TruthBook Religious News Blog

By Pamela Fayerman,
VANCOUVER SUN September 26, 2009

Bending down to place flowers at the graves of his parents, 87-year old Marcelo Carr lost his balance, hitting his head on the tombstone at Ocean View cemetery.

The trauma caused paralysis in his upper and lower limbs. Three months into his stay at Vancouver General Hospital, he says doctors told him to resign himself to his limitations and accept life in a wheelchair.

For Carr's 84-year old brother, Stan, the accident was just as traumatic and life-changing. As his brother’s primary caregiver, Stan is at Marcelo’s side 12 hours a day. Now, a little more than a year since the fall, Marcelo is able to walk with his brother’s assistance and his arms have also regained some function.

The men don’t discount the assistance from physiotherapists and other health professionals in Marcelo’s gradual recovery. But nothing would be possible, they say, without the healing power of prayer. It helped lift Stan’s depression after the accident. And it has given them both the physical and emotional strength to endure.

Chris Bernard, a Providence Health Care pastoral care worker at St. Vincent’s Hospital (Langara site), the long-term care residence where Marcelo now resides, is an integral force in their journey. Such workers offer emotional and spiritual support, companionship and compassion to people of all faiths, spiritualities and belief systems. Providence Health Care is believed to have the largest number of hospital chaplains in the province, in accordance with the founding legacy of the nuns who laid out its spiritual underpinnings, according to Liz Macdonald, coordinator of pastoral care services at St. Paul's Hospital.

Although Catholic icons abound in the many hospitals and facilities throughout the Providence organization, Bernard and Macdonald help facilitate multifaith prayer or non-religious reflection and meditation.

"As care providers, we take a holistic view of the patient/resident ... to ensure all the facets of their being receive attention — social, physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual. In this context, healing means the return to wholeness and integration of the person. Even if the patient/resident cannot be physically cured per se, they can attain healing in other dimensions of their humanity," Bernard says.

When she visits patients in hospital who are open to praying, Macdonald, a former nurse, says “we may pray for restoration or a cure if we think there is one, but if not, we pray for strength to accept suffering, to be at peace, to accept that in life, there is suffering. We thank God for the medical technology and the skills of doctors, nurses and other health professionals and ask that God give strength.”

Bernard adds prayer brings about insight, connectedness, understanding, tranquility, reconciliation and peaceful acceptance.

Skeptics may doubt the power of prayer, but in a recent article, Jeff Levin, a leading researcher in the area of faith and healing, noted that a review of over 1,200 studies of religion and health found a positive effect of some sort (hope, optimism, physical and emotional strength and recovery) in the vast majority.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article. And for a Urantia Book perspective on prayer and health, please consider the following:

91:4.5 Remember, even if prayer does not change God, it very often effects great and lasting changes in the one who prays in faith and confident expectation. Prayer has been the ancestor of much peace of mind, cheerfulness, calmness, courage, self-mastery, and fair-mindedness in the men and women of the evolving races.

Labels: faith, health, hospital, Pamela Fayerman, prayer, spirituality

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Thursday, September 10, 2009

Twittering God

Charlotte White, Promotions Coordinator, www.AuthorHouse.com

SCOTTSDALE, Sept. 9 /Christian Newswire/ -- For centuries chirping was a bird thing. Not anymore. Now millions of people Twitter daily to keep in contact with friends through tweet messages that say what they are doing, much like 58% of the U.S. population who pray daily according to a recent Pew Survey. But can Twitter mesh with spirituality?

"Twitter seems to fill emptiness with short messages of 140 characters or less about what's happening in life. Tweets may provide warmth to senders and receivers like an electronic blanket," says John Groh, author of Rubbing God's Ear With His Promises, a book of prayers. "While Twitter may appeal to some who want self-affirmation, praying arcs away from self by relying on God's promises," he adds.

Like Facebook and MySpace, Twitter is a social interconnector that lets "followers" maintain contact with acquaintances. Reportedly the free service played a role in the uprising in Iran this year and the Mumbai massacre of 2008.

Tweeting makes a home in some churches. Micro-blogging raises the bandwidth in several Nashville, Seattle, Charlotte and New York City churches with tweeting during sermons. One man solicits prayers to God on Twitter and then prints, rolls and inserts them in Jerusalem's Western Wall.

Labels: Charlotte White, God, John Groh, prayer, social networking, spirituality, Twitter

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Conference says teachers must listen to children who believe in angels

Conference says teachers must listen to children who believe in angels
Thursday, September 3, 2009

Children who believe they have seen angels or had other spiritual experiences often keep it a secret for fear of being ridiculed by adults, the British Educational Research Association conference was told today.

Teachers have a special responsibility to listen to children who want to talk about 'spiritual' experiences that other adults may dismiss as fantasy, says Dr Kate Adams, a senior lecturer at Bishop Grosseteste University College, Lincoln. Both the 1988 and 2002 education Acts require them to attend to children's spiritual development.

She accepts that this legal requirement is daunting, given the difficulty of defining "spiritual" and the almost impossible task of demonstrating development in spirituality. However, Dr Adams argues that teachers can at least grant children the right to have their "spiritual voice" heard. "By doing this we can show them how important this dimension of their life is and begin to combat the disinterest which can make children feel misunderstood and retreat into silence," she says.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: angels, children, spirituality, teachers

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Thursday, September 03, 2009

In pursuit of happiness

AMRITA MULCHANDANI
4 September 2009

What can make a youngster happy and content? Love? Well, not really. It’s spirituality
that can bring in a dash of sunshine. A recent survey by a music channel found out that youngsters who practice spirituality are much more happier than the ones who don’t.

"I am a great believer in spirituality. I meditate once in a day for twenty minutes," says Gunjan Patel, 22 who has been doing it since she was seven. So what makes youngsters get attracted to soul matters?

"I think, being spiritual alters one’s belief system and changes your perspective towards various things. Practicing spirituality helps a lot during difficult times and makes one optimistic," replies Patel. Forty four per cent of the youngsters consider themselves spiritual, and ten per cent say that spirituality is the most important thing in their lives.

"This is a positive trend that youngsters are inclined towards spirituality but they don’t know the right direction. Things should be presented to them in a way they understand. Being spiritual depends on how one takes it. It isn’t limited to what we see or feel but it is something we experience beyond our senses," says Archarya Brahmachari Atharvana Chaitanya associated with a leading centre of yoga and spirituality.

There are some youngsters who are open to learn about spirituality. "I believe in spirituality but not completely. I have just started to learn more about it. I think it really gives peace of mind and makes an individual calm."

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: Amrita Mulchandani, meditation, spirituality, youth

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Friday, August 21, 2009

Free-flow spirituality

R Jagannathan
Wednesday, August 19, 2009

You may have read a story in DNA suggesting that as many as 65 per cent of Americans subscribe to the Hindu way of thinking about god -- which is that there are several paths to the ultimate. Among other things, the report says that 30 per cent of Americans think of themselves as spiritual, but not necessarily religious, and a quarter believe in reincarnation.

The report, based on a Pew survey of 2008 and a Newsweek poll of 2009, does not come as a surprise. Reason: as societies become richer and are freed from basic material cravings, they will seek higher forms of self-realisation. Organised religion, with its focus on dogma and scripture, is incapable of catering to the needs of evolved minds.

Abraham Maslow, a pioneer in defining the human hierarchy of needs, built a pyramid of five levels. At the basic level, every individual has physiological needs (like food, sleep, sex). Next comes safety, followed by social needs (love and belongingness). At the fourth level, there is the need for esteem, and, finally, self-actualisation. The last could mean seeking a higher purpose in life, a spirituality that transcends self.

Society's hierarchy of needs mirror those of the individual, though no society is a homogeneous mass. It has several strata. Even in the rich west, there will be poor people with basic physiological and safety needs; even in poverty-ridden India, there will be a sprinkling of classes at the top with evolved self-actualisation needs.

That said, one can still make a few generalisations: the developed nations, which have fewer numbers of the absolutely poor and destitute, will have more people seeking higher levels of spirituality. Conversely, the poor will see better alternatives in organised religious structures, of the kind offered by traditional Christianity and Islam. In India, Hindu fears about conversions stem principally from this belief that the church and the mosque may be better positioned in terms of their social philosophies to meet the needs of the poor. Upper-end Hindu or Buddhist spiritualism appears more elitist.

Two caveats are in order here. First, by Hindu one is not merely referring to a specific religion called Hinduism, but a set of broad cultural beliefs about life, god and spirituality. You can be a Hindu by believing in any kind of god, or even no god. You accept that others may have different ideas about god. You can move far away from the base-camp of religion to find your own spiritual altitude, and you will still be reckoned as a Hindu. On the other hand, you cannot be a Christian or Muslim by accepting any other god or spiritual goal as true. Acceptance of these two faiths means implicit denial of other faiths. Which, for the spiritually evolved, can be a limiting factor...

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.
And on the subject of "self-realization," here is a Urantia Book quote which may illuminate why Hindusim may be an attractive religion for some truth-seekers...

Religious experience is markedly influenced by physical health, inherited temperament, and social environment. But these temporal conditions do not inhibit inner spiritual progress by a soul dedicated to the doing of the will of the Father in heaven. There are present in all normal mortals certain innate drives toward growth and self-realization which function if they are not specifically inhibited. The certain technique of fostering this constitutive endowment of the potential of spiritual growth is to maintain an attitude of wholehearted devotion to supreme values. 100:1.6

Labels: America, Hinduism, R Jagannathan, religion, self-realization, spirituality

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Thursday, August 20, 2009

Interfaith Spirituality 101: what are three universal lessons from Islam?

August 14,
Dr Deb Brown

This is the fifth article in a series of weekly articles about universal lessons offered by the spiritual Teachings, beginning (in alphabetical order) with Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Indigenous wisdom, and continuing this week with Islam.

This article does not address the ideas and beliefs that led to 9/11, which have been denounced repeatedly by Muslim scholars around the world. This article focuses on Islam, the sacred religion of peace founded by the Prophet Mohammad (570–632 AD), who is believed by Muslims to have directly received the word of Allah/God from the angel Gabriel and transcribed it into the Qur’an (Koran). The word "Islam" means "submission" in Arabic, and its primary focus is on humbly submitting to the Divine.

This article looks past issues that often divide us, and offers three of many Muslim lessons that could be considered universal lessons for all of us. These three lessons are not meant to capture centuries of Muslim thought and are offered in no particular order:

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: Deb Brown, interfaith, Islam, Muslims, peace, spirituality

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Friday, August 14, 2009

Buddhism strengthens ties to church

By Electa Draper
The Denver Post
Posted: 08/09/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT

What in the recent past seemed exotic and foreign is now almost routinely folded into "the fold."

Buddhism is not only accepted as a mainstream American religion, it is a path increasingly trod by faithful Christians and Jews who infuse Eastern spiritual insights and practices such as meditation into their own religions.

When John Weber became a Buddhist at age 19, his devout Methodist parents were not particularly pleased.

In recent years, however, they've invited their son, a religious studies expert with Boulder's Naropa University, to speak at their church about Buddhism.

"That never would have happened before," Weber said. "They would have been embarrassed."

The Pew Forum's Religious Landscape Survey in 2007 found that seven in 10 Americans who have a religion believe there is more than one path to salvation. A growing number of people are contemplating more than one each.

And they are contemplating contemplation itself.

There are Jubus — Jews who bring Buddhism into their practice of Judaism — and Bujus, who are Buddhists with Jewish parents. Then there are UUbus, or Unitarian Universalist Buddhists, and Ebus, or Episcopalian Buddhists. There are Zen Catholics.

"There is a definite trend and movement that will not be reversed," said Ruben Habito, a laicized Jesuit priest, Zen master and professor of world religions at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. "We are in a new spiritual age, an inter-religious age."

Search can lead back home

People are hungry for a deeper spiritual experience — meditation, mindfulness, personal transformation, deep insight, union with God or the universe.

Habito, who calls himself a Zen Catholic, is one of the experts who say the search is a little like Dorothy and her ruby slippers. The quest for meaning ultimately leads some, like Dorothy, to their own backyards.

Judaism, Catholicism and Islam have rich traditions in contemplative practices, yet these had all but disappeared from everyday congregational life.

For many Christians cut off from the past, or alienated from the faith of their upbringing, Buddhism has served as the bridge to ancient wisdom.

"The problem is the contemplative tradition in the Christian Church has had its ups and downs over the centuries," said Father Thomas Keating, a Trappist monk and leader in the Centering Prayer movement, a modern revival of Christian contemplative practice.

"We sensed that the Eastern religions, with their highly developed spirituality, had something we didn't have," Keating said. "In the last generation, 10 to 20 years, some didn't even think there was a Christian spirituality, just rules — do's and don'ts and dogma they didn't find spiritually nourishing. It's important to recover the mystical aspects of the gospel."

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: Buddhism, Christian, Electa Draper, God, interfaith, meditation, religion, spirituality

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Friday, August 07, 2009

God on the brain at Penn’s Neuroscience Boot Camp

August 5th, 2009
Tom Heneghan

Neurotheology - the study of the link between belief and the brain - is a topic I’ve hesitated to write about for several years. There are all kinds of theories out there about how progress in neuroscience is changing our understanding of religion, spirituality and mystical experience. Some say the research proves religion is a natural product of the way the brain works, others that God made the brain that way to help us believe. I knew so little about the science behind these ideas that I felt I had to learn more about the brain first before I could comment.

If that was an excuse for procrastination, I don’t have it anymore. For all this week and half the next, I’m attending a "Neuroscience Boot Camp" at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. This innovative program, run by Penn’s Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Director Martha Farah (photo below), aims to explain the latest research in neuroscience to 34 non-experts from fields such as law, business, philosophy and religious studies (as well as to a few journalists). The focus is not only on religion, but faith and issues related to it are certainly part of the discussion.

After only two of 8-1/2 days of lectures, one takeaway message is already clear. You can forget about the "God spot" that headline writers love to highlight (as in "'God spot' is found in Brain" or "Scientists Locate 'God Spot' in Human Brain"). There is no one place in the brain responsible for religion, just as there is no single location in the brain for love or language or identity. Most popular articles these days actually say that, but the headline writers continue to speak of a single spot.

"There isn’t a separate religious area of the brain, from what we can tell from the data," said Dr. Andrew Newberg, an associate professor of radiology and psychiatry at the Penn university hospital and author of several books on neuroscience and religion. "It’s not like there’s a little spiritual spot that lights up every time somebody thinks of God. When you look at religious and spiritual experiences, they are incredibly rich and diverse. Sometimes people find them on the emotional level, sometimes on an ideological level, sometimes they perceive a oneness, sometimes they perceive a person. It depends a lot on what the actual experience is."

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: belief, brain, God, neuroscience, neurotheology, religion, spirituality, Tom Heneghan

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What do your spiritual paths say about the role of play?

Tue, Aug 04, 2009
William McKenzie/Editorial Columnist

This week's question comes from our own Texas Faith panelist Amy Martin, and it certainly is appropriate given that we're still enjoying summer, a time many of us associate with play. Here it is:

We live in society where so much attention is devoted to work. But we're headed into August, the vacation month. What do your spiritual paths say about the role of play?

Read on, because there are some terrific answers from our panelists:

Please click on "external source" for the complete article. Panelists include a number of prominent religionists in the state of Texas, and the answers are quite interesting, and very thoughtful. A nice article...

Labels: Jesus, play, spirituality, William McKenzie, work

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Book Review: Medicine, Religion, and Health: Where Science and Spirituality Meet

CYNTHIA GEPPERT, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.
Albuquerque, N.Mex.

The historically recent antipathy between religion and psychiatry stemming from Freud, Ellis, and other secular intellects has been gradually reversed through the influence of the wider movement over the last several decades to reintegrate spirituality into health care. Ironically, many of the leaders of this effort have been psychiatrists, among whom none is more prolific than Harold Koenig, M.D., the author of over 40 books on the topic, several of them dealing specifically with religion and mental health. His latest work, Medicine, Religion, and Health: Where Science and Spirituality Meet, is a concise yet substantive tour of the burgeoning research base examining the relationship between religion and health. The book, which is directed toward the educated generalist, has chapters covering studies of religion and health, involving the cardiovascular and immune/endocrine systems, longevity, and disability. Mental health professionals will be particularly interested in the chapters on mind-body interactions, mental health, and diseases related to stress and behavior, as well as the final chapter on clinical applications of the research. Psychiatrists will be conversant and likely comfortable with Koenig’s overarching thesis:

It appears that psychological and social factors influence the physiological systems of the body that are directly responsible for good health and the ability to fight disease. Therefore if religious/spiritual involvement can be shown to enhance psychological health and social interactions, it is reasonable to hypothesize that religious factors may improve physical health as well, doing so by reducing psychological stress, increasing social support, and encouraging positive health behaviors. (p. 53)

Medicine, Religion, and Health: Where Science and Spirituality Meet
by Harold G. Koenig, M.D. West Conshohocken, Pa., Templeton Press, 2008, 240 pp., $14.95.

Please click on "external source" to access the entire article.

Labels: Cynthia Geppert, Harold Koenig, health, psychiatry, Psychiatry Online, religion, spirituality

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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Therapeutic music, part 1 (video)

July 13, 2009
Maria Hoaglund

"And the more souls who resonate together, the greater the intensity of their love and, mirror-like, each soul reflects the other." — Dante

Music has the power to open our hearts. It is a powerful language that speaks volumes. It is also the heart within the heart, the “sacred heart,” where we connect with everything, or the Oneness of All. No wonder music is such a powerful, healing blessing to us. The following piece was written by Jeri Howe, a Seattle musician who offers her healing, magical harp melodies to the dying, through an organization called Sacred Harmonies.

AT THE ROOT OF ALL CARING IS TOUCH

Sacred Harmonies, using harp and voice, offers music at the bedside of the ill or dying to ease physical, spiritual, and emotional pain, and to create an atmosphere of loving kindness that supports the soul in transition. Often we forget that the dying are losing their whole world: their body, their relationships, their identity. These are overwhelming losses to face. A music “vigil” at the bedside is very beneficial for both the patient and loved ones. The musical medicine that is offered is prescriptive to the patient and conveys a sense of serenity and consolation that can be profoundly soothing. Deeply spiritual in intention, the musical vigils are very practical; often the music aids in helping people sleep, or find deep rest and peace.

We play our harps for the dying because of our love and appreciation for life. The music provides a voice for this love. We play our harps so the music can accompany and journey with the person who is dying—to ease their fears and surround them with a sense of beauty and blessing. We play our harps for those suffering with pain, anxiety, and dementia, to bring them comfort. Music is a living language that communicates without words. The music carries and accompanies us into the unknown and helps release our fears and attachments. It provides us with beauty, warmth, light, and hints that we are not alone.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article, and a soothing video.

Labels: dying, harps, Jeri Howe, Maria Hoaglund, music therapy, Sacred Harmonies, spirituality

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Pitt survey indicates spiritual wellness aids in cancer fight

By Allison M. Heinrichs
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, July 9, 2009

Feeling angry with or abandoned by God increases depression in women with breast cancer, according to a survey by Pittsburgh doctors, which advises clinicians to ask patients questions about their religion and guide them to use spirituality to cope.

The yearlong survey of 284 patients explored the relationship between "religious coping" and well-being. The results, published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, indicate that doctors should listen for "red flag" comments such as, "Why is God punishing me?"

"That's a sign for clinicians that these patients are feeling abandoned," said Dr. Randy Hebert, medical director of Forbes Hospice and lead author of the report.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: Allison M. Heinrichs, cancer, God, religion, spirituality, well-being

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Thursday, July 09, 2009

Michael Jackson recognized the spiritual force and oneness in his work (video)

July 7, 2009

Michael Jackson recognized Oneness.

Michael Jackson was, like all of us, a spiritual being having a physical experience, and he spoke of that spiritual nature in a question about his work. The following is excerpted from that interview:

Question: "Do you feel a special spiritual energy when you're performing? Do you feel you are connected to a higher force because this is what you make many feel when they see you live?"

Say what you will about Michael Jackson, there is no doubt after hearing this interview that he had quite a spiritual bent. Alas, he was not "unbreakable" after all. He is a modern tragic kind of figure, possible only in the strange times in which we live. But, perhaps his words will inspire the young to find spirituality in their own lives.

For the answer to the question above, and an interesting interview. please click on "external source" at the bottom of this excerpt.

Labels: inspiration, interview, Michael Jackson, music, spirituality

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Churches Face the Boomer Challenge

MIKE HARTON TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST
Published: July 5, 2009

Two recent conversations haunt me. An old college friend, a leading-edge baby boomer (age 63) whom I knew to be a person of faith in college, told me he and his wife "had given up on the institutional church." The other con versation was with an educated professional friend, also a baby boomer, who describes herself as spiritual but not religious.

These friends' attitudes are consistent with American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS, 2008) findings that more and more of us are claiming no religious affiliation. A similar study by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 16 percent of the population has no religious identity.

Why did my college friends give up on church? Why is my spiritual friend not religious? In light of what we know about both boomers and many churches, it is not hard to speculate.

Baby boomers are as diverse a cohort as we have known. Their religious experiences run the gamut from no affiliation or faith identity to former "Jesus freaks" (from the 1960s) to very involved, regular church attenders. Some who formerly never darkened the doors of a house of worship are now actively engaged. Others who grew up in church have dropped out, many with no intention of returning.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: ARIS, Baby Boomers, church, faith, Mike Harton, religion, spirituality

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Monday, July 06, 2009

Women’s Spiritual Voices: Muslim, Jewish, and Christian

July 2nd, 2009

On May 21, 2009 the Moroccan American Cultural Center and the American Jewish Committee sponsored an interfaith panel discussion in New York City on “Women’s Spiritual Voices: Crossing Continents, Finding Common Ground.” Panelists explored the roles of women religious leaders in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, and they included three Moroccan women, Fatima Zahra Salhi, Nezha Nassi, and Ilham Chafik, who are “mourchidates” or religious counselors; Mahara’t Sara Hurwitz, a member of the rabbinic staff at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, New York; Rabbi Stephanie Dickstein, spiritual care coordinator at the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services in New York City; the Reverend Elizabeth Garnsey, associate rector at the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City; and moderator Sarah Sayeed of the Interfaith Center of New York. In 2006, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI created the mourchidates program for women to serve as religious counselors in community health programs, women’s detention centers, and mosques. Fifty mourchidates are chosen from approximately 1,000 highly qualified applicants, and they receive intensive training in 32 subject areas including law, psychology and theology. They must also have learned at least half of the Qur’an by heart. Watch excerpts from the panel discussion edited by Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly intern Juliana Comer, a senior at James Madison University.

