Patrik Olterman Rodhe's Blog, page 12
July 29, 2015
Truth
I am the truth, the way and the life — Jesus
It is funny how even though this statement of Jesus makes truth rather singular we still have so many different bids on the truth from different religions and different churches. Somehow we as humans seem to think that if we believe it hard enough it becomes true.
St Vincent was the one who stated that the truth is what has been believed “everywhere, always and by all”. This is not a bid to make truth a democratic process where it is decided by t...
July 28, 2015
Not a Christian anymore?
It’s funny what people will read out of my posts. I am getting the question if I am not a Christian anyomore. So I thought I would take a minute to adress this question.
To answer the question we must agree on what it is to be a Christian. There are as many answers to this question as there are theologians (probably more as some have more than one answer). If I am to boil it down to three options it might look like this.
1) A Christian is somebody who adheres to al the te...
July 27, 2015
Losing my religion
As we are walking away from organised religion there are a lot of interesting conversations going on around the dinner table in our house.
Yesterday Hanna said something about the death of her ministry and how maybe she never felt quite comfortable with the title minister of religion. I think I can echo that thought. I am done ministering to religion. Minister meaning servant and religion in this case meaning the institution of organised religion. I would much rather be a minister of the peo...
July 26, 2015
Sex: A highway to god!
Art by Ines Honfi at Eden art
I confess I have borrowed the title from Johan Ekenberg but it is true. God gave us the wonderful gift of sexuality not as a racy past time and not only as a means of reproduction but rather as a gateway to experience oneness and higher states of pleasure, bliss and consciousness. As Dossie Easton says: “believing that God doesn’t like sex, as many religions seem to, is like believing that God doesn’t like you.” Not only is sex a beautiful sacred gift to humanity...
How could I not
How could I not fall as I teetered at the brink of your soul
How could I resist a heart as open as yours
How could I not awaken at the gentle touch of your handYou uncovered my soul
You read my deepest secrets as if they were written on my skin
You sailed along the river of tears to the centre of my heart
You quenched my fears and my pain from the startI fell into the depth of your gaze
I got lost in you
I awokeHow could I not love you,
How could I let you go
How could I not
July 25, 2015
We need permission…
A friend of mine commented on a post that I wrote saying that it sounded like a request for affirmation. I responded that while I am not aware that I am looking for that affirmation I think that it is crucial for us as humans to be validated, to be affirmed. What we need is permission.
Permission to live fully
Permission to be who we are deep down inside
Permission to feel deeply
Permission to express those feelings
Permission to be vulnerable
Permission to laugh
Permission to play
Permission t...
July 24, 2015
Basic instinct
According to the Enneagram there are three basic instincts (subtypes) that govern our behavioural patterns. These basic instincts operate underneath the ego and all the strategies of our personality. The three instincts are:
1) Self preserving (sp)
2) Social (so)
3) Sexual (sx)
There are simply three types of people. Imagine you walk into a room where you have been before, contemplate what you first notice.
Either you are the type of person that immediately scans the room and notes the clean...
July 23, 2015
Oh no you didn’t!
Oh yes I did!
I blogged about sexuality again, and after having had more traffic than usual on the blog with loads of people contacting me privately and publicly commenting on the blogposts the last week, after the post on sexuality, silence.
[insert cricket sound]Talking about feelings and being openly emotional on the blogg was uncomfortable for people and provoced all sorts of reactions. Talking about sex… well … Either people are not interested in the subject (as if) or it is so uncomfor...
July 22, 2015
Sex has become poisoned, this is why we cannot talk about it let alone celebrate it!
No matter how much the evangelical church might try to ignore or pretend that it doesn’t exist and in other ways silence the conversation, sex is still a foundational, central part of the humnan experience. Sometimes I think the religious movement hopes that if we just ignore or oppose it strongly enough it will dissapear or just fade out of existance.
Sex has not disappeared. The religions have made it only more poisoned; it is still there, in a poisoned form. Yes, guilt has arisen in man,...
July 20, 2015
How can I support you?
So in the wake of my last post the question begs to be asked…
When you see a friend in need, he/she is hurting badly emotionally, how can be supportive and yet respect the process?
1) Clear your own crap first! Make sure that your need to help the other person does come from a place of genuine concern. That you are starting from the heart and not from a need for the other to feel better so that you can feel better. Let’s face it, when we are in a happy bubble it’s disconcerting to have someon...
