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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 writing to all children who do not have a stable, loving home. May they receive all the love they need, and that all children deserve. Amen.
Today's Scripture
31 Release all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of harmful action. 32 Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another [releasing, or setting free, one another], just as Pure Spirit through Christ has forgiven [released; set free] you.
*Ephesians 4.31-32
Quote
The great commandment is not “thou shalt be right.” The great commandment is to “be in love.” Be inside the great compassion, the great stream, the great river. As others have rightly said, all that is needed is surrender and gratitude. All the burdens we carry are not just ours. The sin that comes up in us is not just our sin, it is the sin of the world. The joy that comes up in us is not just our personal joy, it is the joy of all creation. All we can do is accept and give thanks.
*Richard Rohr. Everything Belongs.
Spiritual Teaching
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Buddhist Teacher, in Peace is Every Step, shares a teaching “Blaming Never Helps.” He uses the image of a lettuce. He remarks that we do not blame a lettuce, if it does not grow well. We inquire into reasons for the lack of healthy growth. We seek to help it flourish, for the success of the lettuce is its true nature. Yet, with other persons, Hanh clarifies, we can tend to blame, rather than seek to look compassionately and act with empathy. Yet, the natural tendency of the true nature of each person is to grow, flourish, and be a blessing.
Hanh shares an account of this teaching between a mother and her age eight daughter. He had given a lecture in Paris about not blaming the lettuce. Hanh walked outside at break time, and, when he turned a corner of the building during walking meditation, he heard the little girl speak to the mother. The little girl spoke, “Mommy, remember to water me. I am your lettuce.” The mother replied, “Yes, my daughter, and I am your lettuce also. So please don't forget to water me too.”
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Richard Rohr, a Contemplative-Universalist Catholic, speaks of this nonblaming and graciousness of heart-mind. He refers, in Everything Belongs, to memories of confession in childhood. The other teenage boys and he would line up to confess to a young Irish priest. The older priest, Richard describes as - “the old Irish monsignor [who] was terrible.” The older priest would yell at the boys. The younger priest, rather, spoke positive things about the Divine Love and affirmed to the boys how important their lives were. Rohr says, “We'd make up sins just to go in there and talk to him.”
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We can turn from the blame, and express compassionate empathy, like the mother and eight-year old daughter, and like the young Irish priest, through an empathic-identification with others. When we see we are one with another, we have less tendency to blame, and more tendency to seek to understand and nurture him or her.
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Forgiveness is not merely a transaction legal in nature. And forgiveness is more than a personal, or individual, matter. We join in forgiveness, when we cease blaming and seek to understand and join in healing with and helping another who is struggling. In this sense, forgiveness retains its literal meaning in Hebrew and Greek scriptures: “to release.” We join in union with another and, paradoxically, share in the release, and experience it in oneness with the other. This is a Mystery, and part of what Jesus means, when he says: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16.19). Here, again, the principle: As below, above; As above, below. By entering into loving union with another, we are within the loosing of the person, the freedom from whatever binds the person from liberty of mind-heart. In this sense, we serve as priestly persons for each other.
Likewise, this nurturing, non-blaming attitude is seen in another Jesus saying. Jesus speaks about our sharing in the grace of forgiveness: And when he had said this, Jesus breathed on them and spoke to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you release the sins of any, they are released; if you withhold this release, it is withheld” (John 20.22-23).
Therefore, we have a powerful potential influence on other persons whom we could blame. Our act of forgiveness, our sharing with them in forgiving themselves, also, in our union with the person, can be a radically freeing act. And, again, this is impossible without moving beyond blame.
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To enact this grace toward others, beyond blame and shaming, beyond malice and self-righteousness, we must descend in attitude to be one with others. Theologically, we become like Christ to another. We bring the mystery of Christ Love to the other. Rohr writes: “Forgiveness is God's entry into powerlessness, as we see in the image of the cross.” So, we cannot participate in forgiveness for others, unless we are willing to feel one with them in their powerlessness and need for Grace.
Thomas Merton speaks enlightening words on this joy of being one, rather than standing aloof and feeling superior to those in need for Gracious Help. He wrote, “My happiness could have taken form in the words: 'Thank God, thank God that I am like other men, that I am only a man among others.'” (Thomas Merton. Ed. Aileen Taylor)
Do you find it generally easy or difficult to feel at one with other persons? Explain. What does it mean to you to share in the release of other persons? Do you so share at present, helping another person discover inner healing and spiritual wellness? Share how. Is there anyone – person or group – you tend to blame, and now need to forgive, or release from your ill feelings? How might you do this? Is there someone whom you feel especially the inner call to nurture and companion? Do you consider someone to be a person like this to you?
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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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