Please click on "external source for access to the complete article, including video.

Labels: Christianity, interfaith, Islam, Judaism, spirituality, women

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Book Review: Does quantum mechanics show a connection between the human mind and the cosmos?

'Quantum Gods' analyzes purported link between physics and cosmic consciousness

Does quantum mechanics show a connection between the human mind and the cosmos? Are our brains tuned into a "cosmic consciousness" that pervades the universe enabling us to make our own reality? Do quantum mechanics and chaos theory provide a place for God to act in the world without violating natural laws?

Many popular books and films make such claims and argue that key developments in twentieth-century physics, such as the uncertainty principle and the butterfly effect, support the notion that God or a universal mind acts upon material reality. Physicist Victor J. Stenger, author of New York Times bestseller God: The Failed Hypothesis, examines these contentions in QUANTUM GODS: CREATION, CHAOS AND THE SEARCH FOR COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS (Prometheus Books, $26.98), a carefully reasoned and incisive analysis of popular theories that seek to link spirituality to physics.

"The public understanding of modern physics is seriously out of whack, thanks largely to pop junk like The Secret and What the BLEEP Do We Know? [that] promote a bogus version of quantum mechanics—the belief that 'you create your own reality' by controlling the laws of physics with your mind…," said Geoff Gilpin, author of The Maharishi Effect: A Personal Journey Through the Movement That Transformed American Spirituality. "The world has needed a book like this for a long time. If you care about scientific literacy, Quantum Gods is not optional."

Throughout the book Stenger alternates his discussions of popular spirituality with a survey of what the findings of twentieth-century physics actually mean. Thus he offers the reader a useful synopsis of contemporary religious ideas as well as basic but sophisticated physics presented in layperson's terms.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: God, quantum physics, spirituality, Victor J. Stenger

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Friday, June 19, 2009

This is your brain on religion - OpEd

Faith can bring out the best in people (love, generosity, compassion) — and the worst (fear, hatred, violence). Whether people are the former or the latter depends on how they view the God they worship.

By Andrew Newberg

When I was in high school, I dated a girl whose family regarded themselves as "born-again" Christians. It was my first encounter with devoutly religious people who strongly disagreed with my perspective on faith. They were always pleasant to me, but they were quite clear that in their view I had deeply sinned by not turning to Jesus. Oh, and because of this, I was going to hell.

It's tough enough being a teenager, but this was too much. The family's judgment disturbed me on two levels. First, I didn't like the thought of going to hell, but at the same time, their beliefs also challenged me to evaluate my own beliefs vigorously.

Distress and anxiety followed, and I realized that this was the first time that I had ever experienced such strong negative feelings about religion. And 30 years later, this episode still resonates as I conduct extensive research on religious practices and beliefs and their impact on the human person.

The research that I have come across, if not definitive, seems clear: Religion and spiritual practices generally have a positive effect on one's physical, emotional and neurological health. People who engage in religious activities tend to cope better with emotional problems, have fewer addictions and better overall health. They might even live longer than those who lead more secular lives. Indeed, many studies document that religious and spiritual individuals find more meaning in life.

Our studies at Penn's Center for Spirituality and the Mind (in conjunction with colleague Mark Waldman) of the effects of different spiritual practices, such as meditation and prayer, also reveal significant improvements in memory, cognition and compassion while simultaneously reducing anxiety, depression, irritability and stress (even when done in a non-theological context). One might come to the conclusion, then, that being religious or spiritual is a good thing. Perhaps God is great.

But not so fast. We also discovered that religion's influence on people depends very much on how they view their God.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: Andrew Newberg, God, mind, religion, spirituality

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Friday, June 05, 2009

CULTURE DIGEST: Spiritual immaturity stymies church, researcher Barna says

Posted on Jun 1, 2009 | by Erin Roach

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--An unclear understanding of spiritual maturity may be an underlying reason why there is so little progress in seeing people develop spiritually in the United States, despite overwhelming access to churches and unlimited products and resources, The Barna Group says.

"America has a spiritual depth problem partly because the faith community does not have a robust definition of its spiritual goals," David Kinnaman, Barna's president, said. "The study shows the need for new types of spiritual metrics."

Barna found that most Christians equate spiritual maturity with following the rules described in the Bible. Also, many churchgoers were unable to identify how their church defines spiritual maturity. Most Christians, Barna said, offer one-dimensional views of personal spiritual maturity, giving answers such as having a relationship with Jesus, living a moral lifestyle or applying the Bible.

Most pastors struggle with articulating a specific set of objectives for spirituality and instead list activities over attitudes, the study said. Pastors are willing to acknowledge that a lack of spiritual maturity is one of the largest problems in the nation, but few of them say spiritual immaturity is a problem in their church.

This is a very interesting and informative article, and addresses the idea of "spiritual maturity." Please see "external source" to access the entire article.

Labels: Barna Group, Christianity, David Kinnaman, Erin Roach, faith, spiritual maturity, spirituality

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Friday, May 29, 2009

Five must-read books to for health and happiness.

Five must-read books to for health and happiness.
May 25, 12:44 PM

The definition of overwhelmed? Standing in front of the self-help section at your local big box bookstore. How do you sort through all that clutter to find the best of the best? Here are five recommendations to get you started. From the practical to the spiritual, each ends up with the same core conclusions:

1. We each have a remarkable inner navigation system to guide us to our own happiness.
2. The most powerful change tools available to us are our thoughts and our imagination.

These are books to change your life.

Note: Please go to "external source" to access this list of great books for your journey. And while you're at it, don't forget The Urantia Book!

Labels: Chris Trout, happiness, health, spirituality, The Urantia Book

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Monday, May 25, 2009

Memorial Day — bivouac of the dead: hallowed, haunted Gettysburg

May 24, 3:57 PM

Memorial Day was first celebrated in 1868 as way of honoring the Civil War dead on both sides of this country’s bloody and painful war of brother against brother. Union and Confederate dead lie in common ground in our national cemeteries and remind us of the cost of war, and the cost of the union of this country.

Memorializing, or keeping memory of our war dead in a sacred way, is a deeply spiritual practice and one that shows us the true spirituality of humanity apart from any particular brand of religion. A special day of remembrance sprang up organically when some southern women decided to decorate the graves of the Civil War dead, Confederate and Union, on a day set aside for this. Originally the day was called Decoration Day because of this, and it so inspired the nation that it became the national holiday we now know as Memorial Day.

Please click on "external source" to read this poignant article about Memorial Day and its meaning

Labels: MaryEllen O'Brien, Memorial Day, peace, spirituality, war

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Faith-based weight loss

By Lynn Arave

Deseret News
Published: Friday, May 22, 2009

Losing weight is one of the greatest challenges many Americans face today. Billions of dollars are spent on weight-loss programs and yet obesity rates are still soaring. The National Institute of Health found that more than 90 percent of all fat-loss and fitness programs fail.

So, what's the solution?

The Rev. Ron Williams, 47, a resident of Utah since 1990 is the pastor of Midvale's Back to the Foundation Church. He is also a world champion bodybuilder and professor of nutrition and exercise physiology. He says the solution is a faith-based weight-loss program.

The Rev. Williams believes that "soul wounds" are one of the major obstacles to achieving fat loss. Soul wounds are trauma to the soul; personal tragedies — such as belittlement, neglect, abandonment, or verbal or physical abuse.

"Being overweight is not necessarily a sin," the Rev. Williams said, "But it can interfere with your purpose. It will not hinder you from going to heaven," though he notes, it may help you get there a little sooner.

"Having a fat-loss program is only half the solution to achieve permanent fat loss and a balanced health life," he said. "I have found that combining faith and fat loss helps people break the terrible bonds of being overweight and the hurt and shame of traumas that have been inflicted on them."

This is just a portion of the first of a two-page article. Please click on "external source" to access the entire article

Labels: faith, Lynn Arave, obesity, Rev. Ron Williams, spirituality, trauma, weight loss

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Spiritual Medicine: Bridging the Gap Between Religion and Psychology

By Gale Bataille and Bill Berkowitz
May 22, 2009

Activists and advocates have launched an initiative to further the understanding of the role of religion and spirituality in mental health. Conferences next month will bring clergy and mental health workers together to break new ground.
The wall at the Quaker-founded York Retreat, founded in 1796. Image courtesy imago

Historically, religion and mental health issues have had an uneasy relationship—and it goes both ways: people with mental illness have long faced stigma in religious communities, and mental health professionals have, for the most part, been suspicious of religion.

Mental health professionals are often trained to bracket out a patient’s religion in the name of professional boundaries, and have been encouraged to consider religion in the context of a medical model that can view spiritual beliefs as potential psychiatric symptoms. As psychologist David Lukoff explains:

This tendency, representing a form of cultural insensitivity, can be traced back to the roots of psychoanalysis as well as behaviorism and cognitive therapy. Freud saw religion as “a universal obsessional neurosis,” Skinner ignored religious experience, and Ellis viewed religion as equivalent to irrational thinking and emotional disturbance. Similarly, spiritual experiences have been viewed as evidence of psychopathology.

But the understanding of the role of religion and spirituality in mental health is changing. The California Mental Health and Spirituality Initiative (which grew out of a grassroots movement founded by activist and advocate Jay Mahler and other consumers, family members, and service providers) was established in June 2008 at the Center for Multicultural Development at the California Institute for Mental Health to advocate for the “inclusion of spirituality as a potential resource in mental health recovery and wellness.”

In advance of two upcoming California Conferences on Mental Health and Spirituality I had the opportunity to interview the initiative’s Director, the Rev. Laura Mancuso, along with Jay Mahler.

Please click on "external source" to read the entire interview.

Labels: Bill Berkowitz, Gale Bataille, Jay Mahler, mental health, religion, Rev. Laura Mancuso, spirituality

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Saturday, May 23, 2009

Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another Person?

The Science Of Spirituality
Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another Person?

by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

All Things Considered, May 21, 2009 · Ninety percent of Americans say they pray — for their health, or their love life or their final exams. But does prayer do any good?

For decades, scientists have tried to test the power of prayer and positive thinking, with mixed results. Now some scientists are fording new — and controversial — territory.

This is one of a five-part series currently running on National Public Radio (All Things Considered). This article can also be run as audio from the link below. It is well-worth the time it takes, and nice to know that such intensive research is being done on spirituality. This site has all the previous presentations as well.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: All Things Considered, Barbara Bradley Hagerty, healing, NPR radio, positive thinking, prayer, spirituality

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Friday, May 22, 2009

Book Review: " Fingerprints of God"

NPR reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty uses journalism’s tools to explore the intersection of spirituality and science.
By Gregory M. Lamb | May 19, 2009 edition

Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality By Barbara Bradley Hagerty Riverheard Books 323 pp., $33.50

Using the reporting and explanatory skills of a talented veteran journalist, Barbara Bradley Hagerty has written a compelling account of her quest to answer an age-old question: Is this all there is?

The result is Fingerprints of God, a book that sails the roiling waters between religion and science and is unlikely to make quick friends among either evangelical Christians or those in the scientific community who conclude that God cannot exist. But for readers who consider themselves to be spiritual seekers, Hagerty treads some fascinating territory.

Rather than dismissing science as the enemy of spirituality, she engages with it, seeking out scientific pioneers, the outliers who are doing intriguing work on the nature of the brain and consciousness. She also talks with ordinary people who’ve had extraordinary personal encounters, such as near-death or out-of-body experiences, that have changed their views of themselves, reality, and on the existence of an afterlife.

Hagerty, the religion correspondent for National Public Radio, comes to a less-than-startling conclusion: Science can neither prove nor disprove these great questions. But she also sees hints of a “paradigm shift” in science now under way – akin, perhaps, to the early 20th century when the work of Einstein and others took a quantum leap away from a universe based solely on 18th-century Newtonian physics.

“Hard science does not mean petrified science,” Hagerty posits. “The paradigm to exclude a divine intelligence, or ‘Other,’ or ‘God,’ to reduce all things to matter, has reigned triumphant for some four hundred years, since the dawn of the Age of Reason,” she continues. “Today, a small yet growing number of scientists are trying to chip away at the paradigm, suspecting that its feet are made of clay.”

Please click on "external source" for complete article.

Labels: Barbara Bradley Hagerty, God, Gregory M. Lamb, religion, science, spirituality

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Friday, May 15, 2009

8 Ways Faith Can Heal

Wednesday May 13, 2009

In February "Time" Magazine published some fascinating articles on the "biology of belief": how faith can heal us. Folks who attend church services on Sunday have a lower risk of dying in any one year than the guys who sleep in, read the paper, and skip all holy activities. "Spirituality predicts for better disease control," says Dr. Gail Ironson, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Miami who studies HIV and religious belief.

Okay. So how? What exactly happens in a brain when a person sings "Alleluia!" that makes her more resilient to illness than the nonbeliever? Here are 8 ways faith can heal.

Please click on "external source" to raed the list of eight ways that faith can heal. This is an interesting and hopeful article.

Labels: biology, faith, Gail Ironson, health, spirituality

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Friday, May 08, 2009

New Web Site Aims to Change the Way Americans Talk about Religion and Spirituality

First-of-its-kind site Patheos.com launches today to provide an open forum to explore, experience and engage in religious and spiritual beliefs and discussion

DENVER, May 5 /PRNewswire/ -- A new Web site designed to meet the growing online demand for credible, engaging information on religion and spirituality will launch today. Patheos.com (www.Patheos.com) aims to be the premier online destination for engaging in the global dialogue about religion and spirituality, and to explore and experience the world's beliefs. According to the Pew Internet Project, nearly 82 million Americans use the Web for faith-related reasons, pointing to the need for a credible and comprehensive online religious and spiritual destination.

Husband-and-wife entrepreneurs, parents and 20-year Web technology veterans, Leo and Cathie Brunnick were inspired to develop Patheos in 2008 when they married and were unable to find a credible, comprehensive online resource to provide guidance when blending two families from different religious backgrounds.

"With the launch of Patheos, we hope to provide access to a resource unlike any other on the Web, dedicated to providing religious and spiritual information and most importantly, constructive and meaningful dialogue," said Leo Brunnick, Patheos co-founder and CEO. "We've seen too much disrespectful, unconstructive dialogue about a topic that's important to many Americans. It's time to change the way we talk about religion, and Patheos can be the catalyst to help create this positive change."

In addition to the Public Square, Patheos visitors will find a unique variety of resources and applications...

Patheos is open to all visitors and does not support, endorse or promote any one religion, but strives to engage those of all beliefs and elevate the level of dialogue in the U.S. around important spiritual and religious topics.

To find out much more about Patheos.com, its founders and its features, please click on "external source"

Labels: Patheos.com, religion, spirituality, websites

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Monday, April 27, 2009

Major points of convergence within great spiritual traditions

Friday, April 24, 2009
By Rev. Ronald Rolheiser, OMI

When we look at all the major world religions, we see that they are more similar than dissimilar in how we understand the spiritual quest...we can draw out these major points of convergence:

---First, in all of them the aim of the spiritual quest is the same: union with God and union with everyone and everything else.

---Second, in all the great spiritual traditions the path to union is understood as coming through compassion.

---Third, in every great spiritual tradition, the route to compassion and union with God is paradoxical, requiring that somehow we have to lose ourselves to find ourselves, die to come to life, and give so as to receive.

---Fourth, every great spiritual tradition is clear that spiritual progress requires hard discipline and some painful renunciations, that the road-more-traveled won't get you home.

---Fifth, every great spiritual tradition tells us that the spiritual quest is a life-long journey with no short-cuts, no quick paths, no hidden secrets, and no appeal to privilege that can short-circuit the discipline and renunciation required.

All the great religious traditions agree: The road is narrow and hard and there are no short-cuts.

Please click on "external source" for the remainder of the similarities between religions, and an expanded understanding of these important points of religious convergence.

Labels: compassion, faith, God, Rev. Ronald Rolheiser, spirituality, unity, world religions

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Easter: Sign of Our Faith in Renewal

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Please click on "external source" for complete article.

Polls over the recent decades have consistently shown that nine in 10 Americans believe in the existence of God. A Harris Poll in 2003 indicated that roughly 84 percent professed a belief in miracles, the same number as those who believed in the survival of the soul after death. (Nearly 70 percent also believed in the devil and hell.)

A Pew Forum survey in 2007 indicated 78 percent saw the Bible as being the word of God, either literally (35 percent) or not (43 percent).

A current poll conducted by Newsweek found basic religious beliefs have varied little in decades. According to Newsweek, 78 percent still found prayer to be “an important part of daily life,” and 85 percent said religion was “very important” or “fairly important” in their lives.

No matter our specific spiritual doctrines, humans do exhibit a need to maintain hope and a faith in revival. We say that it’s only natural, and we see the basis for that belief in the continual renewal of the natural world around us.

Change is a constant.

Newsweek also reported its latest poll found that only 48 percent of those surveyed thought faith would “help answer all or most of the country’s current problems.” That’s down from 64 percent in 1994. Presumably, that means we tend to see fewer possibilities for specific spiritual beliefs solving the convoluted problem of toxic assets, bundled mortgage securities and such.

Labels: belief, Bible, faith, God, Newsweek magazine, spirituality

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Friday, April 17, 2009

Religion in America: A many splendored thing

By ARTURO MORA

Should America be guided by any specific religious viewpoint? You’d think the answer was obvious, considering the First Amendment.

Yet there are politicians and religious leaders who insist we are a Christian nation, and demand the majority religion should set the rules. They want it to dictate our laws, our education system, and even how we shop. (“There’s a “War on Christmas!” they complain.)

But are we a Christian nation?

The Pew survey also showed a lot of movement between religions. Americans are searching for meaning in their lives, and they care less about specific creeds or traditional faith lines.

For example, few in the survey said they were Buddhists. Yet mindfulness practice and meditation have grown beyond the fads they once were. Popular writers such as Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra and Thich Nhat Hanh mix Eastern and Western spiritual teachings. God, they say, is not Christian or Buddhist. God is just God.

So even if we were to agree Christianity should set the rules, whose Christianity would that be exactly?

Instead of claiming you’re oppressed, instead of yelling at one another, how about we talk to each other?

A relative of mine, a traditional Christian, called last year during a health crisis, and asked, “Have you thought that maybe the reason you got sick is you’re worshipping the wrong God?”

I explained the Buddha is not a God, and described what God meant to me. We talked for an hour about the role spirituality plays in our lives, and she directed me to a wonderful passage in Philippians (4:6-8), which helped me through my crisis. I go back to it often.

I’d love to have such discussions with many traditional Christians. If you see God and Jesus in a traditional way, or take the Bible as literal truth, I respect your beliefs.

Labels: America, Arturo Mora, Christianity, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, spirituality

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Religion Spirituality Theology Books

WEBWIRE – Friday, April 10, 2009

Dr. Andrew Cort, D.C., J.D., has launched a website, http://www.andrewcort.com, providing information on books and seminars, with free excerpts, customer reviews, and related articles, on the topics of Religion, Spirituality, Education, Science, Holistic Healing, and contemporary American Culture.

Regarding his own major work, ‘Return to Meaning: The American Psyche in Search of its Soul’, Rev. Janet McKinstry has written, “Cort demonstrates that all religious traditions have the common aim of teaching a method for enlightening our souls. When this shared noble purpose is understood, a sense of sacred meaning is restored to our lives and there is no further need for religious hatred and bigotry. All of this is made clear in a book that is entertaining, inspiring, beautifully written, and filled with amazing insights into biblical passages that have perplexed generations of scholars (I was especially moved by Cort’s exploration of the Feminine aspect of creation). His real genius is that he takes complex theology and explains it for the everyday reader.”

Labels: Dr. Andrew Cort, Janet McKinstry, religion, spirituality

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Friday, April 10, 2009

New Television-Web Series "Global Spirit" Explores Spirituality, Religion and the Science of Belief as Practiced Worldwide, premiering April 12 on Lin

New Television-Web Series "Global Spirit" Explores Spirituality, Religion and the Science of Belief as Practiced Worldwide, premiering April 12 on Link TV

Link TV presents the premiere of "Global Spirit," a nationally broadcast, pan-cultural television and web series that explores spiritual, psychological and scientific belief systems from around the world. Episodes explore the relationships between mind and spirit, science and metaphysics, and mental and physical well-being as approached by the world's ancient wisdom traditions and by modern science. "Global Spirit" is a unique 'internal travel' series that brings to light spiritual, mental and physical practices that help us to define who we are as human beings, our relationships to others -- and to the world at large. From the ecstatic state of the Turkish Whirling Dervishes, to new scientific understandings of Oneness and the interconnectedness of the universe, to the personal journeys of American veterans who return to Vietnam in search of forgiveness, "Global Spirit" explores mankind's deepest existential questions, tracing the human quest for truth and wisdom. Watch online at LinkTV.org/GlobalSpirit.

New York, NY (Billboard Publicity Wire/PRWEB ) April 6, 2009 -- A rally cry for change has been heard from Americans and people around the globe. The intense environment of conflict, fear and cultural misunderstanding of recent years has generated a yearning for a more interconnected, just and compassionate way of co-existing with our global neighbors. At the same time, we are perhaps seeking a deeper understanding of ourselves -- both as individuals and as a nation. In the midst of this burgeoning, collective reassessment, Link TV presents "Global Spirit," a nationally broadcast, pan-cultural television and web series that explores spiritual, psychological and scientific belief systems from around the world.

