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Please check the "Upcoming" page for some events coming in 2010
Please note that Patrick's email address is now
A day workshop on the Enneagram was held at Maleny on Saturday 3rd July. Nine people attended Patrick's presentation. Patrick was privileged to lead a six-day retreat with Sisters of Mercy at The Haven, Emu Park, in the first week of June. The "Soul Food for Famished Christians" course was held over the first three Saturdays of May, at Stillpoint, Toowong, with nineteen people coming along.
Patrick has recorded and produced a CD taken from a day retreat given to the Christian Meditation Community in November of 2009 - see the ""Books and CDs" page. It is entitled "Time to Grow Up: Living Into Our Eternal Destiny".
Patrick has also recently finished producing a 75 minute CD that contains readings from his latest book, "The Freeing of God". See the "Books and CDs" page for details.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PATRICK’S LATEST BOOK !!
There are some things you can know only by staying on the journey for a few decades …
When we’re “staying awake”, we find that life has a habit of trying to teach us about what it means to really love, to fail, to hope and to pray. It teaches us about being human … which is about belonging to God.
Sadly, countless people through the years have been bruised and bludgeoned through the misuse and abuse of the scriptures. Rather than being set free to enjoy and relish the fullness of life, their passion and humanity have been hobbled through needless shame and guilt. The liberating message of the Gospel so often has been twisted into a voice of condemnation, a confirmation of self-hate, and a reinforcer of people’s fear of themselves as a failure – and it’s this abuse that “The Freeing of God” sets out to offset.
This book doesn’t pretend to be either a commentary or a translation of the gospels. Rather, it’s a retelling of every verse and chapter, from the perception of what’s sometimes called “the second half of life”. And what is this?
Most of us spend our first few decades trying to get it together, get secure, get loveable, or get over our fears – and when the Gospel is heard through these lenses, we can hear it as a finger-wagging insistence for us to improve. God gets painted wearing a perpetual frown that displays divine displeasure – for it seems we’re never good enough, never moral enough, or never believing fervently enough. Why would anyone want to have anything to do with God?
Hopefully though, somewhere along the line we gradually learn that love can’t be earned, that peace of soul can’t be bought and that forgiving life for being imperfect is the only way through. In this “second half of life”, we can let mistakes and wounds be the way into deeper loving, we can let ourselves and others be mixtures of light and shadow, and we can surrender the need to be something other than who we are. Such shifts in perspective also change the way we let the gospels tell us of who God is …
“The Freeing of God” holds that the Gospel speaks to the heart of being human, and will help readers to discover their own life as the sacred story. It’s an offering that invites the soul to dance with the God who woos.
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Phone Patrick on (07) 3356 4218 for your copy of "The Freeing of God: Revisiting the Gospels in the Second Half of Life", or send your cheque for $30 plus $10 postage, made to "Patrick Oliver", to 94 Reuben St Stafford Brisbane Qld 4053.
Name _______________________________________________________________
Address _____________________________________________________________
I enclose $__ ($30 plus $10 postage throughout Australia for each book)
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