An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God Through Love

by Brian K. Wilcox

212 pages, Paperback

First published June 10, 2003

About the author

For interspiritual writings integrating wisdom teachings East and West, see website Lotus of the Heart - link above.

Peace Be With All!

Reviews

[Elizabeth]

This is a beautiful book written from the heart and soul of the author. There is much within these pages to encourage and inspire. The poems are each so individual with a myriad of ideas to represent the same overarching theme of Love and unity. This book speaks beyond barriers and is inclusive and affirming to the soul who is searching. Thank you to Brian for this lovely collection of poems, each one setting off like a little boat to help us across the turbulent sea and bring us to a place of Love.

[Gabrielle Jarrett]

An Ache for Union gives us a devoted Christian poet's search for Peace and Love. He finds it in his God, but shares his deep struggle to simply accept it. He suffers in his yearning for God although this can be seen in the light that many Christian practices place value on suffering. I call it a focus on the Jesus on the Cross vs. a focus on being created in the image of God. Suffering is a focus on sin, inadequacy, and alienation which blocks the goal of union with God.
I grew up as a devout Christian within a very conservative Lutheran branch. Brian's book reminded me of my favorite psalm of those years - Psalm 42 - which emphasizes the soul's search for peace and love, which we called God. "So do I pant after Thee O God." I now practice Buddhist philosophy with the Metta prayer of "May I and all creatures be free of suffering. May we be happy, healthy, and experience peace and love and joy."
Brian's poetry is artfully done.
"May my tears
descend to wet the bruised seeds of hope."

"I fell into the Moon
and became the Life of the night."

"Look deeply
do not disdain
your lonely wound."

"Life is a circus
God is the Clown."

"My tender affections light a virgin path
that keeps leading back to this house of discontent."

"Neither you nor I know the world inside
the soul windows behind which we hide."

An Ache reminds me of The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson, a late 1800's mystic. While there are drops of other spiritual paths in Brian's book, the book itself is heavily Christian and within that tradition, heavily Pauline influenced.