"Global Spirit" premieres on Sunday, April 12 at 6:00pm PT/9:00pm ET with its first original program "The Spiritual Quest," featuring acclaimed comparative religion author Karen Armstrong and professor of Buddhist studies Dr. Robert Thurman. Each week through June 14, "Global Spirit" will present the U.S. television premiere of a new program probing the trans-cultural dynamics of human inquiry. Link TV is available on DIRECTV channel 375 and Dish Network channel 9410 and on select cable stations. Programs will also be streamed in their entirety at LinkTV.org/GlobalSpirit.

For full episode descriptions and air dates, please visit our website.

Episodes explore the relationships between mind and spirit, science and metaphysics, and mental and physical well-being as approached by the world's ancient wisdom traditions and by modern science. "Global Spirit" is a unique 'internal travel' series that brings to light spiritual, mental and physical practices that help us to define who we are as human beings, our relationships to others -- and to the world at large.

From the ecstatic state of the Turkish Whirling Dervishes, to new scientific understandings of Oneness and the interconnectedness of the universe, to the personal journeys of American veterans who return to Vietnam in search of forgiveness, "Global Spirit" explores mankind's deepest existential questions, tracing the human quest for truth and wisdom.

The belief systems of many of our global neighbors lie beyond the purview of formalized religion, yet they have guided mankind through many millennia with highly evolved principles and philosophies. In August of 2005, the cover of Newsweek magazine announced the rise of spirituality in America. The issue explores how and why many Americans choose to seek spiritual experiences outside the norms of traditional church, mosque or synagogue settings. A poll conducted by Newsweek and Beliefnet found that new forms of religious experience and expression attract many Americans each year. The poll also found that 79% of those polled described themselves as "spiritual," and 70% of those polled said it was very important to them to practice their religion in order to find happiness and peace of mind. "Global Spirit" explores the emerging longing in the American psyche to explore the depths of human consciousness and the many faces of spirituality.

Rather than approaching global traditions from a detached, voyeuristic perspective, "Global Spirit" invites the viewer to test and participate in traditions as practiced by a wide range of peoples and spiritual leaders. By connecting and cross-pollinating the core concepts from the world's wisdom traditions, "Global Spirit" offers the curious viewer an exploration of new and ancient approaches to healing, forgiveness and self-knowledge. From the mystical to the religious, and from the psychological to the spiritual, "Global Spirit" offers a rich and thoughtful exploration of the world's many approaches to personal and collective well-being.

Each "Global Spirit" episode offers compelling film segments with original, on-location footage shot by the "Global Spirit" crew, together with engaging, in-depth conversations between host Phil Cousineau and a diverse set of experts such as Karen Armstrong, Dr. Robert Thurman, Deepak Chopra, Sobonfu Somé, Chief Oren Lyons, Azim Khamisa, Rev. Alan Jones, Joanne Shenandoah, Lama Lhanang Rinpoche, Robert Bly, Hamza El Din and Jai Uttal. Each week, "Global Spirit" will present a spectrum of new insights for understanding ourselves, our families, our communities, our planet -- and ultimately our place in the Cosmos.

Support for this series has been generously provided by The Kalliopeia Foundation, The Fetzer Institute, The Attar Supporting Organization, The Compton Foundation and Dreamcatchers.

Journalists may screen programs in advance at this link, please email Julia Panely-Pacetti for login information: Link TV Press Screening Room.

To access full "Global Spirit" episode descriptions, air dates, photography and press materials visit the: Link TV Press Room.

ABOUT LINK TV

Link TV is the nation's largest independent broadcaster, devoted to providing diverse global perspectives on news, current events and world culture not typically available on other U.S. networks. Link TV regularly airs a robust selection of award-winning films and documentaries that explore the human condition from different multi-cultural perspectives. Through its "Cinemondo" series, Link supports the essential cultural role of world cinema by helping Americans better understand what is happening in the world.

A pioneer in news and current affairs programming, Link TV has been recognized domestically and internationally for its original news programs including the Peabody Award-winning daily broadcast "Mosaic: News from the Middle East," which monitors and airs unedited selections of news reports from more than 30 Middle-Eastern broadcasters, and "Global Pulse," which compares and contrasts news reports from around the world on critical issues. Link also offers its viewers original, innovative participatory programs promoting national and global citizen action. Most of Link's programs are available nowhere else on American television.

Link TV is a nationwide television network available in more than 31 million U.S. homes as a basic service on DIRECTV channel 375 and DISH Network channel 9410. Select programs are shown on more than 50 urban cable systems, including New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Link TV's original programs, music videos, documentary clips and artist interviews are streamed on the Internet at LinkTV.org.

For complete background information, program schedule, and internet streaming, go to LinkTV.org.

Labels: belief, Global Spirit, Kalliopeia Foundation, Karen Armstrong, Link TV, religion, spirituality, web TV

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Sunday, April 05, 2009

More Than Medicine to Heal

Reported by: Liz Bonis

Researchers say what some call “The God Cure” seems to play a critical role in recovery.

Cole Jackson is an active college student now, but several years ago he needed serious surgery for condition called Chron's. It's an inflammatory bowel disease [IBD] where the immune system attacks the gastrointestinal tract. It is extremely painful.

“Before surgery I lost about 30 pounds,” Cold said. Medically, he has recovered so well that he now trains to run marathons.

At that time however, he said it wasn't just about the medical recovery; he made what you might call a sort of deal with God, and in the end, he says it may have played a significant role in his recovery.

“Lying in the hospital bed the night before surgery, I prayed to God and I asked him to show me my purpose in life. I placed all my pain and all my worries in the hands of God…to this day, I believe I will never have to endure as much pain as I did.”

A medical team has just published a new study which says he may be right. When Dr. Michael Yi and health psychologist Sian Cotton studied 155 adolescents with IBD and asked them about things like--how often they attended religious services, how often they prayed, whether they considered themselves to be spiritual--sure enough, they found when it comes to health and healing, with IBD or even without: “Spirituality had the biggest impact on quality of life,” Dr. Yi said.

That was found to be true not just for physical health but for mental health too. Researchers are now following up on this research to see if it applies to common childhood illnesses such as asthma.

“In general, the higher spiritual well-being was related not only to quality of life, but better emotional feeling…so less depression, less anxiety,” Yi said.

Cole said anyone who wants a spiritual connection can have one. The new study shows it helps well being, even without a chronic disease.

Cole said, “It's basically talking to God, and talking to Him like He's your best friend, say anything that's on your mind, that's what I did, and ever since, my life has changed for the better.”

Labels: Dr. Michael Yi, God, healing, Liz Bonis, mental health, Sian Cotton, spirituality

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Meditation has health and spiritual benefits

By Kenesha Beheler

March 31, 2009

Meditation is a process of reflection, contemplation and devotional exercise that has been practiced around the world for centuries. Christians pray and Buddhists chant; even nonreligious practitioners use the techniques to improve mental and physical health.

“There have been studies done at major universities, so it’s not just a lot of anecdotal evidence. For people who are spiritually inclined or not spiritually inclined, there is a tremendous physical benefit and also a psychological benefit,” said Grace Fogle, a local resident who has practiced meditation for many years. “Some of us meditate purely for health reasons, and a lot us meditate for the combined physical and spiritual benefits that we feel we receive.

“[As for the health effect] my studies in the clinical area show that any form of meditation you might learn, and there is a wide range, [is beneficial],” she said. “But there are definitely clinical studies that show that your blood vessels relax, therefore your heart has to do less work and your blood is moved through the body in a more natural, less stressful way.

“Your pulse rate drops significantly and that has to do again with the slowing of the heart; the ease in which all your body can perform its functions comes through meditation. And there is just a healing process that seems to occur because the body has its own wisdom in terms of how to heal itself. What you are doing is really enabling yourself. So even if you are taking a medication or whatever you are doing for your health, you are enhancing that therapy.

Fogle has been practicing meditation off and on for over 40 years, but within the last five she has been steady in her practice and has seen significant improvements in her own health.

“I find in my older years that now I’m turning much more to it, and it helps me mature in age more gracefully,” she said. “I am more grateful for every day and every moment, and I know my health benefits from it. It is not that you don’t have health challenges, but you deal with them very differently. Hopefully you recover quickly and with less trauma from things that you might have to go through.”

There are many forms of meditation: mantra, yoga, Tai Chi, prayer and Chi Gong. They are usually classified into two kinds: mindfulness and concentrative.

“You can incorporate meditation into every part of your life. So you can do walking meditation, where you are grateful for every step that you take. People do this now in many ways, but they just don’t call it meditation,” said Fogle. “What do you think the monks are doing or the nuns in the convents are doing? This is all prayerful meditation. If you are following a rosary or chanting, music or prayers, you are meditating. It is all the same, except it is a different form.”

Guided meditation is another form that is used, explained Fogle, in which a leader will teach the participant to sit, close the eyes, relax and take slow breaths as the leader guides the listener through a story. This form of meditation is often practiced for healing purposes and as a way to overcome challenges.

For many years people have carried a misunderstanding of meditation, she said, thinking that one had to be of a particular faith, religion or nationality to practice the methods. However, she said, anyone with an open mind can do it.

For anyone not doing it for spiritual reasons, it helps to refocus and reorganize the mind.

Labels: health, Kenesha Beheler, meditation, spirituality, stress

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Consumerism as a Spiritual Disease

Consumerism as a Spiritual Disease

...Consumerism enables the unsettling lack of equilibrium of the contemporary workplace. People will find it easier to stay in dysfunctional jobs so that they will be able to buy what Madison Avenue says that they need to be happy. Banks, credit cards, lines of credit, and a host of other facilitators step in to make all of these things attainable more easily -- with devastating results as we have seen of late. There is another sad repercussion in this consumerist cycle. The corporation or employer becomes enabled -- to do what it wants, to demand what it wants, to behave in whatever manner it wants. This occurs at the expense (literally) of the worker. After all, where will the debt-ridden employee go? In this era, options are very limited.

There is an alternative, however, a spiritual and healthier one. Christians do not pray for abundance; we pray for "our daily bread." In the Torah it was commanded that all of produce of a field or orchard not be harvested so that some would be left for those in need. The less we think we need, the happier we can become, not only with what we do have, but also with who we are as human beings.

As possessions matter less and less, something else happens. People begin to matter more and more. Talking replaces buying. Dinners with friends become places to discuss ideas and each other's lives rather than battlegrounds to prove who has the most toys or the most "A-list" friends. Families replace corporate personnel flow charts. Business contacts are replaced with real relationships. Competition is replaced with companionship. Joy arrives not in power or things or money or portfolio increases (remember those?) but in community.

A truly spiritual person understands that justice and not possessions is what really matters (please note that many people who do not consider themselves to be spiritual also promote justice over consumerism). Justice is the antithesis of "the golden handcuffs" of consumerism. Where the latter is an end-sum game of winning with the most toys, the former is about sharing them. The consumerist fails to graduate from the kindergarten mentality that "I" matter most. What matters most is that every "I" be afforded the same chance, consideration, opportunity, and respect as any other "I." Spiritual justice is meant to reach out to everyone with everything every day. While consumerism can result in hording, justice is always concerned with sharing. And sharing is healthy.

Labels: Albert Scariato, consumerism, employment, justice, sharing, spirituality, the economy

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Friday, March 27, 2009

Faith In Focus: Meditation as a spiritual practice

By James Bowman, Special to the Sentinel,
March 26, 2009

NOTE: Another kind of meditation is to be found here - called "Jesus-Style" meditation, it is a different, and very effective form of meditation practiced by the Master while he walked the earth.

What is meditation? Depending on who you ask, you might get a variety of different answers.

These days, many people are interested in meditation because it relieves stress and contributes to overall health and fitness.

For millennia, meditation has not only been a way to relax, but also a very important part of spiritual life for Buddhists.

If you have ever been to a group meditation, you know that everyone sits silently, and it can be hard to know what’s happening. This is how it works: In a single meditation session we actually engage in two types of meditation, one called analytical meditation and the other called placement meditation.

First, it is helpful to begin by taking a few moments to allow the flurry of distracting thoughts that normally consumes our minds to settle. One simple way to do this is to sit comfortably and focus on the sensation of the breath as it passes through the nostrils. With practice, distractions gradually diminish, and a peaceful feeling arises in their place.

Then, with our minds clear and free of distractions, we can begin analytical meditation. With this type of meditation we spend time analyzing or contemplating the meaning of a spiritual teaching.

For example, Buddha explained that having compassion for others leads to inner peace. If we deeply contemplate how others have been very kind to us, the disadvantages of selfish attitudes and the advantages of cherishing others, we will be able to develop a caring attitude toward others.

Once this caring attitude arises in our minds, we have found what we call the object of our meditation, which is said to be virtuous because it causes our mind to become peaceful and happy.

At this point we stop contemplating and begin the second type of meditation, placement meditation. This means we simply hold our caring attitude toward others for as long as possible without thinking of anything else. Gently allow your mind soak it up and become familiar with it. If the object of meditation is lost among other thoughts, then simply repeat the process, beginning with analytic meditation again.

Labels: Buddhism, compassion, James Bowman, meditation, peace, spirituality

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Friday, March 20, 2009

Americans Reject Labels, Not Faith

Americans Reject Labels, Not Faith

A lengthy article, well-worth the read...click on "external source"

If the new American Religious Identification Survey study tells us anything at all, it is that the categories by which people measure and define their own faith are shifting, but that is hardly something new. The personalized, even idiosyncratic nature of faith in our culture has been a growing trend for a very long time.

The bottom line is that we have always been a culture that rejected the spiritual status quo. But we have not ever been, and are not now, a culture that rejects faith. We just want in on our own terms -- that is the American spiritual tradition. The American Religious Identity Survey actually confirms that. For people invested in status quo categories, whether out of academic or theological necessity, that may be upsetting, but it need not be for the rest of us.

The results of the American Religious Identity Survey suggest that we live in a time of incredible spiritual ferment, one in which personal freedom and individual dignity are celebrated more than ever. The last time I checked, those were pretty good values to celebrate. The survey also raises important questions about the state of faith in our nation, and failing to ask them would be as mistaken as the 'death of religion' conclusion to which others have jumped.

In light of this survey, we need to ask ourselves three basic questions. First, how do people, whatever faith they follow (including no faith at all) maintain their sense of obligation to the welfare of others when personal freedom defines their identity? Without that kind of commitment, forget religion, the whole world is in trouble. How do we assure that a celebration of personal freedom is not simply cover for a culture of narcissism and selfishness?

Second, how do those of us who still feel deeply rooted in a particular tradition take advantage of this moment not to make converts, or to beef up our numbers, but to serve all people (most of whom will never sit in our pews or pay our dues) who might benefit from some of the wisdom contained within the traditions we follow? How do we use this moment in American life to become increasingly sensitive to the difference between religion as we happen to understand it and faith/belief/spiritual connection which, if they are really real, must be bigger than our particular doctrine or tradition?

Finally, are those of us who still claim attachment to a religious community or institution going to ask ourselves the tough questions raised by this survey about the credibility which religion has lost in recent decades? With violence in the name of religion on the rise, extremists becoming increasingly powerful in every segment of religious life, and the ever-more polarizing language used by ideologues ranging from absolutist atheists to radical religionists, this is not someone else's problem. If the use of traditional religious labels is on the decline, those who remain comfortable with those labels must ask ourselves what we have done to "degrade our own brand" and even more importantly, what we must do to fix it.

Labels: American Religious Identification Survey, Americans, faith, spirituality

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French Physicist Wins Templeton Religion Prize

By Ethan Cole
Christian Post Reporter
Mon, Mar. 16 2009

A French physicist and philosopher of science is the winner of the 2009 Templeton Prize for religion, the largest annual religion prize given to an individual, the foundation announced on Monday.

Bernard d’Espagnat, 87, will receive the $1.42 million prize for his work in quantum physics that shows the limits of knowable science and affirms a reality that can be explained through spirituality and art, according to Reuters.

D’Espagnat said in prepared remarks that he is “convinced that those among our contemporaries who believe in a spiritual dimension of existence and live up to it are, when all is said, fully right,” according to The Associated Press.

The John Templeton Foundation announced the prize at a news conference held at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris.

“[D’Espagnat has] explored the unlimited, the openings that new scientific discoveries offer in pure knowledge and in questions that go to the very heart of our existence and humanity,” said John Templeton, Jr., president of the foundation, at the ceremony.

Through his work, the physicist counters classical physics pioneered by Isaac Newton that says the world can be explained through laws of nature. Quantum physics, he argues, shows that tiny particles defy the laws of physics and act in unpredictable ways.

"Materialists consider that we are explained entirely by combinations of small uninteresting things like atoms or quarks," said d'Espagnat, who was raised Roman Catholic but now considers himself instead a spiritualist, in an interview with Reuters on Friday.

"I believe we ultimately come from a superior entity to which awe and respect is due and which we shouldn't try to approach by trying to conceptualize too much," he said. "It's more a question of feeling."

D’Espagnat will receive the prize May 5 in a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace in London, according to AP.

Previous winners of the prize include American evangelist Billy Graham, Roman Catholic humanitarian Mother Teresa, and Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

The Templeton Prize was established in 1972 by global investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton. The prize, given by Pennsylvanian-based Templeton Foundation, seeks to support scientific research that contributes to the “Big Questions” of science, religion, and human purposes. Each year, the Templeton Prize, which exceeds the monetary value of the Nobel Prizes, is presented in London.

Labels: Bernard d’Espagnat, Ethan Cole, quantum physics, religion, spirituality, Templeton Prize

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Sunday, March 15, 2009

The spirit moves Baby Boomers

December 2

AARP has found that Baby Boomers are intensely spiritual, believing in divine healing, miracles and guardian angels.

AARP's Knowledge Management division commissioned a study to measure, in its words, "what Americans 45 and older think about miracles and miraculous events, including what they believe about divine healings, guardian angels, the circumstances under which someone may receive a miracle, and how miraculous events have changed their outlook on life."

The telephone survey included an oversample of Hispanic respondents.

The survey found:

* 80 percent said they believe miracles occur today as they did in antiquity,
* 67 percent said they believe illness and injuries can be divinely healed,
* 37 percent said they witnessed a miracle,
* 27 percent have witnessed a divine healing,
* 11 percent of seen an angel.

In addition, younger Boomers hold to more spiritual beliefs than older Boomers: Respondents age 45-54 were more likely to believe in miracles (85 percent) than those age 55 and older (77 percent).

Also, from the oversample the survey found that Hispanic Boomers have stronger spiritual beliefs in this regard than their white counterparts:

* 86 percent believe in miracles,
* 86 percent believe in spirits and angels,
* 82 percent believe in divine healing.

Labels: AARP, angels, Baby Boomers, miracles, spirituality

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Round-the-world bicycle trip turned into a spiritual journey as well

By Steve Timko
March 12, 2009

This is page one of a two-page article...interesting reading. Please click on "external source" for complete article.

Rick Gunn left Carson City in 2003 and spent almost three years pedaling around the world on his bicycle.
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Gunn, a former photojournalist for the Nevada Appeal, pedaled across 1,200 miles of Tibet at 16,000 to 18,000 feet while stricken with giardia. As a volunteer at an AIDS hospice in Thailand, at one point he risked contracting tuberculosis while caring for a dying woman. Then there was extreme poverty in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

"I watched people being hauled off the streets in Dhaka having starved to death," Gunn said. "They have trucks that go around and pick up the dead off the streets and sing a prayer for a proper burial."

The 45-year-old Gunn's long-term goal is to write a book about the journey, but in the meantime he's putting on multi-media shows. Gunn holds one Friday in Reno.

The seeds of the round-the-world adventure were planted by his mother, who wanted to travel around Europe. A kidney disease kept her from going for a long time, and then she finally went.

"As she got there, she had to turn around because she was too sick," Gunn said. "And she died without seeing the places she wanted to see. And that taught me a very powerful lesson."

Why on a bicycle?

"When you're inside of the car, it's almost like you're watching television," Gunn said. "You can't smell the smell. You can't feel the wind around you. And most importantly, you can't come in contact with the people. ... If you're on bicycle, you're perceived as one of them, even though you're a strange one of them."

By the time he made it to central Asia, he encountered extreme poverty in places in such as Tibet, Nepal and Bangladesh. The 52-day trip across Tibet with giardia left him fatigued and seriously considering quitting, so he took a break in Nepal and went rafting for a couple of months to rejuvenate and he saw a dead child floating in the river where he was rafting.

That kind of poverty inspired Gunn's goal of volunteering in each country, or at least making a record as a journalist of those doing things that made a difference.

Labels: adventure, bicycle, poverty, Rick Gunn, service, spirituality, Steve Timko, volunteering

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

New Study Reveals Sources of Resilience and Strength for Black Girls in New York City

March 7, 2009

New Study Reveals Sources of Resilience and Strength for Black Girls in New York City

Black Girls Face Hardships and Challenges

A new and unique report, Black Girls in New York City: Untold Strength and Resilience, was released by the Black Women for Black Girls Giving Circle (BWBG), a funding initiative of The Twenty-First Century Foundation, and the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR). A key finding in the report is that the impact of poverty is especially acute in the lives of Black girls. Approximately three-quarters of the girls in the study live in low-income communities and households. Importantly, the report also explores the positive influences in Black girls' lives. It finds that girls who highly valued spirituality also tended to have an excellent relationship with their primary caretaker. Likewise, those who possessed a strong sense of racial identity were more likely than other girls to be happy on typical day, to receive better grades, to want a college education and believe in their ability to reach their goals.

New York, NY (PRWEB) March 7, 2009 -- A new and unique report, Black Girls in New York City: Untold Strength and Resilience, was released by the Black Women for Black Girls Giving Circle (BWBG), a funding initiative of The Twenty-First Century Foundation, and the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR). The report, commissioned by BWBG from IWPR pairs analysis of original data collected through written surveys and focus groups with a review of existing literature to provide an in-depth examination into the lives of Black girls living within the city of New York.

