is simply wisdom, for it corresponds to the natural intent of inspiration among all peoples. That is, the deepest teachings of any contextualized inspiration will manifest similarity with like teachings in other paths. For Buddhists or Christians or … to assume that their path provides a more viable ethical source is incorrect. Persons of differing paths can be good or evil in behavior, and that has much more to do with personal choice and other conditions outside the teaching of the path than the path itself.
* * *
We participate in the elements of body-mind in time, but we have an inner yearning that corresponds to the spark that manifests as our deepest Self, or soul. Likewise, that yearning is a reflection, or refraction, of Pure Intent, into space-time, and contexts of relativity. Our intent is to be the fulfillment of that inspiration in a unique way, through the context in which each of us lives, and in a direction that does no harm to others. Within this framework, we are open to exploring how other' expressions of life goals and spiritual aspirations might more attune our own. That is, we can learn from different spiritual paths. We, likewise, can teach others outside our path based on our experience of divine inspiration. However, to do this, we must meet with others in the deepest meaning and intent of Love.
We must be open to honoring the noble and good in diverse religious and spiritual paths. This is love. And anything not of love should not be allowed to hide under the covers of a prejudiced interpretation of religious faith or politics. So, let us enjoy Peace, even as we seek to help each other along the One Life path, or One Love Way.
* * *
To my Christian brothers and sisters, who object to this, saying, “But, the Bible says....” Well, let us affirm this obvious fact: God did not write the Bible. The Scripture is shaped in time-space by fallible persons and communities – mostly men. And inspiration of Scripture in no way protects from fallibility Indeed, based on textual evidence and possible readings of scriptures, there is not a single Scripture in the Christian Bible to prove infallible inspiration for the whole Bible. Likewise, theologies of differing sects are fallible. Also, interpretations are fallible. Then, we need to seek the more inclusive understandings, and the higher, more spiritual teachings, not the lower, and not pull down the more mature, higher teachings to match the lower – which is exactly what most professing Christians do. Finally, the assumption that any church body, made of humans, whether in the Protestant or Catholic, or another tradition, is infallible, simply has no spiritual or logical basis.
Responding
1) Relate the above Spiritual Teaching to the I Corinthians 15.27-28 scripture?
2) What are social implications of religious exclusivism? Of Christic universalism?
3) Reflect on the following words from Florence Nightingale, considered the initiator of the modern nursing movement. Share what you agree with, or not. What reasonable basis do you have for this agreement or disagreement?
I can't love because I am ordered – least of all can't I love One who seems only to make me miserable here to torture me hereafter. Show me that He is good, that He is loveable, and I shall love Him without being told. But does any preacher show this? He may say that God is good, but he shows Him to be very bad; he may say that God is “love,” but he shows Him to be hate, worse than any hate of man. As the Persian poet says: “If God punishes me for doing evil by doing me evil, how is he better than I?” And it is hard to answer, for certainly the worst man would hardly torture his enemy, if he could, forever. And unless God has a scheme that every man is saved forever, it is hard to say in what He is not worse than man; for all good men would save others if they could. It is of no use saying that God is just, unless we define what justice is. In all Christian times people have said that “God is just” and have credited Him with an injustice such as transcends all human injustice that it is possible to conceive.
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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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