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Brian K. Wilcox, a Chaplain, vowed Contemplative in the Christian tradition, Associate of Greenbough House of Prayer, and Postulant of the Order of St. Anthony the Great, offers an interspiritual work focusing on cultivating the Heart of Compassion. His book of mystical Love poetry is An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love. Brian integrates wisdom from the major spiritual Paths. May you always know that you are blessed!
All is Welcome Here
Living in Love beyond Beliefs
We Share One Life, We Are One Life
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*I close my eyes..., Srosh Awar, Flickr
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At the heart of Thomas Merton’s works is contemplation. Merton wrote, in New Seeds of Contemplation, that contemplation is "the union of the simple light of God with the simple light of our spirit, in love."
In 1940 Merton had an experience formative for his teaching and experience of contemplation, and which he wrote of in Seven Storey Mountain. During a visit to Cuba, one Sunday attending Mass in Havana, he heard children at the front of the church cry out the creed in glad unison. Merton was struck with a sudden awareness of God’s Presence. He later wrote, "It was a light that was so bright that it had no relation to any visible light and so profound and so intimate that it seemed like a neutralization of every lesser experience." His first clear thought was, "Heaven is right here in front of me: Heaven, Heaven!" Still, Merton was clear that this light was in fact ordinary and available to everyone. Merton taught that contemplation is for all Christians, not for a certain disposition of persons or a spiritual elite. Every Christian can become, he wrote, "fused into one spirit with Christ in the furnace of contemplation" and benefit other persons with the fruit of his or her spirituality. I agree with Merton, only adding that this wonderful Union-in-Love is for all persons who prayerfully open to Grace.
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We are each a lovely, pure Rose, in the Garden of Grace.
The Sacred in Me bows to the Sacred in You
BRIAN .
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