The report finds that the impact of poverty is especially acute in the lives of Black girls. Approximately three-quarters of the girls in the study live in low-income communities and households.

"Like all Black children, Black girls are at increased risk of living a life of poverty. But poverty plays out in the lives of Black girls in very distinct ways," remarked report author, Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever, affiliate scholar of IWPR and Director of the Research, Public Policy and Information Center for African American Women at the National Council of Negro Women.

"Our surveys and conversations with adolescent Black girls in New York City show that many of the girls are at an increased risk of violence because of the economic situation of their families and economic conditions of their communities," emphasized Dr. Jones-DeWeever. "For far too many of the girls in our study, poverty truncates their childhood experience."

Most survey respondents indicated that they worry about their personal safety. Among those who feel unsafe at home, most attribute their uneasiness to drug activity in their community as well as the prevalence of violent crime, fights, and gang activity. Black girls most often indicated that they felt unsafe due to frequent fights at school.

The study also examines issues of self-esteem for Black girls, a group often considered immune to the impacts of mainstream culture on body image and self-confidence. While most of the Black girls in this study seemed largely satisfied with themselves, one-fifth indicated, that if given the opportunity, they would change their bodies in some way. A few expressed keen sensitivity to issues of skin tone. Some were teased harshly for being "too Black." Others even expressed a desire for skin bleaching; and in at least one instance, that ultimate desire was not just to become lighter, but instead, to become white.

Importantly, the report also explores the positive influences in Black girls' lives. It finds that girls who highly valued spirituality also tended to have an excellent relationship with their primary caretaker. Likewise, those who possessed a strong sense of racial identity were more likely than other girls to be happy on typical day, to receive better grades, to want a college education and believe in their ability to reach their goals, and when involved in intimate relationships, to engage in self-protective behavior by insisting upon condom usage.

Please click on "external source" to access the entire article, and the study.

Labels: African-Americans, BWBG, girls, IWPR, poverty, religion, spirituality

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Friday, March 06, 2009

Women More Religious Than Men

By Robert Roy Britt, Editorial Director
28 February 2009

A new analysis of survey data finds women pray more often then men, are more likely to believe in God, and are more religious than men in a variety of other ways.

The latest findings, released Friday, are no surprise, only confirming what other studies have found for decades. Still, the new numbers illustrate interesting and stark differences. They come from a fresh review of data that was collected in a 2007 survey and initially released last year by the Pew Research Center. The percent of women (and then men) who:

* Are affiliated with a religion: 86 (79).
* Have absolutely certain belief in a God or universal spirit: 77 (65).
* Pray at least daily: 66 (49).
* Have absolutely certain belief in a personal God: 58 (45).

The survey involved interviews with more than 35,000 U.S. adults by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

George H. Gallup, Jr., in an analysis for the Gallup polling organization back in 2002, wrote that the differences in religiosity between men and women have been shown consistently across the previous seven decades of polls.

Among the reasons women tend to be more religious:

* Mothers have tended to spend more time raising children, which often means overseeing their involvement in church activities.
* Though two-income households are more common today, in the past women often had more flexible daily schedules, permitting more church involvement during the week.
* Women tend to be more open about sharing personal problems and are more relational than men. Other Gallup research shows a higher proportion of women than men say they have a "best friend" in their congregation, he wrote.

Lastly, Gallup argued, "More so than men, women lean toward an empirical [depending on experience or observation] rather than a rational basis for faith."

There may be another reason. Rodney Stark, a professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of Washington, flips the question around: Why are men less religious?

"Studies of biochemistry imply that both male irreligiousness and male lawlessness are rooted in the fact that far more males than females have an underdeveloped ability to inhibit their impulses, especially those involving immediate gratification and thrills," Stark argued in a 2002 paper in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

The upshot is that some men are shortsighted and don't think ahead, Stark said, and so "going to prison or going to hell just doesn't matter to these men."

Stark may have purposely overstated the case, but you get the point. My wife suggested another reason: Life is simply harder for women. While I can't argue with that, I also can't find any research connecting that to prayer or church attendance.

Labels: faith, George Gallup, God, Pew Research Center survey, prayer, religion, Robert Roy Britt, spirituality, women

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Friday, February 27, 2009

A Spiritual Guide for Economic Bailout

by Rabbi Michael Lerner

This is a very interesting and timely op-ed article concerning out present-day economic crisis - how it is different from any in the past, and how a different mind-set may be needed to solve it adequately.
Page 1 of 2 - Please click on "external source" for complete article.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel famously warned in November that "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste." But that is exactly what the White House and Congress have allowed to happen. Secular progressives are disappointed, but spiritual progressives are doubly so. This is a crisis that demands the deepest of revisions of our worldview and economics.

Certainly the Democrats have managed to do enough-in the way of restoring some of the programs cut by the Bush administration, helping the states deal with their own increasing budget deficits, and even initiating several new programs-for Congressional Democrats to feel they have prevailed. Next comes an even more massive bailout for the banks.

The underlying message of these measures is clear: to get out of a recession bordering on a multi-year depression, ordinary citizens must spend more money on consumer goods. This would generate jobs and help staunch a wave of massive layoffs that threaten to push official (and usually under-estimated) levels of unemployment up to 10 percent or more of the work force this year.

To progressives, this was a tremendously irresponsible misuse of the opportunity created by the crisis. The bank bailout was based on the old trickle-down economics that had been discredited by the years of Republican and neo-liberal policies that actually yielded the current meltdown. If you want to stimulate spending, progressives insist, give the money directly to those in need: Create a national bank to give loans to people who wish to buy homes or expand their businesses; provide funding to banks willing to forgive bad mortgages and renegotiate them to affordable levels; raise the minimum wage to a level that makes it a "living wage"; grant citizenship and rights to all the current illegal immigrants, making it easier for them too to spend more money on consumption; and fund a single-payer health care plan that would provide care for the 45 million-plus Americans currently uninsured (while simultaneously imposing strict cost controls on hospitals and other health-care providers).

Yet progressives too may be too limited in their thinking. The economic crisis is global and requires a global solution. Spiritual progressives insist that this is the moment for Americans to acknowledge to ourselves that our well-being depends on that of everyone else on the planet. Instead of each nation-state trying to develop policies meant to benefit only its own citizens, we need the world's major economic powers and representatives of the developing countries to cooperatively work out policies that dramatically reshape the way that we, the human race, produce and consume the resources of our planet.

A central part of such global thinking requires a new conception of efficiency, rationality and productivity. The old bottom line measured productivity and efficiency by how much money or material goods were produced. We need a "new bottom line" that evaluates corporations, government programs, laws, social policies, and even personal behavior by how much love and kindness, generosity and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity, are produced and how much we are encouraged to respond to the universe with awe and wonder at the grandeur of all that is. Hundreds of years of capitalist excess made the old more narrow utilitarian attitude seem like "common sense," because it worked to generate an ever increasing accumulation of material goods.

But the societies that have bought into that old bottom line are now reeling from the economic collapse generated when tens of millions of people acted on the assumption that trumping all ethical and spiritual concerns was the obligation to maximize one's own material well-being regardless of environmental and human-relationship consequences.

Only a year ago it might have seemed "unrealistic" or "utopian" to imagine a new bottom line and a society reconstructed on that basis. But it is no longer so far-fetched when the government is spending trillions of dollars to repair a system that based itself on a fundamentalist belief that progress could be judged by how many things we accumulated. In my book The Left Hand of God (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006) I detail what this "new bottom line" might look like in our schools, corporations, health care, legal system and our approach to foreign policy.

Spiritual wisdom and daily spiritual practice may be needed by the entire human race in order of for us to develop the intellectual and psychological foundations for a green economy. There is a difficult balance to negotiate between improving the material well-being of the most oppressed and materially deprived citizens of the planet, while teaching the majority of citizens of the more advanced societies how to reduce their level of material needs. Many today feel deprived if they cannot get a new model car every few years or dramatic escalations in the capacities of their iphones and computers.

People have to get to the point where they no longer believe that their personal success is measured by how many new material gadgets, electronic devices, automobiles, apartments or houses, home furnishings, and exotic vacations they have.

Spiritual progressives believe it is time to bring into the democratic process a discussion of the kinds of consumption that are worth fostering and the kinds that actually contribute to the further erosion of our planet's life support system.

To some the conception of democratic control of an economy is going to be dismissed as nothing more than a slippery slope toward a "command economy" that failed when tried by the communists. Yet market fundamentalism is no longer an unchallengeable element of American faith, and the values of a New Bottom Line resonate not only with those of us whose spiritual consciousness already predisposes us to question the ultimacy of material accumulation but also to millions of Americans who can no longer believe that the planet can survive based on profligate consumption of its raw materials. Thinking through the details of building a society based on shared values and committed to treating the planet as more than a bottomless cookie jar-from which we can extract whatever we wish without fear of consequences-will not be easy, and will require the fostering of a new spiritual awareness. Too many liberals and progressives, lacking a spiritual and ethical foundation for making such choices, have simply embraced the notion that any kind of spending will get us out of the current crisis.

No wonder, then, that the Obama bailout seems so completely unfocused on achieving any particular social good (e.g. adequate health care, environmental repair, or elimination of domestic or global poverty). The Obama plan reflects the lack of direction or values orientation that bedevils most progressive thinking, and reminds us of the important role that spiritual progressives from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Mahatma Gandhi to Nelson Mandela have been able to play precisely because they have this other dimension in their thinking.

A spiritual progressive approach to bailout is badly needed for the U.S. This is the moment in which biblical ethics and the wisdom of spiritual traditions are actually more realistic than the plans of the capitalist economists. Ideas like the biblical prohibitions against waste; the command to be stewards of the planet; a legal system that obligates us to care for others (which thus transcends a system of rights based only on self-protection) -all these should no longer seem utopian, but instead recognized as matters of survival for the human race.

Even the amazing biblical view of a society-wide sabbatical takes on an attractive allure. Imagine an entire society that stops its production for a given year, and relies on the food, fuel and wealth that has been accumulated during the other six years and now gets redistributed equally to everyone for the sabbatical year, meanwhile freeing the entire population from work so that they can participate in everything from job retraining to get new skills to pure vacationing with the planet to democratic assemblies in which people collectively define their societal priorities for the coming six years. A sabbatical year for every person once in seven years is a practical work benefit that should be a right of all workers. But this takes on a whole different meaning and opens up amazing possibilities for everyone if everyone takes off the same year, creating a festival of freedom and creativity that would be experienced by many as a far greater reward than any material benefits that they were giving up because their society had taken itself off the productivity grid for a year. Yes, there could be enough food and fuel and health care-though this will take careful planning for many years before implementation. But the idea itself points us into unexplored terrain: what if we really didn't have to work all the time, what if the world and our own personal world could survive on less? If, instead of appearing to be a huge sacrifice, the reduction of consumption was experienced as part of an exciting spiritual journey, it might just be possible for us to get off the juggernaut of endless material "progress" before it destroys everything.

Don't we need to work to have enough money to buy food? Well, this begs the question. We have enough food for everyone on the planet. Money has become the distribution mechanism, making it possible for some people to have way more food than they need or is good for them, while others living only miles away, don't have enough money to buy the food they need. The same is true of health care, education, and even energy. By having a year in which these goods are distributed equally and for free may be the necessary first step toward making it possible for people on the planet to imagine a world in which money is no longer the arbiter of essential goods and services.

Labels: bailout, money, President Obama, Rabbi Michael Lerner, spirituality, the economy

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Keeping (Or Finding) The Faith

Keeping (Or Finding) The Faith
Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009

Not all that long ago, you'd have had a hard time finding a research institute, an academic department or even a decent conference exploring the link between spirituality and health. And with good reason. Health is science, spirituality is something else entirely, and people who say otherwise clearly need to sit down with a medical journal or two.

But that's all changing. Everyone's got a stake in getting human health right--whether families and individuals simply trying to stay well or governments trying to build a functioning health-care system that doesn't break the bank. With so much on the line, no one can afford to take options off the table.

For that reason, investigators around the world backed by both public and private money are studying the faith factor in all manner of diseases and conditions. They have examined the spiritual-care needs of children with terminal illnesses and looked at how religion and superstition affect schizophrenia in China and how spirituality influences the well-being of college students in Malta and nuns in India. They have probed the links between religion and psychological woes too: neuroticism in Dutch twins, obsessive-compulsive symptoms in Italians, death anxiety among Egyptian nursing students and substance abuse in adolescents in Jerusalem. They have tried to measure the benefits of Bible therapy for patients with Alzheimer's disease, as well as the impact of religious guilt and congregational criticism on doubting members of the flock. They've looked at the health effects of psychoactive sacramentals (think peyote) and the spiritual preferences of neo-pagans (think Wiccans and druids).

The fact that what began as a trickle of studies has become a torrent doesn't mean that everyone is happy, and many scientists will continue to have nothing to do with what they see as fluff. Still, the movable feast of institutes, academic treatises, self-help books, websites, healing centers and luxury spas with a spiritual bent grows steadily larger. Here is just a sampling of what's available.

Please click on "external link" for the list of spiritually focused healing sites.

Labels: faith, health, science, spirituality, websites

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The Biology of Belief

The Biology of Belief
By JEFFREY KLUGER Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009

This is page one of a four-page article - well worth the read. Please click on "external source" to access the entire article

Most folks probably couldn't locate their parietal lobe with a map and a compass. For the record, it's at the top of your head — aft of the frontal lobe, fore of the occipital lobe, north of the temporal lobe. What makes the parietal lobe special is not where it lives but what it does — particularly concerning matters of faith.

If you've ever prayed so hard that you've lost all sense of a larger world outside yourself, that's your parietal lobe at work. If you've ever meditated so deeply that you'd swear the very boundaries of your body had dissolved, that's your parietal too. There are other regions responsible for making your brain the spiritual amusement park it can be: your thalamus plays a role, as do your frontal lobes. But it's your parietal lobe — a central mass of tissue that processes sensory input — that may have the most transporting effect. (Read "Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs".)

Needy creatures that we are, we put the brain's spiritual centers to use all the time. We pray for peace; we meditate for serenity; we chant for wealth. We travel to Lourdes in search of a miracle; we go to Mecca to show our devotion; we eat hallucinogenic mushrooms to attain transcendent vision and gather in church basements to achieve its sober opposite. But there is nothing we pray — or chant or meditate — for more than health.

Health, by definition, is the sine qua non of everything else. If you're dead, serenity is academic. So we convince ourselves that while our medicine is strong and our doctors are wise, our prayers may heal us too.

Here's what's surprising: a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that faith may indeed bring us health. People who attend religious services do have a lower risk of dying in any one year than people who don't attend. People who believe in a loving God fare better after a diagnosis of illness than people who believe in a punitive God. No less a killer than AIDS will back off at least a bit when it's hit with a double-barreled blast of belief. "Even accounting for medications," says Dr. Gail Ironson, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Miami who studies HIV and religious belief, "spirituality predicts for better disease control." (Read "Finding God on YouTube.")

It's hard not to be impressed by findings like that, but a skeptic will say there's nothing remarkable — much less spiritual — about them. You live longer if you go to church because you're there for the cholesterol-screening drive and the visiting-nurse service. Your viral load goes down when you include spirituality in your fight against HIV because your levels of cortisol — a stress hormone — go down first. "Science doesn't deal in supernatural explanations," says Richard Sloan, professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and author of Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine. "Religion and science address different concerns."

That's undeniably true — up to a point. But it's also true that our brains and bodies contain an awful lot of spiritual wiring. Even if there's a scientific explanation for every strand of it, that doesn't mean we can't put it to powerful use. And if one of those uses can make us well, shouldn't we take advantage of it? "A large body of science shows a positive impact of religion on health," says Dr. Andrew Newberg, a professor of radiology, psychology and religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founder of Penn's Center for Spirituality and the Mind. "The way the brain works is so compatible with religion and spirituality that we're going to be enmeshed in both for a long time."

It's All in Your Head
"enmeshed in the brain" is as good a way as any to describe Newberg's work of the past 15 years. The author of four books, including the soon-to-be-released How God Changes Your Brain, he has looked more closely than most at how our spiritual data-processing center works, conducting various types of brain scans on more than 100 people, all of them in different kinds of worshipful or contemplative states. Over time, Newberg and his team have come to recognize just which parts of the brain light up during just which experiences.

When people engage in prayer, it's the frontal lobes that take the lead, since they govern focus and concentration. During very deep prayer, the parietal lobe powers down, which is what allows us to experience that sense of having loosed our earthly moorings. The frontal lobes go quieter when worshippers are involved in the singular activity of speaking in tongues — which jibes nicely with the speakers' subjective experience that they are not in control of what they're saying.

Labels: Andrew Newberg, brain, faith, health, Jeffrey Kluger, medicine, parietal lobe, prayer, religion, science, spirituality

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The Cost of Unbelief

By: Simon Smart
Posted: Tuesday, 10 February 2009, 9:43 (EST)

This is the first of a three-page article - well worth reading. Just click on "external source" to access the entire article.

Australian atheists were recently prevented from running a series of ads on buses with the message, “There’s probably no God, so sleep in on Sundays.” It was a funny ad and should have been permitted, and if the Bureau of Statistics A Picture of a Nation report is anything to go by, there’s a generation of young people who don’t need convincing. According to the latest figures young Australians are increasingly secular with the proportion of people stating ‘no religion’ on their census form up from 6.7% in 1971 to 19% in 2006; the younger generation leading the charge to the beach on Sunday mornings (or perhaps staying under the doona). 23.5% of 15 – 34 year-olds did not specify a religion compared with 7.9% of Australians 65 and older.

No doubt this finding will be good news to those who believe religion has only paranoia, superstition, violence and hypocrisy to contribute to society, and there are plenty of them. Freud famously articulated the notion that religion is a neurosis. Likewise, Psychologist Albert Ellis saw only the pernicious effects of religion on individuals, claiming that ‘Religiosity … is in many respects equivalent to irrational thinking and emotional disturbance.’ (Ellis, 1980, 67)

But the latest scientific data on the effects of religiosity on health, might give us reason to pause. In 2001 Duke University researchers conducted a large survey of 100 evidence-based studies of the correlation between religion and well-being and found that 79 reported a positive correlation, 13 no correlation, 7 mixed correlation and 1 a negative correlation.1 The masses of research completed since then has largely pointed in the same direction.

This is a growing field. It reflects a more serious attempt to integrate ‘whole-person care’ in medical areas that previously gave little importance to the spiritual side of patient management. Of the 141 medical schools in the U.S. and Canada 70% now offer courses on religion, spirituality and medicine.

This is largely a response to the vast amount of data emerging over the last eight years that reveals positive correlations between commitment to religion and better outcomes for dealing with depression and anxiety, strength of immune systems, cardiovascular health and even longevity.

It is well accepted that stress and depression have serious adverse health impacts and studies that show religious coping improves outcomes in this area need to be taken seriously. It is the scientists who are telling us that religious involvement is associated with lower rates of a host of stress-related medical conditions including cardiovascular disease, stroke, immune and endocrine functioning, cancer—especially gastrointestinal, breast and oral—and better outcomes for cancer in general.

It is worth quoting some research to give a small taste of the sort of data being reported:

Labels: atheism, depression, mental health, religion, science, Simon Smart, spirituality

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Friday, February 06, 2009

Study: Service Attendance, Not Spirituality, May Decrease Suicide Risk

By Aaron J. Leichman
Christian Post Reporter
Tue, Jan. 20 2009 11:20 AM EST

Religious individuals have a significantly lower chance of committing suicide, according to the results of a recent study in Canada.

Individuals identifying themselves simply as “spiritual” but not religious, however, are not much less likely to commit suicide than anyone else.

Conducted using data drawn from the Canadian Community Health Survey on almost 37,000 Canadians across the country, the latest study by a team of psychiatric researchers based at the University of Manitoba was the first to use national data to look at the relationship between spirituality, religious worship and suicidal behavior in the general population and people with a history of a mental disorder.

However, what was more interesting was the differences between people who call themselves “spiritual” and those who also regularly attend religious services.

According to the data, the former category did not show a decreased inclination to take their lives, suggesting something more was involved that was related to the actual attendance at a religious event occurring in a church, mosque, temple or other spiritual gathering.

Furthermore, among people with a history of mental illness – those at the highest risk of suicide –religious attendance appeared to be associated with a decrease in suicide attempts while simply being “spiritual” was not significant enough to reduce the effect.

Despite the findings, Rasic cautioned against tying the decrease in suicide attempts directly to religious worship.

For most studies dealing with spirituality and religiousness, spirituality is considered as referring to an inner belief system that a person relies on for strength and comfort whereas religiousness refers to institutional religious rituals, practices, and beliefs.

For the recent Canadian study, religiousness was based on a person’s attendance at a religious worship service.

The research results have been published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Labels: Aaron J. Leichman, Canada, Canadian Community Health Survey, church, religion, spirituality, suicide

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Elder speaks softly with drum

Wednesday, January 14, 2009
By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer

A tribal elder is more than just another aging person. To be called an elder is a sign of respect for someone who has had a lifetime of lessons, who is committed to preserving tradition through language, song and ritual, and who has the desire to pass it on to younger generations.

Horace Axtell, 84, is a Nez Perce elder who was born in Ferdinand, Idaho in 1924. His family had been baptized but still held the Nez Perce ways close. Axtell spent his youth absorbing traditional ways of the tribal elders, some of whom were survivors of the 1877 Big Hole (or Bear Paw) War when Chief Joseph led his people north. On their trail were cadres of soldiers, who under President Ulysses Grant's orders attempted to clear the Nez Perce homeland.

His father eventually left the family, and his grandmother, mother and an aunt raised him. At his birth he was named Isluumc, but also given an English name, as was custom.

"To show respect some people will call me Isluumc," he said. "That is an honor to be called by your Indian name. We had discipline in them days. Everything was taught and told to us in our language. When I grew up I spoke our language first. I'm real happy I was raised that way. Not to many left that speak it anymore—when I grew up everyone did."

