Brian K. Wilcox's Blog

Inclusion is not the erasing of different values, quality, or truthfulness. That would be like saying anyone who can write plays is a Shakespear, anyone who can paint is a Monet, and two plus two can be four or ten or three-hundred. Inclusive entails being honest about where we agree and disagree. Inclusion means saying some religious teachings are like my singing and some like Frank Sinatra singing - trust me, you would prefer to listen to Sinatra's singing.

For the full essay, see Jan 31.2022 @ Lotus of the Heart - https://www:onelifeministries.org .

@ "Lotus of the Heart," http://www.onelifeministries.org/Path....

Excerpt:

Who we are appears, not by our trying to become who we are, but by unbecoming what we are not. Effortfully we appeared to become someone, effortlessly we are that we have always been. While we put forth effort in our spiritual practice, that effort cannot bring forth our True Self. The Self appears spontaneously. The clouds do not make the Sun appear; they part, and the Sun is already present.

Enjoy Life!

brian

we speak of listening to
while listening as sacred art is never listening to
this listening is always a listening with
for arising from union into communion

even when one is speaking
in this communion of listening
he or she is still listening

the listening is the act of communion
regardless of who speaks and who does not speak
such is the mystery

in which communion acts
as co-union
happening in the timeless now
in divine Love

See 4.23.2019 @ http://www.onelifeministries.org ; Lotus of the Heart.

When I speak of this communion we are, persons may see this as a thing and we are things making up this thing called communion. I do not mean this. You cannot find communion anywhere, for it is nowhere. You may experience it somewhere, yes at many places or with many persons, but communion is not there. Communion is alive, moving, through, but free of, space and time. So, you cannot rightly say, "We are a communion," but you can say, "Feel free to enjoy communion with us."

So, maybe it is a good pointer to say, "Communion is working," for communion is invitational, invites. How communion is and is inviting us, we do not know. Yet, we can feel this, if we allow ourselves to be sensitive enough, for communion does not shout, communion is subtle, like a whispering.

And part of our growing in union with this communion is becoming less reliant on certain feelings associated with communion. We can be without any sensation of communion, yet recognize communion is present. In this quiet recognition, communion is more able to manifest as particular sensations, as though through the veil separating time and space from the eternal timeless.

We are the servant, then, of communion, and communion manifests in ways we learn not to try to determine. Communion is and we relax, inviting communion to appear as communion will appear.

*From Lotus of the Heart. http://www.onelifeministries.org ; 04-19-2019. 'the we we are."

When we really want to hear, and be heard by, someone we love, we do not go rushing into noisy crowds. Silence is a form of intimacy. That’s how we experience it with our friends and lovers. As relationships grow deeper and more intimate, we spend more and more quiet time alone with our lover. We talk in low tones about the things that matter. We do not shout them to each other. We may shout about them to others, but quietness is the hallmark of love.

*J. Brent Bill. Holy Silence: A Gift of Quaker Spirituality.

What we struggle with as to Silence, is partly this idea, which is fully fallacious, that we must be doing something or we are doing nothing. Silence introduces us to an intentional communion that, we discover, is more, not less, than being or not being productive and efficient. In Silence, we enter the life of Life, and this being-in-Quiet is a profound trust that what is most vital to us is not on the surface, cannot be measured, and is beyond even what we call mystery. In the Silence, we may not agree on what to call this Something, but that is not a problem, for the communion with Life, with ourselves each, and with each other, elevates us into a Love-knowing wherein we know by experience that this Something is and is not separate from any one of us. In fact, in some sense, the Presence appears more fully present when we are together with nothing to say, nothing to do, only to be, than when we are apart from the joined fellowship. And, we find, this Presence is the source and the content of our being present to each other; that is, to speak of our presence is to speak of the Presence.

*Excerpts from Brian K. Wilcox. Lotus of the Heart, http://onelifeministries.org , "The Apparently Useless Silence." 04.01.2019.

Is it not in the very moments you give over to the mystery and movement of life that you are able to experience your own brilliance?

*Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel. The Logic of Faith: A Buddhist Approach to Finding Certainty Beyond Belief and Doubt.

Yet, too, when seeing our brilliance, our glory, we see only one brilliance, one glory. This even as there is only one mystery and one movement, and only one "Yes" to Life. When I say this "Yes," amid the experience of birth, life, and death, I say "Yes" for everyone, and I enter the "Yes" of everyone who has spoken or will speak the same "Yes." We cannot know when this "Yes" began, but we can enter it, by trust. And to speak the "Yes" when not trusting is an affirmation of faith in Life. So, we say, verbally or nonverbally, over and over, "Yes." In this "Yes," a door opens for Grace to work in ways Life will not otherwise. So, "Yes" and "Yes" and "Yes" and .... "Amen!" too.

*Brian K. Wilcox. Lotus of the Heart. http://www.onelifeministries.org.