He is a veteran of World War II, and was among one of the first expeditionary forces to witness the haunting devastation in Nagasaki after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. That same year his mother died and their family home burned down. Upon his return he moved to Lewiston. For 36 years he toiled at the Potlatch mill, retiring in 1986.

"That's how I got my home," he said from his home in Lewiston. "I earned this place."

He and his wife had eight children and 27 grandchildren who all live nearby on the reservation.

Axtell is now a spiritual leader of the Seven Drum religion, a traditional religion of the tribes of the plateau that requires practitioners to memorize songs and accompany them on handmade, hand-held drums. Until arthritis set in, Axtell constructed the drums in the old way, curing the hides and stretching them over wooden frames.

"To sing and play the drum, it's our spirituality," he said. "Most of our songs that we sing are prayers. We use the drum and the bell. It's kind of a director. It makes the song come out stronger. The songs are about life, everyday life, children, relatives, friends and special days. Each song has a special meaning. All handed down. Comes out of your heart. Not written down. We don't record our songs. That's not the way we learned them. We learned them from the heart."

In 1992, Axtell was the subject of a documentary, "Nee-mee-poo: The Power of Our Dance." He made national news again in 1997 when he blessed the newly recovered ancestral lands of the Nez Perce in Willowa County, Ore., where the battles of 1877 were held.

His memoir, "A Little Bit of Wisdom: Conversations With a Nez Perce Elder," co-written with Margo Aragon, was published in 1997. It was the first printed memoir of a Nez Perce elder in more than 50 years.

For nearly nine years, Axtell taught the traditional language of the Nez Perce at Lewis and Clark College in Lewiston.

"I was strict on pronunciation. Non-Indian doesn't have the right pronunciation. I worked with a guy at the college. It got to the point that I corrected him on pronunciation," he said, chuckling. "It didn't go over very well. Now they have a linguist. Not an Indian. It don't go over like when I was teaching it. I had 35 or 40 students all the time. I had a good class. We have some young people stepping up. I helped them. A few come and ask me question and how to spell words. I'm always happy to help them."

For his work in late 2008, Axtell was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship.

"I spent four days in Washington, D.C., for that," he said. "It was good, exciting. I met more people and the others who got the award when I did. We got acquainted."

His efforts have also been recognized with the Washington State Historical Society Peace and Friendship Award, an honorary doctorate from Lewis-Clark State College, and the President's Medallion from the University of Idaho.

A few years before his father's death, Axtell found him at long last.

"From him I learned about his family. His grandfather was a warrior, killed at the last battle of Bear Paw (in 1877). I didn't know these things."

Axtell still owns the land where he was born.

"I rent it out for a pastureland," he said. "That's what I like about it. We had horses there and I used to ride around it. I rode horses until about two years ago. But I had two knee replacements and a hip. But I go there and drive around sometimes. It's my home."

Labels: Dana Dugan, Horace Axtell, Nez Perce, Seven Drum, spirituality

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Spirituality, Not Religion, Makes Kids Happy

The link between spirituality and happiness is pretty well-established for teens and adults. More spirituality brings more happiness. Now a study has reached into the younger set, finding the same link in "tweens" and in kids in middle childhood.

Specifically, the study shows that children who feel that their lives have meaning and value and who develop deep, quality relationships — both measures of spirituality, the researchers claim — are happier.

Personal aspects of spirituality (meaning and value in one's own life) and communal aspects (quality and depth of inter-personal relationships) were both strong predictors of children's happiness, said study leader Mark Holder from the University of British Columbia in Canada and his colleagues Ben Coleman and Judi Wallace.

However, religious practices were found to have little effect on children's happiness, Holder said.

Religion is just one institutionalized venue for the practice of or experience of spirituality, and some people say they are spiritual but are less enthusiastic about the concept of God.

Other research has shown a connection between well-adjusted and well-behaved children and religion, but that is not the same, necessarily, as happiness.

Spirituality trumps temperament

In an effort to identify strategies to increase children's happiness, Holder and colleagues set out to better understand the nature of the relationship between spirituality, religiousness and happiness in children aged 8 to 12 years.

A total of 320 children, from four public schools and two faith-based schools, completed six different questionnaires to rate their happiness, their spirituality, their religiousness and their temperament. Parents were also asked to rate their child's happiness and temperament.

A child's temperament was also an important predictor of happiness. In particular, happier children were more sociable and less shy. The relationship between spirituality and happiness remained strong, even when the authors took temperament into account.

However, counterintuitively, religious practices — including attending church, praying and meditating — had little effect on a child's happiness.

And therein may lie some useful information for parents.

More on teens and spirituality

Another research project recently added weight to previously known links between spirituality and happiness among teens.

This researchers compared teenagers with the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) with their healthy peers. The analysis showed that while spirituality helped all the kids cope, it was especially helpful for the ones with IBD (which causes abdominal pain and other nasty symptoms, as well as higher risk for psychosocial difficulties and mental health problems; it is more serious than and not the same as IBS or spastic colon). The exact cause of IBD is not known, and there is no cure.

The researchers, Dr. Michael Yi and Sian Cotton at the University of Cincinnati, defined spirituality as one's sense of meaning or purpose in life or one's sense of connectedness to the sacred or divine. Again, they weren't talking about religion, church, temple or mosque.

Teams led by Yi and Cotton collected data on socio-demographics, functional health status and psychosocial characteristics as well as spiritual well-being for 67 patients with IBD and 88 healthy adolescents between the ages of 11 and 19.

One of the most important predictors of poorer overall quality of life for both the healthy and the sick teens was having a poorer sense of spiritual well-being, Yi said, although personal characteristics such as self esteem, family functioning and social support were similar between adolescents with IBD and their healthy peers.

Less depression, more well-being

Cotton's analysis of the same 155 adolescents found that higher levels of spiritual well-being were associated with fewer depressive symptoms and better emotional well-being.

The results were detailed in recent online versions of the Journal of Pediatrics and the Journal of Adolescent Health. Yi's and Cotton's research was funded by career development awards by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Labels: children, Dr. Michael Yi, happiness, relationship, religion, Sian Cotton, spirituality

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Time-crunched believers find ways to squeeze in God

Jan. 7, 2009
Los Angeles Times

So you're racing through another jam-packed day, late picking up the kids from basketball practice because you got stuck at the office. Then you pay the bills, walk the dog and perhaps grab cold pizza before collapsing into bed.

When do you ever find time for God?

One publisher has the answer: The One-Minute Bible, Day by Day, whose brief readings promise to inspire your "daily walk with the Lord."

Or check out 5 Minute Theologian: Maximum Truth in Minimum Time.

Because man does not live by bread alone - and might be tempted to eat on the run - there's Aunt Susie's 10-Minute Bible Dinners: Bringing God into Your Life One Dish at a Time.

The American style of worship, like everything else in overloaded lives, is speeding up. Call it God on the go.

This hurried search for the Almighty partly explains the rise of a niche industry of books, DVDs, podcasts, text messages and e-mail blasts that distill the essentials of faith.

The materials offer bite-size spiritual morsels that can be digested in minutes, or even seconds, on the daily commute, aboard airplanes or at the dinner table. As 7 Minutes With God promises, "Learn how to plan a daily quiet time that takes just 7 minutes." And what about your over-programmed 10-year-old? Again, religious publishers have an answer: The Kid Who Would Be King: One Minute Bible Stories About Kids.

Publishers aren't the only ones adjusting to the time pressures on modern religious life. Rabbis and ministers, aware that worship is just another weekend option for many parishioners, are shortening their sermons and taking other steps to entice worshipers

Traditionalists say that quick-hit spirituality can be useful but that it's no substitute for true learning or involvement in a religious community. Even some of the die-hard faithful, however, see the prophetic writing on the wall.

The Rev. Leith Anderson leads a 2,900-member church in suburban Minneapolis and is president of the National Association of Evangelicals. He also produces a daily radio segment - FaithMinute - that is heard throughout the Midwest.

"It's preaching to people who have never been in the choir," Anderson said.

Even as traditional worship attendance languishes, an appetite for spirituality has created new opportunities for alternative forms of religious communication, publishers say. Podcasts and other electronic adaptations are leading the way.

Only about one-quarter of Americans attend weekly religious services, a figure that has remained relatively steady over most of the past century, according to sociologists who study religion. Yet many Americans feel a need to connect regularly with a supreme being.

A recent national survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 71 percent of people were absolutely certain about their belief in God and that 58 percent said they prayed daily outside of religious services.

Labels: church, God, Pew forum on Religion, religion, spirituality

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Friday, January 02, 2009

Spirituality spot found in brain

2008-12-25 10:28

What makes us feel spiritual? It could be the quieting of a small area in our brains, a new study suggests.

The area in question - the right parietal lobe - is responsible for defining "Me," said researcher Brick Johnstone of Missouri University. It generates self-criticism, he said, and guides us through physical and social terrains by constantly updating our self-knowledge: my hand, my cocktail, my witty conversation skills, my new love interest ...

People with less active Me-Definers are more likely to lead spiritual lives, reports the study in the current issue of the journal Zygon.

Most previous research on neuro-spirituality has been based on brain scans of actively practicing adherents (i.e. meditating monks, praying nuns) and has resulted in broad and inconclusive findings. (Is the brain area lighting up in response to verse or spiritual experience?)

So Johnstone and colleague Bret Glass turned to the tried-and-true techniques of neuroscience's early days - studying brain-injured patients. The researchers tested brain regions implicated in the previous imaging studies with exams tailored to each area's expertise - similar to studying the prowess of an ear with a hearing test. They then looked for correlations between brain region performance and the subjects' self-reported spirituality.

Among the more spiritual of the 26 subjects, the researchers pinpointed a less functional right parietal lobe, a physical state which may translate psychologically as decreased self-awareness and self-focus.

The finding suggests that one core tenant of spiritual experience is selflessness, said Johnstone, adding that he hopes the study "will help people think about spirituality in more specific ways."

Spiritual outlooks have long been associated with better mental and physical health. These benefits, Johnstone speculated, may stem from being focused less on one's self and more on others - a natural consequence of turning down the volume on the Me-Definer.

In addition to religious practices, other behaviors and experiences are known to hush the Definer of Me. Appreciation of art or nature can quiet it, Johnstone said, pointing out that people talk of "losing themselves" in a particularly beautiful song. Love, and even charity work, can also soften the boundaries of "Me," he said.

The greatest silencing of the Me-Definer likely happens in the deepest states of meditation or prayer, said Johnstone, when practitioners describe feeling seamless with the entire universe. That is, the highest point of spiritual experience occurs when "Me" completely loses its definition.

Labels: brain, neuro-spirituality, selflessness, spirituality, Zygon

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Thursday, December 18, 2008

Selflessness Has Neuropsychological Connection

By: University of Missouri - Wed, 12/17/2008

All spiritual experiences are based in the brain. That statement is truer than ever before, according to a University of Missouri neuropsychologist. An MU study has data to support a neuropsychological model that proposes spiritual experiences associated with selflessness are related to decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain. The study is one of the first to use individuals with traumatic brain injury to determine this connection. Researchers say the implication of this connection means people in many disciplines, including peace studies, health care or religion can learn different ways to attain selflessness, to experience transcendence, and to help themselves and others.

This study, along with other recent neuroradiological studies of Buddhist meditators and Francescan nuns, suggests that all individuals, regardless of cultural background or religion, experience the same neuropsychological functions during spiritual experiences, such as transcendence. Transcendence, feelings of universal unity and decreased sense of self, is a core tenet of all major religions. Meditation and prayer are the primary vehicles by which such spiritual transcendence is achieved.

“The brain functions in a certain way during spiritual experiences,” said Brick Johnstone, professor of health psychology in the MU School of Health Professions. “We studied people with brain injury and found that people with injuries to the right parietal lobe of the brain reported higher levels of spiritual experiences, such as transcendence.”

This link is important, Johnstone said, because it means selflessness can be learned by decreasing activity in that part of the brain. He suggests this can be done through conscious effort, such as meditation or prayer. People with these selfless spiritual experiences also are more psychologically healthy, especially if they have positive beliefs that there is a God or higher power who loves them, Johnstone said.

“This research also addresses questions regarding the impact of neurologic versus cultural factors on spiritual experience,” Johnstone said. “The ability to connect with things beyond the self, such as transcendent experiences, seems to occur for people who minimize right parietal functioning. This can be attained through cultural practices, such as intense meditation or prayer or because of a brain injury that impairs the functioning of the right parietal lobe. Either way, our study suggests that ‘selflessness’ is a neuropsychological foundation of spiritual experiences.”

The research was funded by the MU Center on Religion and the Professions. The study – “Support for a neuropsychological model of spirituality in persons with traumatic brain injury” – was published in the peer-reviewed journal Zygon.

“Our research focused on the personal experience of spiritual transcendence and does not in any way minimize the importance of religion or personal beliefs, nor does it suggest that spiritual experience are related only to neuropsychological activity in the brain,” Johnstone said. “It is important to note that individuals experience their God or higher power in many different ways, but that all people from all religions and beliefs appear to experience these connections in a similar way.”

Labels: brain, Brick Johnstone, neuroscience, selflessness, spiritual experience, spirituality, Zygon

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Sunday, December 07, 2008

Researchers Stepping Up Study of Health And Religiosity

Small Field Devoted To Exploring Possible Link Is Expanding Despite Criticism, Lack of Funding

To critics, the few dozen researchers who met this week for a Washington conference are part of an ideological crusade, a modern-day sham meant to infect science with religious belief.

To participants, they are studying what they say is becoming increasingly obvious: the link between a person's religion or spirituality and their health.

The meeting Wednesday at the Reagan Building represented the growth of a research field that has existed on a small scale for decades but has expanded significantly in the past few years. The researchers include psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, statisticians and others who believe being religious or spiritual has health benefits.

Jennifer Marshall of the Heritage Foundation, one of the conference hosts, said the advocates' goal is to make religiosity one of the benchmarks that policymakers use to measure health, alongside other factors such as socioeconomic status and age.

But to the field's many challengers, empirical proof linking religiosity and health is weak. If being a church member improves one's health, it could be due to the social contact, and being on a soccer team could create the same results, they say. If prayer calms the heart, secular yoga class could as well.

Still, the field is growing. Harold Koenig, a psychiatrist and behavioral scientist at Duke University, tallied about 6,200 published studies on the issue in professional journals before 2000, and 7,145 articles between 2000 and 2008.

Funding, however, doesn't appear to be increasing significantly. The federal government invested in recent studies that produced conflicting results. But interest from the John Templeton Foundation has been a massive boost, Koenig said, adding that it funds about 75 percent of today's research.

The field is working to become more credible, and to overcome early, well-publicized studies that looked at whether people's health would be improved if others prayed for them without their knowledge. Most mainstream scientists dismissed the research and even supporters of the field said the studies were not well done.

About half of U.S. medical schools now have courses on religion's link to health, said Byron Johnson, a Baylor University sociologist.

Columbia University behavioral psychiatrist Richard Sloan, a well-known critic of the research who was not at the conference, said the subject seems to be gaining ground because spirituality and health are booming American trends.

"The confluence of the two is irresistible to the media, and in general," he said. Policymakers are also looking at it more seriously, he said, "for no good reason. Understandable reasons, but none very good."

But measuring religiosity, and how to isolate it from other personal factors, is not possible, he said.

Measuring how often someone attends worship services or prays cannot fully gauge an individual's beliefs. Such measurements also don't capture religion as it is practiced and understood in 2008, with many people moving away from denominational identity and church membership. Instead, conference participants discussed other yardsticks, such as people's perceptions of God, how close they feel to God, and how often they feel supported by their faith community.

Labels: faith, Harold Koenig, health, Michelle Boorstein, religiosity, spirituality

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Thursday, November 27, 2008

Organised religion is rapidly losing out to ‘spirituality’

Editorial by Terry Sanderson

...a survey of 6,853 young people between the ages of 12 and 25 found that they preferred being “spiritual” to being religious. A third of the sample said they didn’t trust organised religion.

The survey was conducted by the Minneapolis-based Search Institute and released last week. The first question was, “What does it mean to be spiritual?” There were nine choices, running from “believing in God” to “being true to one’s inner self.” They also could say that there is no spiritual dimension, and there was an “I don’t know” option. 93% of the young people surveyed believe there is a spiritual aspect to life.

But before the “faith leaders” start jumping for joy, we have to look more closely at what these youngsters men by “spiritual”. “Spending time in nature” topped the list of responses. “Listening to or playing music” was No. 2, and “helping other people or the community” was third. “Attending religious services” came ninth.

The churches are helpless in the face of this trend, which is mirrored throughout the Western world. Young people hate the authoritarian, unjust and bigoted way in which they see organised religion behaving. Some of them who were questioned further by the pollsters said they didn’t like the sexism and homophobia and the attendant cruelty. They didn’t like the way that religions all claimed superiority over other world views.

It’s a trend we should welcome and encourage. Eventually it will rob the arrogant “faith leaders” of their power to create conflict. Young people are showing that it is time for a change. And they don’t see that change coming from the churches or the mosques. They have started on a new journey, and although it will lead many of them to other forms of superstition and irrationality, many others will conclude that they don’t need any of the supports of unreason and will end up perfectly contented atheists with an attendant “spirituality” that most of us would simply define as common sense and human compassion.

Labels: Authoritarian, change, organized religion, Search Institute, spirituality, Terry Sanderson

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Obama taps into our yearning for meaning, spirituality

BY DESIREE COOPER
• FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
• November 19, 2008

The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States was a defeat for the Christian right, but that doesn't mean that faith didn't play a major role in Obama's resounding victory. While the Republican Party ran under the mantra of "God and country," Obama tapped into something possibly even bigger -- God and spirit.
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A survey out this month revealed that 52% of Americans age 12 to 25 say that they don't trust organized religion, but that they are increasingly spiritual. According to the Minneapolis-based Search Institute, young people are turning away from their churches, mosques and temples and finding God in nature, music, friends and community service.

A 2008 University of California Los Angeles study showed that 62% of college students see themselves as spiritual and believe attaining inner peace is an essential life goal. In that study, spirituality was defined as caring about the condition of others and of the world.

It's easy to see how Obama's rhetoric would appeal to them, and to the countless adults who consider themselves nonreligious, but spiritual. His language of hope resonated with the spiritual teachings of love over fear. For the spiritual-minded, community organizing is not something to ridicule, but to emulate. I can't tell you how many e-mails and bumper stickers I see bearing the Gandhi quote: "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Change -- now there's a holy idea.
Deep connections

Opponents pegged Obama's optimism as naive. But his political rhetoric dovetailed with a pervasive spirituality that teaches that words and thoughts do shape reality. Want to know the secret? Thinking can indeed make it so.

Obama's exhortation for Americans to transcend difference was also in synch with a spiritual world view. When the Dalai Lama received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007, he, too, urged America to govern "from the perspective of the oneness of humanity, and from a profound understanding of the deeply interconnected nature of today's world."

Even Obama's slogan, "Yes we can," could have been out of the mouths of the best-selling spiritual writers of our time, from Wayne Dyer to Deepak Chopra to Eckhart Tolle.

On the day after the election, Marianne Williamson, author of "Healing the Soul of America," e-mailed a mass message. In it, she observed that "the Obama phenomenon did not come out of nowhere. It emerged as much from our story as from his -- as much from our yearning for meaning as from his ambition to be President."

For those of us who have learned to expect a miracle, we got it in our new president. But the real miracle has been our own spiritual awakening that made his election possible.

Whether President-elect Obama knows it or not, he is backed by an army of believers -- people who understand that the promised change is not just his responsibility, but the responsibility of each of us.

Labels: Barack Obama, change, Desiree Cooper, faith, hope, spirituality

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Friday, November 21, 2008

Survey: Most Youth Worldwide Spiritual, Say Religion is Good

By Michelle A. Vu
Christian Post Reporter
Mon, Nov. 17 2008

Page one of a two-page article. Please click on "external link" at the bottom to access entire article

The majority of youths in the world say they are spiritual and think religion and spirituality are both positive, according to an extensive, first-of-its-kind survey.

Fifty-seven percent of young people (ages 12-25) see themselves as being spiritual, reported the survey by Search Institute’s Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence that was sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation.

The research surveyed more than 7,000 young people from a wide range of cultural and religious backgrounds, spanning 17 countries and six continents. It took two years to complete the study that offers one of the first snapshots of spiritual development across multiple countries and traditions.

“We have spent two years listening to youth ages 12 to 25 from many countries and traditions talk about spiritual development and its role in their lives,” reflected Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, co-director of the Center for Spiritual Development, in a statement. “Many young people are keenly interested in these issues, but relatively few have opportunities to talk with others about the things that really matter to them.”

The survey found that about one in three youths consider themselves “very” or “pretty” spiritual, but this varied vastly across countries. The high was in the United States where 52 percent of the youth self-described themselves as “very” or “pretty” spiritual, and in Thailand where 50 percent gave this same response.

In contrast, Australia had the low of 23 percent youth who said they were highly spiritual. Almost half of the youth surveyed in Australia (47 percent) indicated that they are not spiritual, compared to only 12 percent in Thailand and about 20 percent in Canada, India, Ukraine, and the United States.

Religion and being spiritual are related but different, according to the world’s youth. Respondents are still most likely to say they are both spiritual and religious (34 percent). Nearly a quarter (23 percent) say they are spiritual, but not religious.

One in five of the youths indicated they don’t know.

American youths’ response was slightly different. They were more likely to say they are both spiritual and religious (43 percent) than the world’s youth in general (34 percent). A comparable number to international youths said they are just spiritual (27 percent).

Being spiritual, for this young generation, most often is associated with believing in God (36 percent), followed by believing there is a purpose to life (32 percent), and then being true to one’s inner self (26 percent).

But the most popular definition for being spiritual differed across countries and culture.

Indian youths were more likely to say being true to one’s inner self (38 percent) is being spiritual more so than believing in God (33 percent).

Whereas in Canada, the youths said being spiritual is believing in God (52 percent) and then believing there is a purpose to life (48 percent). Also, more than a quarter of the participants from Canada (28 percent) said spirituality involves having a deep sense of inner peace or happiness, which was unique to Canadian youths.

Meanwhile young people in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States all defined spirituality first and foremost as believing there is a purpose to life. Believing in God was ranked second at 33 percent for youths in the United States.

Labels: Michelle A. Vu, religion, spirituality, youth

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Trying to measure faith, health link

Some scientific studies show religion and spirituality offers benefits

By JANUARY W. PAYNE
THE WASHINGTON POST

Published: Saturday, November 15, 2008

An integral part of many people's lives, religion defines patterns of worship and socialization, but its impact, if any, on health is unclear. Some studies show a benefit to religious practice, while others -- including much of the research into prayer -- fail to prove its health value.

The question of the role something as unquantifiable as religious belief might play in health troubles some scientists in an age when mainstream medicine is turning ever more toward epidemiological science to define research protocols and to determine the validity of treatments.

That said, it's not hard to understand why being religious might be good for the body, experts say. Religious people often attend regular services; this puts them in a socially supportive environment, which has widely acknowledged health advantages. And some religions promote healthful diets and discourage unhealthy behaviors such as drinking alcohol and smoking

Among that research is some evidence that religion and spirituality offer health benefits and even longer life spans. A national survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ...found that people who did not attend religious services were 1.87 times more likely to have died during an eight-year period than those who attended services more than weekly.

The life expectancy for infrequent attendees was age 75, and it was 83 for those who attended frequently.

A 1996 study looked at the association of Jewish religious observance with mortality by comparing secular and religious kibbutzim in Israel. Belonging to a religious group appeared to prolong life, and the lower mortality rates seen in the religious group were consistent for all causes of death, the authors wrote. And a 2003 study published in Psychosomatic Medicine found that meditation might alter brain and immune function in positive ways, an effect similarly seen in research involving Buddhist monks.

It's hard to show conclusively whether or how a belief system affects one's health; other life experiences might provide benefits to health so similar to religion and spirituality that it's hard to differentiate.

Despite the lack of scientific evidence, some common religious practices are widely thought to enhance health.

Power of prayer

It's not unusual for people to pray for their own health and for that of others. In a 2004 survey of more than 31,000 people, 45 percent said they'd prayed for health reasons, 43 percent prayed for their own health, and 25 percent reported that others had prayed for them. About 10 percent said they'd participated in a prayer group for their health, according to the results, released by the National Center for Health Statistics and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

But science says that prayer might not help a person who is ill. A 2003 update to an earlier systemic review of clinical trials on distant healing found that intercessory prayer, which involves someone praying for the healing of a person located elsewhere, with or without that person's knowledge, probably doesn't offer specific therapeutic healing effects.

Any benefit seen from prayer might come from the fact that "knowing that your friends and family are praying for you is part of social support, ... and (that is) probably really helpful to people, independent of if there is a higher being that answers those prayers," said David Schlundt, an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, who has researched the connection between faith and health.

Although religion might provide social support, purpose, a belief system, a moral code -- and even happiness -- these benefits can also come from other sources, notes a 2007 study by Eckersley published in the Medical Journal of Australia. Future examination of the health benefits of religion and spirituality should be done in a broader context, he said, especially with regard to how cultural influences affect faith and health.

Cultural context

That cultural context could be key to understanding how people's beliefs factor into their health outcomes, experts note, because religion and spirituality don't seem to produce a uniform effect on everyone. Differences are apparent between groups of varying socioeconomic and racial and ethnic backgrounds.

A dangerous aspect of the purported faith-health connection is fatalism, the belief that health is predetermined and is not within a person's control. Research shows that people who hold such beliefs are less likely than others to participate in health promotion programs and to seek health care.

Research shows that African Americans are more likely to endorse fatalism than whites. A 2007 study published in the American Journal of Health Behavior reported that such beliefs could be a reaction to chronic illness or poor health rather than something that inhibits beneficial health behavior from the outset.

FAITH HEALING

Research suggests that religion offers health benefits, including longer life spans. Is that because of the healing benefits of prayer or because people of faith enjoy supportive, healthful lifestyles? Some statistics:

83: The life expectancy of people who frequently attended religious services; for infrequent attendees, the estimate was 75.

70 percent: The percentage of churches that provide health-care services to their communities, according to a survey of 6,000 congregations.

40 to 60 percent: The percentage of hospital patients who want their doctors to pray with them. But fewer than 5 percent of doctors say they do so.

2,500: Number of Maryland kindergartners exempted from vaccine mandates on religious grounds, up from 1,300 in 2004.

Labels: belief, Buddhists, culture, faith healing, health, January W. Payne, Jewish, prayer, religion, spirituality

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Friday, November 14, 2008

Poll: Economy not getting faithful down

Published: Nov. 11, 2008

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- A survey shows religious Americans are less worried about the economy than they are about a "spiritual recession."

The Faithbook on Facebook poll released Tuesday found nearly 72 percent of respondents said such a spiritual recession was more of a concern to them than a downturn in the spiritual arena.

In a similar vein, more than 80 percent see the developing tough times as an opportunity to revitalize the nation's level of spirituality, Faithbook said in a written statement.

"The Faithbook poll seems to confirm that the economic downturn has reached the heart of religious life," said Simon Cohen, managing director of Global Tolerance, which runs Faithbook. "It is heartening that for many people, as long as our basic human needs are met, they see the financial watershed as pregnant with hope and opportunity."

The online survey of 150 respondents also found that more than 27 percent of them said they had actually been praying more ever since the economy went south.

Labels: Americans, economics, Faithbook, religion, spiritual recession, spirituality

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Here's the steeple; open the door, and where are the young people?

A survey finds that many youths draw a line between being spiritual and participating in an organized religion.

By JEFF STRICKLER, Star Tribune

November 9, 2008

The full survey is available at www.spiritualdevelopmentcenter.org. Highlights include:

• 35 percent said they never talk to their parents about religious faith, and 42 percent do so only infrequently.

• 75 percent said there is a correlation between a person's spiritual beliefs and a person's behavior.

• 82 percent believe that there is a God or other higher power, 8 percent said there is no God and 10 percent said they don't know.

• 41 percent believe that there is a purpose to life.
More from Faith + Values

A new benchmark survey finds that 55 percent of young people ages 12 to 25 say they are more spiritual now than two years ago. But nearly one-third of the young people said they don't trust organized religion.

The survey, believed to be the first of its kind in the world, was conducted by the Minneapolis-based Search Institute and released here last week at the four-day Healthy Communities-Healthy Youth Conference. Peter Benson and Gene Roehlkepartain, co-directors of the institute's Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence, said that it will take several months, if not years, of serious number-crunching to figure out all of the study's implications.

The survey included 6,853 subjects. The first question was, "What does it mean to be spiritual?" There were nine choices, running from "believing in God" to "being true to one's inner self." They also could say that there is no spiritual dimension, and there was an "I don't know" option.

The good news for faith communities is that 93 percent of the young people surveyed believe there is a spiritual aspect to life.

Labels: Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence, Healthy Communities-Healthy Youth Conference, Jeff Strickler, organized religion, Search Institute, spirituality, youth

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Friday, November 07, 2008

4 mood boosters for good health

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

It's no secret that a positive outlook supports good health. But how do we foster good mental and spiritual attitudes that will, hopefully, carry over into our physical bodies? Here are some suggestions, based on universal spiritual principles that can be used by anyone, whether or not they are religious.

----- Develop a passion ----

We all need a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and not everyone is lucky enough to have a job they feel passionately about. So why not develop a passion for nature, for example, that will get you off the couch and out walking every day? Others find passion in art and never miss an opportunity to check out the latest exhibition.

The particular passion is unimportant; just so you have something that sets your heart racing. My father, for example, has a passion for collecting vintage fishing lures that takes him to antique stores and flea markets far and wide. He is at his happiest when he is consumed by his passion.

--- Focus on others ----

We all have problems and many of them don't have an immediate solution. Instead of focusing obsessively on my problems, I find it a relief to think about others. Suddenly my headaches and upset stomach disappear when I am working as a volunteer or just simply helping out a friend. Anything that gets my mind off the ""me, me, me"" track can only improve my outlook on life.

---- Have faith -----

Faith is a difficult concept for many people, especially those who do not participate in organized religions. I am not a religious person but I find faith in many ways. I live in California and am surrounded by natural beauty that gives me faith that the world is generally a good place. I think sometimes about family members and loved ones who have passed on, knowing that they would want me to have a happy, healthy life. Those thoughts give me faith.

--- Take a break from the news ----

I try every year to spend a week where I do not read, watch, or listen to the news. This is not about sticking my head in the sand. Rather, I find that I develop information overload after a while and become cynical. Taking a break from being constantly informed helps me refresh my mind and develop some hope in what seems like a very dark time in world history.

All of us deal with the stress of life in different ways - some become workaholics, others curl up into depression. The only sure thing is that we need to take care of whole beings - mind, body, and soul - if we are to have the fullest lives possible.

(Source: health.yahoo.com)

Labels: faith, health, passion, service, spirituality, stress

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Global survey: youths see spiritual dimension to life

In the most ambitious such review to date, young people in 17 countries most often defined spirituality as belief that life has a purpose, belief in God, and being true to one's inner self.
By Jane Lampman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the November 6, 2008 edition

Around the globe, the vast majority of young people share a conviction that life has a spiritual dimension. Seventy-five percent in a recent survey believe in God or a higher power. And while some can't easily define spirituality, the majority say they have had a transcendent experience, believe in life after death, and think it's "probably true" that all living things are connected.

For two years, a project involving some 7,000 youths ages 12 to 25 in 17 countries has explored spiritual beliefs and experiences – and found youths eager to discuss them. It's the most ambitious such project to date.

The initial findings were released Wednesday by the Search Institute, a Minneapolis-based independent research group. The group intends to plumb the results further and carry out additional research in countries around the world.

"I was surprised by the similarities we found across different cultures, even though they may have different languages and worldviews," says Eugene Roehlkepartain, the Search Institute's vice president. The institute hopes to encourage a broader look at the impact of spiritual development on other aspects of life.

Along with partner organizations, the institute conducted surveys in eight countries, focus groups in 13 nations, and in-depth interviews with young people whom others consider to be "spiritual exemplars." The youths represented more than a dozen faiths as well as nonbelievers.

The results of the report – "With Their Own Voices: A Global Exploration of How Today's Young People Think About and Experience Spiritual Development" – can't be considered representative of the countries or traditions, Mr. Roehlkepartain cautions.

Religion has trumped spirituality as a topic of study in the past, says Roehlkepartain. A study released last spring by the German research firm Berthlesmann Stiftung found that 85 percent of young people in 21 nations called themselves religious, and 44 percent said they were deeply religious.

In the US, a UCLA study of undergraduates from 2003 to 2007 broke some ground on spirituality. It found that while attendance at religious services decreased dramatically for most, their overall level of spirituality – defined as seeking meaning in life and developing values and self-understanding – increased.

When asked what it means to be spiritual, young people in the Search survey most commonly responded: believing there is a purpose to life, believing in God, or being true to one's inner self. In Thailand and Cameroon, "being a moral person" made the top three. "Having a deep sense of inner peace and happiness" was highly valued in Canada and the US.

Young people see spiritual development as both "part of who you are" and an intentional choice, the study shows. As a young man from South Africa puts it, "The more spiritual you are, the more you understand. It's like sport, everyone can do sport, but the more you do it, the better you get at it."

Some 55 percent felt their spirituality had increased over the past two or three years. Emma, a young Christian in the United Kingdom, said that "the ideal spiritual person is somebody who spends as much time as possible with God," which she does through daily prayer, devotional reading, and social activism.

Young people say they engage in a range of activities and practices to nurture spiritual growth. The most common include reading books, praying or meditating alone, and helping others.

On several scales measuring spiritual concerns, Australia, the UK, and Ukraine showed much lower values than other countries. For instance, while only 7 percent of youths overall did not see a spiritual dimension to life, among young Australians, that figure was 28 percent.

More than three-quarters of those surveyed said their spiritual development was enhanced by time in nature, from music, and from helping other people in their community. The project revealed that "serving people out of your spiritual conviction" holds young people together and can bridge differences," says Roehlkepartain.

While the youths see a difference between religion and spirituality, the great majority said they view both as "usually good." An Australian teen explains the difference this way: "Religion is kind of knowing the things in your head, but 'spiritual' is knowing them in your heart."

When asked which people, groups, or institutions were most helpful in their spiritual life, 44 percent named family. Between one-third and one-half, however, had not engaged in spiritual or religious activities with parents in the past year. Just 14 percent mentioned their religious institution as helpful, and close to 20 percent said "no one."

The institute wants to encourage parents, friends, and others to fill this vacuum. "Young people expressed to us some hunger to talk about spiritual development," Roehlkepartain says, "and we want people to say, 'If that's what kids in the survey think, what about the kids I know?'

Labels: A Global Exploration of How Today's Young People Think About and Experience Spiritual Development, God, Jane Lampman, religion, Search Institute, spirituality, youth

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Friday, October 17, 2008

A Car Crash, A Five-Year Coma, and The Inner Voice

This video is the story of a young girl who suffered a brain injury in a car crash, after which she endured a five-year coma. During that period of time, she was sustained in her inner self by her relationship with God. In the video, she relates her experience, during which she maintained much of her consciousness, and she expresses a desire to help others who are searching for assurance of God and the assurances of faith.

Labels: Allison Zopel, coma, consciousness, God, healing, inner peace, spirituality, The Urantia Book, video

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Thursday, October 02, 2008

New Site Combines Spiritual and Medical Guidance

Monday, September 29, 2008

By: Sylvia Booth Hubbard

Doctors and patients looking to augment traditional medical care with a dose of spiritual healing can turn to a new Web-based resource that offers a mix of advice, references and even actual prayers.

The site’s founders say the site offers much needed support, especially in a place as spiritual as the U.S. According to a recent Gallup Poll, 94 percent of Americans believe in a higher power. When Americans become ill, 75 percent want their doctor to include spiritual aspects into their medical treatment. And nearly half want their doctors to pray, not just for them, but with them. Some 43 percent of doctors admit they pray for their patients privately.

Spirit-Health Connections provides:

# Links to recently published articles on health and spirituality.

# Prayers of support for health providers of all faiths, including Christian prayers from several denominations appropriate in the death of a child, and Buddhist prayers for the sick.

# “Ask an Expert” section which allows readers to email questions on spirituality and health that will be answered by experts.

# A calendar of events lists lectures and conferences across the nation along with contact information.

# Links to centers and universities worldwide that study health and religion

# Excerpts from books for medical professionals, spiritual advisors, and researchers that explore spirituality and health.

# A media section which features video and audio files that can be downloaded free of charge.

Although some scientists say there is no rational explanation for how prayer works, others counter with the fact that aspirin was used effectively for hundreds of years before science figured out how it works. .

Labels: health, Spirit-Health Connections, spirituality, Sylvia Booth Hubbard, Temple Foundation Press

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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Megachurches push for greater spirituality

CATHY LYNN GROSSMAN
September 27, 2008

After decades of soaring growth, the phenomenon of Protestant megachurches — behemoths of belief where 2,000 to 20,000 or more people attend weekend worship — may be stalled.

And Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., the granddaddy of "seeker-sensitive" megachurches geared to attract the spiritually curious, is on a mission to rev the engines.

On paper, megachurches look like a trend still on the rise. Their total number rose from 600 in 2000 to more than 1,250 in 2005, says sociologist Scott Thumma of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research in Hartford, Conn.

On Outreach magazine's 2008 list of the largest 100, even the smallest says more than 7,000 people attend. But some of the biggest, including Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston, with 43,500, showed slight declines.

Experts see more troubling concerns than slowing growth: no measurable inroads on overall church attendance and signs that many churchgoers are spectators, not driving toward a deeper faith.

"You can create a church that's big, but is still not transforming people. Without transformation, the Christian message is not advanced," says Ed Stetzer, head of Lifeway Research in Nashville, Tenn., which did the Outreach study.

The unchurched remain untouched. While the number of people who say they attend at least once a week hovers around 30 percent year after year, the number who say they "never" go to church climbs.

The tally of "nevers" varies from 16 percent in Gallup surveys to 22 percent in the General Social Survey, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, to 32 percent in an Ellison Research survey this year. The new "nevers" come from the pool of people who once attended monthly or a few times a year.

Many slide away from church to find other answers to their spiritual quest or another church where the preaching or music or family programs better suit their style.

The study, now being marketed to churches nationwide as a self-assessment tool, found many who attend church are not progressing from beginner believers to become "fully centered in Christ" — deep in Bible study, prayer and service.

In response, founder and senior pastor Bill Hybels has changed his sermons to more directly challenge worshipers at every level. Willow has launched a slate of dozens of Wednesday mini-classes focusing on spiritual growth, coached and mentored by the church.

Willow is still "seeker-obsessed," says Hybels. "But today's seekers are different" than years ago.

Today, he says, "I don't think anyone is wandering around looking for a mild dose of God. They want to know: 'What would a life centered on Christ look like in my life? What would that feel like? How do I go about it?' "

Labels: Cathy Lynn Grossman, church, faith, Hartford Institute for Religion Research, megachurches, Scott Thumma, spirituality, unchurched

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

The Way We'll Be - Book Review

By Adam Goldstein, Special to the Rocky
Thursday, August 14, 2008

* Nonfiction. By John Zogby. Random House, $27. Grade: B

Book in a nutshell: Americans will face the challenges of the 21st century with creative approaches to consumerism, a cooperative worldview and an inclusive view of spirituality.

That's according to Zogby, president and CEO of Zogby International, a polling company that canvasses about half a million people every year to gauge public opinion on everything from the best laundry detergent to the most promising political candidate.

In The Way We'll Be, Zogby draws on his company's vast network of surveys and polls to try and predict popular trends and attitudes for the near future. Specifically, he seeks to chart general shifts in the American attitude toward a host of issues, from materialism to religion, from environmentalism to the latest take on the American dream.

His results point to a populace much less taken with the traditional signs of status and success. In survey after survey, he finds respondents more apt to be satisfied with less material wealth and more spiritual satisfaction.

Zogby's data also shows that the current generation of 18- to 29-year- olds, what Zogby terms "first globals," are more than willing to make adjustments in the face of dwindling natural resources, threats to the environment and international tensions. His results reveal a young generation tempered by the immediacy and inclusiveness of the Internet, one that's more likely to hold broad and inclusive spiritual views in lieu of rigid definitions of religion and one that's more willing to cooperate on the international stage to find solutions to pressing problems.

Best tidbit: Zogby draws on polls showing more moderate political trends among evangelical voters and a shift toward spirituality across the political spectrum as symptoms of a larger domestic movement. "A new American dream characterized by lower expectations, less want and more civility has begun to emerge; and as that has happened, a new American consensus is being born."

Pros: Zogby's exhaustive data points to heartening trends at work in the U.S. As the cost of living balloons and traditional sources of energy begin to founder, it seems the American populace is willing to innovate, cooperate and sacrifice to find solutions.

Cons: Zogby spares few details in describing his polling procedures, an element that tends to obscure the larger messages of his data.

Final word: A fascinating glimpse into how we'll be.

Labels: materialism, polling, religion, spirituality, youth, Zogby International

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Friday, August 15, 2008

Self-care and spiritual forgiveness

By Patricia Gianotti
August 12, 2008 1:43 PM

When I speak with my own clients and various members of established spiritual groups, churches, and synagogues about the topic of self-forgiveness, invariably I get the same response. “Self-forgiveness? I don’t need a workshop on self-forgiveness. There are too many people that let themselves off the hook already.” However, when I ask the question, “How well do you take care of yourself?” often I hear the following responses:

• “Well, now that you mention it, I do always seem to put myself last. It’s true, I am exhausted all of the time.”

• “I don’t have time to take better care of myself. I’ve got too many obligations, and I don’t want to let anyone down.”

• “Of course I hold higher standards for myself than I do for other people. Isn’t that normal?”

• “Yes, I am terribly afraid of making mistakes, and I push myself pretty hard to be the best I can be. So when I make a mistake, I do feel stupid and worthless, like a complete failure, actually. But, this is how I’ve become as successful as I am, driving myself to go that extra mile.”

Medical research has shown that chronic periods of stress increase cortisol levels, which over time tax our immune systems. Psychological research has shown that people who drive themselves too hard eventually show symptoms of irritability, problems with sleep, decreases in energy, concentration, enthusiasm, optimism, and creativity. Spiritual literature points to the necessity/commandment of taking time for rest. Without rest the soul cannot be refreshed. Furthermore, from the spiritual perspective the ability to say, “I can’t do it all” is the first step toward humility. Unfortunately, the secular community seems to have lost its bearing in terms of understanding the difference between humiliation and humility. Regardless of belief, many of us could benefit from being reminded of the fundamental difference between these two states of mind.

Harsh, critical standards come from somewhere. Perhaps, it was a parent who was never quite pleased enough with your accomplishments; or perhaps, there was a complete lack of parental interest or encouragement for any of your true interests. Perhaps, you were told to put other people first and that taking time for yourself was selfish. Whatever the message, the real danger lies in not questioning these influences. Part of adult development requires us to reflect upon the values and standards we live by, to assess whether the way we are managing our lives is more of a cost than a benefit to our well-being.

This article may run counter to what many believe is a dangerous and growing trend toward too much self-absorption, too much of “The Me Generation” gone amok. Although it is true that we have seen evidence of an increase in self-centeredness and a decrease in generosity, I find that this is only half of the story. What is equally true is that we have seen an increase in the pressure to perform both in adults and in children. We work longer, have less free time to relax, the pace of life has increased, and we have an inflated, even grandiose expectation of what it means to be successful.

What would happen if an internal shift began to occur? What would it feel like to hold ourselves with a gentle hand? What if we were able to tell ourselves that rest isn’t something that has to be earned? What if we began thinking about self care as a spiritual responsibility? What if we thought about any decision we made by asking ourselves whether this is helping us take better care of our souls?

Patricia Gianotti, Psy.D., a licensed psychologist with Woodland Professional Associates, has an expertise in couples and individual therapy; she also leads seminars, workshops, and retreats on topics that focus on ways of bringing a sense of spirituality more into daily living.

Labels: forgiveness, Patricia Gianotti, self-care, spirituality

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Saturday, August 02, 2008

Belief in God drops among educated, but 'universal spirit' prevails

by Elizabeth Tenety
Jul 30, 2008

Religious Beliefs by Education Levels

WASHINGTON -- At first glance, a study from Gallup released Monday seems a victory for atheists: Belief in God declines as education increases. Yet something more nuanced is taking place in academia because while belief in God declines, belief in a ‘universal spirit’ increases significantly during college.

Among Americans with a high school diploma or less, 88 percent believe in God, 8 percent believe in a “universal spirit or higher power” and 5 percent say they do not believe in either. For college graduates, belief in God is at 73 percent, but another 20 percent believe in a ‘universal spirit’ and only 6 percent say they do not believe in either.

The Gallup telephone survey of 1,017 American adults between May 8 and May 11 confirms the findings of a six-year study conducted at UCLA on spirituality in higher education released earlier this year. It found that while participation in religious services declines from 44 to 25 percent between students’ freshman and junior years, students also report nearly a 10 percent increase in “integrating spirituality” into their lives between those two years.

Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, a Catholic organization that works to strengthen the religious identity of Catholic colleges and universities in the United States, is among those not thrilled with the move away from traditional religion.

“We’re losing so much of the great thought and theology that has developed over centuries” when society emphasizes spirituality without the grounding of religion, Reilly said.

Reilly said two forces impact the religiosity of young adults. “In American society, we’ve relied much less on religious education so fewer young people and young adults are getting education in a particular faith.” Reilly added: “The education they are receiving at all levels is much more secularized than what was traditionally provided. Young people continue to have a sense of the divine but very little by way of religious formation.”

But Reilly said the survey did show that, “despite the increasing secularization of American culture,” Americans generally still recognize a higher power, which shows a tendency toward recognizing there is a God.

Labels: education, Elizabeth Tenety, Gallup Poll, God, spirituality, youth

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Gibran anniversary marked in London

Lecture marking 125th anniversary of famous Lebanese poet held in London in honour of his work.

By Mamoon Alabbasi – LONDON

A lecture dedicated to the life and works of the famous Lebanese poet Gibran Khalil Gibran was held Thursday at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) in London.

The lecture, which marks the 125th anniversary of the poet’s birth, was given by Professor Suheil Bushrui (University of Maryland, US), Director of the Kahlil Gibran Research and Studies Project.

Gibran, born in 1883 in Lebanon, was best known for his book The Prophet, which sold millions of copies worldwide.

His poetry has been translated into more than twenty languages, while his paintings have been exhibited in many capitals of the world.

Bushrui argued that Gibran had sought long ago to build bridges between east and west, continuously promoting dialogue and peaceful coexistence.

“Gibran carried a message of peace, crossing the boundaries of race, religion and language,” said Bushrui.

He advocated bridging the divide between east and west, woman and man, poor and rich, Muslims and Christians.

The lecture touched on the spiritual side of Gibran, which greatly influenced his work and view of the world.

Gibran called for a “spiritual renaissance” that would eventually help our minds to find cohesion between contradictories and bring about a unity between “emotion and thought”.

The call, which came during an era of conflict and economic hardships, is seen as still vital in today’s world.

“All regions are one”, Gibran was quoted, echoing Arab mystic poets. He saw all faiths as stemming from the same source.

“Gibran was influenced by Islamic Sufism and the idea of religious unity,” noted Bushrui.

Sufi poets like Ibn Al Arabi and Al Ghazzali had a strong impact on Gibran, in addition to the influence of Al Andalus literature, which included Christian and Jewish poets in Spain, explained Bushrui.

Although Gibran was a Christian Maronite, his mind was open to the teachings of Islam.

“If you study Gibran, you cannot miss his position towards Islam,” said Bushrui, adding that the poet often cited from the sayings of Prophet Mohammed.

Bushrui quoted Gibran saying: “To Muslims from a Christian poet; I am a Christian and proud of that, but I love the Arab Prophet … and love the glory of Islam and I fear for it … I respect the Koran but disdain those who use it as a means against the cause of Muslims… as I disrespect those who use the Bible as a means to control Christians ... take it from me O Muslims, a message from a Christian… Jesus lives in one half of my heart while Mohammed resides in the other”.

The poet was in a unique position to bring people of different backgrounds together.

A Lebanese living in the United States, Gibran sought to bring some spirituality to the West while calling for more modernity in the Orient.

Gibran was not too happy with life in modern industrialised cities and while he did not deny the importance of commerce, he favoured a more humanitarian system that is just for everyone, especially the poor, Bushrui noted.

The Lebanese poet also seemed to have a special view on women, ahead of its time even in the United States.

“Leadership should be handed to women,” Gibran was quoted saying. “I owe all I have to women.”

Gibran’s perspective on nationality and citizenship seems to have a progressive ring to it, too.

“All of earth is my homeland, and humanity is my tribe,” Gibran was quoted saying.

“Gibran believed in human rights, acceptance of the other, mutual respect, and unity in diversity,” Bushrui remarked.

Bushrui called for more attention to be paid to the work and life of Gibran, advocating a revival of interest in the Lebanese poet.

“Sales of The Prophet between 1980 and 1990 reached eight million copies, and the book was translated to many languages,” noted Bushrui.

“It became the second best selling book in the US after the Bible … his words were not just for a certain generation in the US but the whole of humanity,” stressed Bushrui.

Bushrui concluded that Gibran’s work has still a lot to offer to the world.

Mamoon Alabbasi is an editor for Middle East Online and can be reached at: mamoon@meo.tv

Labels: Kahlil Gibran, Mamoon Alabbasi, poetry, spirituality, Suheil Bushrui

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Could Aliens Become Spiritual Mentors?

C. L. Talmadge
author@greenstoneofhealing.com

LANCASTER, Texas, July 28 /Christian Newswire/ --

Is our society about to acknowledge the existence of aliens?

A second credible member of the public has spoken out on the topic. Just last week former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell, speaking on BBC Radio, said aliens exist and have been observing earth for "quite some time."

In a May interview with Italian newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's chief astronomer, the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, said there is no conflict between believing in extraterrestrial intelligent life and believing in God.

"How can we exclude that life has developed elsewhere?" Rev Funes asked, even implying that some aliens might not have been subject to the separation from God described in Genesis. "There could be (other beings) who remained in full friendship with their creator."

Any extended discussion, apart from the existence question, about intelligent non-human life heretofore has been limited primarily to speculative fiction. Most works in these genres eschew any direct talk of spirituality, religion, or faith, alien or human.

There are some exceptions, however, and if our society is now more open to aliens, then a look at how we have portrayed alien faith and spirituality is worthwhile.

Enemy Mine, a 1985 science fiction film derived from an award-winning novella, depicts an intergalactic war between human beings and an alien race called the Drac. Marooned on an isolated, inhospitable planet, a Drac and a man start off as enemies. Out of survival necessity, however, they make a wary peace and eventually become dear friends.

The Drac shows a sense of his own spirituality and the divine, reading frequently from a small book of religious/philosophical text, and pondering the larger questions of life.

Ultimately, the alien's faith and friendship motivate the human being to consider something other than his prestige as a top-scoring fighter pilot. The alien reminds the human that life is so much more than just a scramble for conquest and material success. The human being is much better off for having encountered an alien of great faith and courage.

An example of fantasy that directly addresses alien spirituality is the Green Stone of Healing epic series. It features an intelligent non-human being, a Mist-Weaver, who exhibits capabilities that human beings more readily ascribe to the supernatural. The Mist-Weaver is able to appear and dissolve at will, transitioning from material to non-material realities in much the same manner as the divine heralds of earthly religious traditions.

As would an angel, the Mist-Weaver assumes physical form to converse easier with the human characters. The Mist-Weaver clearly has a profound sense of the divine and his connection to it and to all life, and tries to encourage that spiritual connection in his human counterparts.

The Mist-Weaver's presence spurs his human students to examine the limitations of their faith and their spiritual understanding, just as the burning bush, signaling God's presence, presented Moses with challenges of faith and self-growth.

His spiritual teachings often leave the human beings baffled, however, because they are so different from human understanding. The Mist-Weaver never tries to dictate human behavior or beliefs, solve human problems, or protect his students from the consequences of their actions.

In taking a hands-off approach, he might seem indifferent to some, but the Mist-Weaver simply refuses to intervene out of his abiding respect for free will. Perhaps that's what makes this alien truly strange. The Mist-Weaver doesn't suffer from that all-too-human inclination to run other people's lives or to proclaim God as a similar micro-manager.

A third example of speculative fiction portraying intelligent non-human beings with a highly developed spirituality is Alien Nation. Most of these on-screen "Newcomers" are just regular folks, although there are villains in their midst, too. But the average alien Joes and Jills have jobs, houses, children, and try to live peacefully among their human counterparts. They also have extensive religious rituals and traditions that are depicted throughout the TV series.

Like Enemy Mine and the Green Stone of Healing series, Alien Nation asserts that non-human beings can teach the human variety a thing or two about life and spirituality. The Newcomer police officer is paired with a human detective who is initially very unhappy about the arrangement. But the former earns the latter's respect and affection through his courage, smarts, initiative, and loyalty. The Newcomer demonstrates that these enduring and spiritual character qualities are not the sole province of human beings. Again, the human being is better off for having known the alien.

Tragically, on earth today the concepts of spirituality and faith seem far more alien to many than does the assertion of intelligent non-human beings.

Aliens may give God far more credit than we do. If/when the day comes that we openly encounter intelligent non-human beings, we may find that the experience brings us much closer to reclaiming and living our own spirituality than we ever believed possible.

We can always choose to embrace the unknown--the alien--instead of fearing it.

Labels: aliens, C. L. Talmadge, spirituality

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

An ever-present help

The American Psychological Association does an annual survey of attitudes and perceptions of stress among the general public.

Last year's survey revealed that 77 percent of Americans experienced stress-related physical symptoms and 73 percent reported psychological symptoms. Issues related to work and money topped the list of major stressors.

Things have not improved since this last survey; in fact, the economy has significantly worsened, with daily headlines proclaiming housing foreclosures, increases in gas prices and failing banks.

According to an Associated Press poll released in June, debt stress is 14 percent higher this year than in 2004.

How, then, are we to cope with this enormous pressure? Some stress is manageable, even helpful in channeling our energy and resources, but multiple stressors can feel overwhelming, especially those over which we have little control.

Most of us already know something about stress management. We're told to identify the sources, understand how we are personally affected by stress, modify our behavior, exercise and spend more time in leisure activities or with family and friends. We know about healthy eating, sleep hygiene and work-life balance.

If all else fails, we may seek the services of a professional or ask our physicians for some medication, but only a small percentage of us actually do that. A billboard by a freeway proclaims that it is better to buy an expensive sports car than to seek therapy. We are a nation that is independent-minded, and we prefer to handle things on our own.

How well do these tools work for us in the midst of overwhelming circumstances? How much can we reasonably expect to handle?

There is another source of help during difficult times and that is what we believe exists outside of ourselves.

It is our spirituality, and it is an important source of strength, meaning, direction and hope. It is through the cultivation of spirituality that we feel connected to the larger universe. It fosters a perspective that takes us away from everyday difficulty and enables us to envision a better future.

Spirituality is complex and hard to define. It can take the form of religious observance, nature, music, art or some other personal experience. Alcoholics Anonymous practitioners subscribe to a "power greater than ourselves" and turn chaotic lives over to "God as we understand Him." However we define it, spirituality is a powerful force for good.

Psychologist Viktor Frankl, after surviving a concentration camp, noted that those who had found meaning in life were the ones most able to withstand the incredible hardships there.

Research continues to document greater health benefits, including decreased stress, for those who cultivate their spirituality. Prayer is cited as the most common spiritual practice, and some recent studies on intercessory prayer have provided provocative evidence that the benefits to those praying are even greater than to those prayed for.

Meditation is another form of spiritual practice that can be used to enhance spiritual communion. Reading and studying religious or spiritual writings and journaling about experiences can deepen faith journeys. However, attempting too much too soon is a common recipe for failure in the building up of spiritual habits.

Many choose to explore different faith traditions to see what fits. Sharing spiritual discovery and expression with others helps to build relationships and connects us to a larger world of believers. Having an "accountability partner" whom we trust and regularly meet with can enhance spiritual discovery and growth.

Mind, body and spirit are interconnected and important dimensions of optimal health and wellbeing. To neglect one part is to negatively affect the whole. Quality of life, especially in an era of higher and more chronic levels of stress, is hard to maintain without the benefits of spiritual belief and practice. Keep it in mind when all the other tools come up short, as they invariably will.

Deborah Barber, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in Westlake Village. Contact her at (818) 5127923. Send questions/comments to askDrDB@yahoo.com or visit www.DrDeborahBarber.

Labels: American Psychological Association, Deborah Barber, meditation, spirituality, stress

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Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Many Medical Schools Now Include Classes On Healing Power Of Spirituality

By Zulima Palacio
Washington
14 July 2008

For the past 20 years, western medicine in the United States has been exploring uncharted territory: the healing power of spirituality. Now, many medical schools include classes on the subject. And multiple studies point to spirituality as a key element in boosting immune functions and enhancing and accelerating the healing process beyond conventional medical treatment. Producer Zulima Palacio has the story. Carol Pearson narrates.

Praying, being part of nature, meditating or practicing yoga - practitioners say they all have a common element: a strong part of a person's spiritual life and, potentially, a great importance in health and well-being., Dr. Christina Puchalski has been studying the subject for more than 20 years.

"Would you say that your spirituality is important to you in they way you think about your health?” Dr. Puchalski asked her patient.

"Very important because, its like a bad feeling; if you get up in the morning with gloom and doom in your mind, you are bound to have gloom and doom all day," patient responds.

For two decades, 82 year old Vera Thompson has been a Buddhist with strong spiritual practices. Her case, as with many other patients, has provided Dr. Puchalski with great insight about the healing power of spirituality.

Regardless of religion, faith or practice, the positive effects of spirituality are now being proven in medical studies Dr. Puchalski says. "People who have spiritual practice tend to recover from depression a little sooner than those that do not. There are studies that look at blood pressure, incredible studies looking at meditation actually that affect blood pressure and resilience to stress."

Dr. Puchalski is the founder and Director of the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health. She also teaches spirituality and health at The George Washington University Medical School. She says the most significant role of spirituality in health includes the ability to cope with serious illness, with suffering and stress.

Two weeks ago her patient Gwenda Martin had a total mastectomy to treat breast cancer. Martin attributes her quick recovery to the power of positive thinking and the attention of her church community. "I think it had a lot to do with it because when I went into surgery I knew I was going to be fine," Martin said.

When meeting her patients, Dr. Puchalski asks them many non-conventional questions involving their physical, emotional, social and spiritual life. In many ways, she says, she is talking about the power of the mind, "If someone says that spirituality is like a placebo, I think it may be truth because what we are doing is engaging the power of our minds," Dr. Puchalski said.

Dr. Puchalski says she tries to keep the alliance between mind, body and spirit. She says studies done on Tibetan monks and brain imaging while meditating have established the positive effects of spirituality. However she recognizes that western society is dominated by technology and scientific methods that make wellbeing very hard to measure.
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Labels: Christina Puchalski, George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health, health, medicine, spirituality, Zulima Palacio

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Saturday, July 12, 2008

Sir John Templeton: iconic innovator in finance and religion

He was a shrewd stock picker. But his priority was spiritual wealth.

By Gary Moore

from the July 11, 2008 edition

Sarasota, Fla. - Sir John Templeton was many things to many people.

To the general public, he was one of the past century's greatest investors and philanthropists – a man who revolutionized both mutual fund investing and the effort to explore the nexus between science and religion.

After his passing this week, he will likely be remembered by the rational and affluent West as a poor boy from Tennessee turned Rhodes scholar and Dean of Global Investing.

Christians might remember him for his Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, and as someone who puts first things first: Faith, patience, prudence, and ethics were foremost in his thought.

Scientists might remember him most for his Templeton Foundation, which gives millions to study the links between science and religion.

Traditional Europe might remember Sir John, as his friends called him, as a great philanthropist who was knighted by Her Majesty as he valued historic treasures such as Oxford and Westminster Cathedral enough to invest in their futures. And the East will probably remember John as a spiritual creature who valued his Creator above all else, as he'd "been convinced that nothing exists except God."

I will remember him as a good Samaritan who paused to help me during a painful time on Wall Street. His historical and global perspective assured me that markets assuredly rebound – and that it's most wise to, as the poem goes, "keep your head when all about you are losing theirs." That was sage advice then, and it's sage advice today.

We would all be correct in our differing memories of John Templeton. Yet we live in an age of strained relationships, where differences seem intractable. So we might be most enriched if we remember his holistic approach to life.

John worked very intentionally to live the spiritual qualities he prized. And while he may have valued reason, prosperity, tradition, and spirituality, he gave top priority to love, the connecting force that holds us together despite our differences – even the largest ones.

He once startled me by describing how difficult it had been to love Joseph Stalin. He later worked at loving Saddam Hussein. That effort showed how seriously he took the biblical injunction to love his neighbors, including enemies, as himself.

That began with humbly loving God. The Jewish scriptures, which John loved and studied late in life, tell us: "As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he."

In the West, it is common to think of science as being about this world and religion about the next. But John saw reality as a single whole. So his foundation now invests his wealth in scientifically testing that proposition, just as the scriptures say Solomon "tested truth."

We financial types often think of investing as a selfish activity and charity as an altruistic one, so we leave ministry to the ordained clergy. John thought of us as "ministers of prosperity."

The Christian Scriptures say to put your mind on those things that are good, pure and lovely. So John refused to read or watch most media as he knew they might fill his mind with negativity.

But John wasn't just a contrarian for the sake of being different. He simply understood a truth that still escapes most investors: "The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell."

That perspective proved prescient in the late 1990s when he predicted that 90 percent of the new Internet companies would be bankrupt within five years. He added that US stock markets would likely stagnate for a decade. Those were enriching lessons in the school of life.

Yet John was ever hopeful about financial and spiritual progress. A few years ago, he asked me to co-write an article about why the Dow Jones Industrial Average might rise to 1 million by the year 2100.

I was skeptical at first. But then I remembered that John often spoke to us in financial parables, and I realized that the Dow would only need to rise about five percent per year in order to achieve that goal. He was saying that America will be fine but developing nations may also achieve greater parity during this century.

He would be even more pleased if his foundation helps us achieve even greater spiritual progress, the most important progress of all. That is more likely as we now have his example that the ancient values of faith, hope, and especially love still promise a more abundant life for our modern world.

• Gary Moore is an investment adviser who wrote two books about John Templeton, including "Spiritual Investments: Wall Street Wisdom from the Career of Sir John Templeton."

Labels: finance, Gary Moore, God, John Templeton, love, science, spirituality

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Friday, July 11, 2008

JOHN TEMPLETON - 1912-2008: He spent his fortune advancing religion in relation to science

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: July 9th, 2008

John Templeton, an investor and mutual fund pioneer who dedicated much of his fortune to promoting religion and reconciling it with science, has died. He was 95.

Templeton died Tuesday from pneumonia at Doctors Hospital in Nassau, Bahamas, said his spokesman Donald Lehr.

Templeton created the $1.4 million Templeton Prize – billed as the world’s richest annual prize – to honor advancement in spiritual matters. Winners have included Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Templeton wanted the monetary value to surpass that of the Nobel Prize to show that advances in spiritual fields were just as important, Lehr said in a statement. Next year’s prize is expected to be almost $2 million, he said.

Templeton was born in Tennessee, graduated from Yale University and became a Rhodes scholar, earning a master’s degree in law at Oxford University. He later moved to Nassau and became a naturalized British citizen.

The Associated Press

Labels: John Templeton, science, spirituality

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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Believers see many paths to heaven

Most Americans believe in God but not dogma

By CATHY LYNN GROSSMAN • USA Today • June 24, 2008

Newly released data from a major survey find that most U.S. adults range far from knowing or caring about the distinctive teachings of their professed faith.

They believe overwhelmingly (92 percent) in God and 58 percent say they pray at least once a day. But when it comes to specific religions they're all over the map, say the latest data from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Pew's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey questioned 35,000 Americans, nearly three in 10 of whom profess no religious identity but sometimes go to church. Most evangelicals, whose denominations teach that Jesus is the sole route to salvation, instead say people who have "led good lives" go to heaven. Only one in three Catholics say their church should preserve its traditional beliefs rather than change with the times or adopt modern practices.

Pew released demographic data in February from the survey, conducted in May through August 2007. This new installment focuses on questions about religious beliefs and practices, spiritual experiences, and views on society and politics.

Diversity and complexity

This analysis, based on a questionnaire that never mentions Jesus, portrays a nation of "free-flowing spirituality," said Pew Forum Director Luis Lugo, who finds the declining adherence to dogma "stunning."

When Green and Lugo factor in Pew's February findings that 44 percent of adults say they've switched to another religion or none at all, Lugo said, "You have to wonder: How do you guarantee the integrity of a religious tradition when so many people are coming or going or following ideas that don't match up?"

You can't, said the Rev. Frank Page, of Taylors, S.C., immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

Page said people don't know their faith because "Gospel, once clearly preached in virtually every Protestant church, is rarely heard in the 21st century. The number who teach a clear doctrinal Christianity are a minority today. How would people know it when they never hear about how to be saved?"
Individualism vs. church

Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, sees in the numbers that Catholics, like everyone else, are shaped by an individualistic culture. "People are trained to trust only their own spiritual experience," he said.

Labels: Americans, Cathy Lynn Grossman, church, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, spirituality, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey

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Monday, June 23, 2008

A spiritualized view of childbirth

A Christian Science perspective on daily life.

from the June 24, 2008 edition

Is childbirth solely a physical event requiring a medical environment? In the United States today, over 99 percent of all births occur in a hospital setting; 97.5 percent in Britain. Consequently, the dominant view – at least in those countries – leans heavily toward the physical, medical, technological, and human emotion aspects of birth.

But there's more to bringing a child into the world. There's a spiritual dimension that, like the spiritual realities of life itself, needs to be more widely understood – for humanity's health and welfare.

Let's examine some of the common fears that would draw thought toward a strictly material concept of birth and consider how to address them prayerfully.

Pregnancy and childbirth are physical events, involving material growth and development:

When it is clearly understood that all creation has its source in God, the only Creator, then material growth and physicality lose their predominance in thought. Expectant parents can care for their child from the very first, cherishing the child's spiritual individuality and origin. They can also glimpse the fact that they and the child share the same divine Parent, and that this relationship frees them from a false sense of responsibility or fear of the unknown. As God's ideas, we reflect His creative power, but we're not personal creators.

Childbirth is painful and unpredictable:

A curse that traces back to the allegory of Adam and Eve shouldn't continue to haunt women. This verse from Isaiah provides comfort and reassurance: "Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the Lord: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God" (66:9). The notion that childbirth is a painful event suggests a separation from divine Love, which knows no pain for its creation. Divine Love rejoices in the constant and harmonious appearing of each idea and would never promote an environment of discomfort.

Childbearing involves two beings, mother and child, who could potentially harm each other:

In the same paragraph on scientific obstetrics, Mrs. Eddy wrote, "Though gathering new energy, this idea cannot injure its useful surroundings in the travail of spiritual birth." Mother and child can witness how divine Life sustains and provides for its ideas. There can be no added strain, no depletion of life. And with the expression of God's creative power comes a natural harmony and order.

The best counsel anyone can hope for rests in the direct relationship to the Creator that all individuals have to nourish and learn from. We are, in St. Paul's memorable words, "all the children of God" (Gal. 3:26).

Adapted from the Christian Science Sentinel.

Labels: Childbirth, Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, spirituality

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Eckhart Tolle: This man could change your life?

We live in an age of revitalised New Age mumbo jumbo; and these days no one is more jumbo with his mumbo than Eckhart Tolle.

Tolle, whose real first name is Ulrich, was born into a German Catholic family in 1948. He changed his name to Eckhart in a homage to the German spiritual leader Meister Eckhart. He refused all forms of formal education between the ages of 13 and 22, preferring instead to pursue his own creative and philosophical interests. Despite all this, he went to the University of London and is acknowledged by Cambridge University to have matriculated as a postgraduate student there in 1977, when he was 29. At 15, he was given the five books written by the German mystic Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, also known as Bo Yin Ra. He is said to have been heavily influenced by these books; his writing also draws heavily on the New Testament, the Bhagavad Gita and Sufism.

After leaving Cambridge, Tolle went into a steep decline, however. "I was unhappy, depressed and anxious," he said in a rare interview, with the environmentalist website Ecomall.com in 2003. "I was not trying to become enlightened or anything like that. I was looking for some kind of answer to the dilemma of life, but I had been looking to the intellect for the answer; philosophy, religion and intellectual inspiration. The more I was looking on that level, the more unhappy I became."

And then, he says, he had an epiphany. "Suddenly I stepped back from myself, and it seemed to be two of me. The 'I', and this 'self' that I cannot live with. Am I one or am I two? And that triggered me like a koan [a Zen statement that appeals to intuition rather than ration]. It happened to me spontaneously. I looked at that sentence: 'I can't live with myself'. I had no intellectual answer. Who am I? Who is this self that I cannot live with? The answer came on a deeper level. I realised who I was."

He spent the next two years sitting on park benches "in a state of the most intense joy". And then he wrote his first book, The Power of Now. The book, published by Penguin in 1999, sat at the top of the bestseller lists for years.

There is not very much new about The Power of Now – it is Buddhism mixed with mysticism and a few references to Jesus Christ, a sort of New Age re-working of Zen. Its central message is that the root of our emotional problems is our habit of identifying too much with our minds. The past and the future are creations of thought and only the present moment is real and only the present moment matters.

The follow-up to The Power of Now, A New Earth, is an extended riff on the same subject. It aims to "provide a spiritual framework for people to move beyond themselves in order to make this world a better, more spiritually evolved place to live". The encapsulating idea, again, is that by abandoning your ego, you become "Present" in the immortal "Being".

William Bloom is a former professor at the London School of Economics, and one of the UK's most experienced teachers, healers and authors in the field of holistic development. He believes that Tolle's work provides a valuable perspective on Western culture.

"Tolle is offering a very contemporary synthesis of Eastern spiritual teaching, which is normally so clothed in arcane language that it is incomprehensible," says Bloom. "Some people might find him confusing but when he asserts that Descartes' major insight ("I think therefore I am") – one of the foundations of Western thinking – is ostensibly wrong, it's a conceptual challenge to how we think about ourselves. And that has always been the major assertion of Eastern religion: that thinking is not the core of who you are. The core of who you really are is that part of you that can watch yourself thinking – that's very Buddhist, very Eastern, very attuned to the whole field of transpersonal psychology.

"Second, he asks people to exist as best they can in any given moment and to connect with the sensation of the physical body – so instead of just staying in your head thinking, to be aware of what's happening in your feet, your hands, your whole body.

"This is particularly useful in the UK at the moment, because as part of Ofsted's initiative Seal [Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning], teachers are being asked to be very attentive to children's emotions and feelings; the foundation of emotional literacy is being present and to notice what's going on in your body and to feel its subtle sensations as a way of identifying your emotions. Tolle's approach is very body aware. He's done it in a nice accessible way for people.

"The thing that's really good about him," Bloom concludes, "in the midst of all the psychobabble to do with happiness being based on getting what you want, Tolle sounds a clear note stating that happiness comes from a state of consciousness and a connection with being present to the wonder of life. Which is just what's needed."

Tolle's detractors, aside from the Church, dismiss him as New Age rubbish of the worst kind, popular only because he has managed to get the attention of Oprah Winfrey. "Even by the standards of the self-help book industry, Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth is unutterable twaddle," said one newspaper book reviewer. "Oprah Winfrey's golden touch has turned a stinker into a bestseller for Penguin." Another dismissed the book by saying, "Its 313 pages are, frankly, baffling – a mix of pseudo-science, New Age philosophy and teaching borrowed from established religions."

Indeed, it is difficult sometimes to know what sense to make of Tolle's convoluted discursive style. Try this one, for example: "Something suddenly was there that actually had always been there but had been obscured continuously by identification with the heavy mind structure."

Despite this – or perhaps because of it – Tolle does have fans in academic, even Christian, circles. Andrew Ryder, a theologian at All Hallows College, Dublin, wrote in praise of Tolle in The Way, the modern Christian spirituality magazine: "Tolle's writing is based on his own experience and personal reflection. This makes his approach to the challenge of living in the present moment both practical and fresh. While he may not use the language of traditional Christian spirituality, Tolle is very much concerned that, as we make our way through the ordinary events of the day, we keep in touch with the deepest source of our being."

It's easy to see why Tolle's self-help schtick appeals to such ne'er do wells as Paris Hilton; his central advice about living for now and not dwelling on the mistakes of your past appeals to those with a colourful back history. Too many people, he says, defensively hold on to and preserve guilty, hostile feelings from past events and allow these memories to make them anxious and unhappy.

And really, what Tolle is trying to say is: "chill out" – but you can't sell five million copies of that.

Additional reporting by Photini Philippidou

Quote Unquote
Tolle in his own words

The Power of Now
"The pain-body consists of trapped life-energy that has split off from your total energy field and has temporarily become autonomous through the unnatural process of mind identification"

"Pain can only feed on pain. Pain cannot feed on joy. It finds it quite indigestible"

"In the normal, mind-identified or unenlightened state of consciousness, the power and creative potential that lie concealed in the Now are completely obscured by psychological time. You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present. Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be"

A New Earth
"Is humanity ready for a transformation of consciousness, an inner flowering so radical and profound that compared to it the flowering of plants, no matter how beautiful, is only a pale reflection? "

"There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One With Life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realise that you don't live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance"

"If you are not familiar with 'inner body' awareness, close your eyes for a moment and find out if there is life inside your hands. Don't ask your mind. It will say, 'I can't feel anything'"

"Can human beings lose the density of their conditioned mind structures and become like crystals or precious stones, so to speak, transparent to the light of consciousness?"

"You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness"

Labels: Buddhism, Eckhart Tolle, ego, Ether Walker, happiness, Jesus, spirituality

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Friday, June 20, 2008

Fortitude and the U.S. Open

A Christian Science perspective on daily life.

from the June 20, 2008 edition

There's an old saying that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

This was exemplified earlier this week when Tiger Woods won the US Open Golf Championship, his 14th major championship. Because he'd had knee surgery, he hadn't had tournament play or even much practice in two months. During the US Open he struggled, often limping, but his indomitable spirit of never giving up sustained him, bringing him to victory in a playoff. When asked afterward if he'd been tempted to give up, he replied, "You just deal with it, giving it your best, no excuses, whether 100 percent or not, it's just get up and go. I wasn't going to bag it. It's not my nature to give up."

If we can glimpse the fact that we are spiritual, expressing strength, courage, and fortitude as ideas of God, infinite Mind, the source of all energy, then we won't allow anything to hinder or limit our expression of God's qualities. Denigrating, restrictive thoughts would suggest otherwise, sometimes so persistently that they may mesmerize us or make us afraid. But we can put them out of consciousness by turning to God for a rundown on our real status and condition.

Another example of fortitude was a woman who'd been told by the doctors who were caring for her that she had only a short time to live. That was 10 years ago, and she's now in her 90s. She said that when the doctor told her she was dying, she said to herself, "Well, I have had a good life, I have helped many people, and as far as I know have not done anyone any wrong, so I may as well just pass on." Then she suddenly became aware of the implications of consenting to death in that way. She thought, "If I do, I am committing suicide, and I am not going to commit suicide. I am not going to give up."

She remembered this statement by Mary Baker Eddy: "He is bravely brave who dares at this date refute the evidence of material sense with the facts of Science, and will arrive at the true status of man because of it" ("Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896," p. 183). She realized that she could be "bravely brave" and indeed refute the mortal evidence with what she knew to be true about her true identity as the child of God. And, within a short time, she was completely healed.

So often we are tempted to stop trying – to just give up – but we have the capacity to reject all such notions, and with this rejection come progress and victory.

For whatsoever is born of God
overcometh the world:
and this is the victory
that overcometh the world,
even our faith.
I John 5:4

Labels: fortitude, God, golf, Mary Baker Eddy, spirituality, Tiger Woods, US Open

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Saturday, June 14, 2008

The Warrior Of Light

May 2008

From the romantic 1960s to the hi-tech twenty-first century, Paulo Coelho masters the art of whispering to the heart

By Mohamed Shady

Although Paulo Coelho is the author of one of the most popular novels of the last few decades, he is no conformist. His most celebrated book, The Alchemist, inspired by Coelho’s pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella in northern Spain, explores the spiritualism of dreams and symbols. Although The Guardian accuses the author of “pandering to the lowest common denominator of new age gullibility” and Brazilian critic Mario Maestri dismisses Coelho’s writing as “yuppie esoteric narrative,” 100 million readers all over the world would disagree.

While his career as a songwriter was established much earlier, the author’s commercial success came when he was 38 years old. With over 25 titles, Paulo often draws on his spiritual experiences traveling the world in his youth when writing his novels. Looking at the number of books he has sold and the life-changing effect he has had on millions of readers, this author is indeed an extraordinary phenomenon and unique voice.

From the romance of his earlier years in Brazil to taking on the responsibilities of a UN Messenger of Peace, Paulo Coelho talks to us about his journey, his work and how he sees his role in today’s world.

Edited excerpts:

As a writer, most of your novels revolve around the idea of pilgrimage, travel, or departure. The works engage readers in a discourse about letting go of one’s defined self-image in new experiences and using those experiences to reach one’s own true self. What did you find in Egypt that helped you transmit this concept?

It’s true that all of my main characters travel, either by choice (like Santiago or Maria) or by necessity, as is the case of Elias’ exile or even Athena’s adoption. Their wanderings are the road that most often guides my stories.

I’m a pilgrim writer and that inevitably appears in the way my characters deal with space. I’m in constant movement and very often I find that my characters need to move constantly as I do. I believe that we are constantly experiencing transformation and that’s why we need to let life guide us. That’s what the main character in The Alchemist, for instance, does: he has to get to Egypt in order to discover himself. I decided to choose Egypt because I was so impressed by my first visit to the country.

The physical journey of the protagonist in The Alchemist mimics the psychological one in the sense that it’s only through this experience that he is able to grasp the deeper meaning of his life, the reason for his wanderings.

In your novels, you communicate a wonderful magical world, full of spirituality and goodness, and you insist that goodness is not limited by place, religion or group. How did you reach this conclusion, especially with all that you went through earlier in your life?

The cost is always high, but it is worth it. If I look back at my life — which in this moment I am ‘obliged’ to examine, since a biography about my lyricist days just came out in Brazil and another will come out by the end of the year — I see many occasions where society tried to make me conform to “normality.” This resulted in three hospitalizations in an asylum when I was a teenager (which I describe in my book Veronika Decides to Die), torture when I was a young adult at the hands of paramilitaries and many defeats. You could look at these experiences and say “Paulo’s life is tragic,” but I don’t see it that way. What I do see is someone trying to remain true to oneself. Yes, there is a price but I believe that life tends to be very generous to those who are brave enough to take these risks. In other words, I’ve always had faith in life.

I’ve also always been fascinated by the spiritual realm. It’s true that coming from a country where different religions have mingled, forming such a unique and rich environment, made things easier for me. In Brazil (and also in the rest of South America) we accept more easily the magical elements of everyday life. However, as a young man I wanted to have answers for everything. I also believed that the path to God was only for a few. Now I know that I can’t have those answers. I only know that I am alive and there is something that manifests itself in my life, and that it is God.

Although I do believe that everything we see, everything that is in front of us is just the visible part of reality, there is also an invisible reality that is ruled by emotions and feelings. This is our perception of the world, but God is, as William Blake said, in a grain of sand and in a flower. This energy is everywhere.

You were given an award by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as a ‘social entrepreneur,’ and then you joined the WEF board as a board member of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. [...] How do you see the WEF efforts in this field, and how do you evaluate their achievement?

Certain things when shared are not divided but multiplied. You can say that of love, of compassion, of hope This is a very simple way of explaining the feelings or actions that create a virtuous circle.

Social entrepreneurship follows the same principle, namely that society as a whole wins much more when business is coupled with social concern. It’s about common sense: How can I have a good quality of life if those surrounding me are constantly striving for food, shelter, water? I may have a haven in my house, but the moment I walk in the streets, I will be in an environment of poverty and violence.

Social entrepreneurs are the people who strive to pass on the idea that a person’s well-being is dependent on the well-being of others.

I’ve seen how WEF, with its constant concern to “improve the state of the world” is managing to change perceptions and help social entrepreneurs to not only share information but also to implement their programs in other regions and help them to raise funds. The example of micro-credit — which is changing the face of India but also is being applied in other regions of the world — was nurtured and actively supported by the Schwab Foundation.

This is but one example of the many projects that are supported by WEF and the Foundation and are truly making a difference.

‘Inter-cultural dialogue,’ ‘inter-religious dialogue,’ and ‘global dialogue’ are widely used expressions nowadays. But you ask your readers to build a “dialogue with the world.” How do you see these expressions versus yours?

There is no conflict whatsoever between these expressions and mine. In a way, my expression encompasses the others. Indeed, if you are open to the world, this means you are open to other cultures, other religions, other places. It allows different cultures to share with each other the best they have, and at the same time respect their own background.

From the moment that we understand that the world has a soul and that we are all part of it, we start to pay attention to very subtle things. We start treasuring the small things, the people next to us, the beauty of difference.

Going on a pilgrimage reawakens that awareness, but you don’t need to walk the road to Santiago to realize the benefits. Life itself is a pilgrimage. Every day is different, every day can have a magical moment, but often we don’t see the opportunity, because we think, “Oh this is boring I’m just commuting to work.” But we are all on a pilgrimage whether we like it or not and the target, or goal, is death. You must get as much as you can from the journey, because in the end the journey is all you have. It doesn’t matter what you accumulate in terms of material wealth, because you are going to die anyway, so why not live? When you realize that, you can be brave, and that is the first tenant of any spiritual quest — the ability to take risks. And what risk is more interesting than to dive into the soul of others?

As a Messenger of Peace for the UN, and UNESCO special counselor for “Intercultural Dialogues and Spiritual Convergences,” how do you envision your role in today’s world?

I think that it is everyone’s responsibility to be involved in their community. I’ve always been very skeptical about people that say: “I want to save the world, help others” This is because “to save the world” is a Sisyphean task — too abstract to actually be put into practice. What is possible, and the most difficult task, is to first look at oneself and try to identify what’s wrong. Before searching for the other, one has to find oneself.

I took 40 years to find myself, to accept my dream to become a writer. Only when I started to walk down the path of my personal legend was I able to honestly turn myself towards others: Before that, there were too many walls inside my soul. I looked around me and said, “I can’t change the world, I can’t change my country, I can’t change my city, I can’t even change my neighborhood what I can change is my street.” That’s when I went to a favela (shanty town) — in Rio, favelas are in the center of the city — and met a group of people that were taking care of children. Since then I’ve been cooperating with them and now we take care of 430 children.

The marvelous thing is that now I’m being given the opportunity to speak out about injustices and use my influence in the political arena.

I still believe that most of the real changes are made in a small scale. Nevertheless the tribune of the UN contributes to the changes that are necessary in the world. Being a messenger of peace is like being a reminder of something that defies power, something that runs deep inside all men’s souls. Peace, as well as justice, has a natural authority that, given enough time and enough space, imposes itself. The challenge lies in the fact that too often, we let our better judgment get crushed by too much fear, by too many scars.

Who is Paulo Coelho, the Warrior of Light? To those who want to follow your steps, what advice would you give them?

During my wanderings I came to believe that a person has a personal legend to fulfil. What is a personal legend? It is the reason why we are alive. In my case this legend was to share my ideas with others through writing.

We have dreams that are not necessarily the dreams that our parents or society had for us. So, we must get rid ofthe idea of fulfilling what people expect us to do, and start to do what we expect from our lives. Dare to be different. You are unique, and you have to accept you as you are, instead of trying to repeat other people’s destinies or patterns. Insanity is to behave like someone that you are not. Normality is the capacity to express your feelings. From the moment thatyou don’t fear to share your heart, you are a free person.

As a Latin American author who became an icon in today’s world, what are your dreams for the future, on a personal level as well as for humanity?

My dream for the future is to live the present. It is only through one’s presence in this world that things can truly manifest themselves. I believe that unfortunately too often men and women are absent from their actions and caught up in their fears, illusions and desires. One just needs to focus in the present moment and understand that the simplest things are the most extraordinary ones. With this knowledge, everyone can first change themselves and the world will simply follow.

Labels: goodness, Mohamed Shady, Paulo Coelho, spirituality, The Alchemist, World Economic Forum

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Thursday, June 12, 2008

"Spiritual Evolution" by George Vaillant - Book Review

June 10, 2008 at 06:40:18
by Senia Maymin

Here is what will happen to you when you read George Vaillant’s book Spiritual Evolution:

* * During the chapter “Joy,” you may cry as you feel Joy. During the chapter “Love,” you will want to call home to say Hi.
* * You will be pulled in by personal stories from the Study of Adult Development, and how these men have come around to positive emotions and spirituality.

In Spiritual Evolution, Vaillant makes the case that “positive emotions are not just nice to have; they are essential to the survival of Homo sapiens as a species.” For thirty-five years, George Vaillant ran the seven-decade-old Study of Adult Development at Harvard. He writes in this book, “by studying lifetimes, I have learned to pay attention to how people behave, not to what they say.” Here, too, in this book, Vaillant describes emotions by how the emotions behave, not by what they say. Vaillant describes an emotion by what a poet may have written about it, where it resides in the brain, which world leader may have used it, and how a Study participant over time came to display it. As a reader, you may feel that in reading about Joy, you’re inside a story with many paths, and then, in stepping away from the book, you start to see: “Aha!”

Spiritual Evolution

The table of contents may remind you of a hymn: Faith, Love, Hope, Forgiveness, Awe, etc. The first part of the book is about the three evolutions Vaillant references in the title: genetic (”walnut-brained… cold-blooded reptiles slowly evolved into warm-blooded, child-nurturing [mammals] trusting their parents to care for them rather than do them for lunch”), cultural (”Homo sapiens began to decorate caves in ways that still induce a unifying gasp of spiritual awe”), and individual (over the human lifespan as “adolescent caterpillars evolve into great-grandfather butterflies”). The second part includes individual chapters about each of seven positive emotions, and the last part is about the difference between religion and spirituality (”Love, like the other positive emotions, is religion without the side effects.”)

A crux of the book is that Vaillant backs up his stories with data about the mind and the brain:

* In addressing “what good are positive emotions?” Vaillant cites a study by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman in which there was a large rise in heart strengths after the September 11, 2001 terrorism attacks: gratitude, hope, kindness, love, spirituality, and teamwork all increased while head strengths did not much change. Similarly, Barbara Fredrickson at the University of Michigan at the same time learned that awareness of positive emotions appeared to buffer the students against depression after the attacks.
* There are many details about how the limbic system (one of the three main areas of the brain) contributes to health and healing through positive emotions: Vaillant’s brain-based examples include oxytocin for Love, endorphins for Compassion, the parasympathetic nervous system for lowered cardiac risk for Forgiveness, and others.

A Bonus
Plus, in addition to information, stories, and connections, Vaillant brings us his language. Here are some George-isms:

“You can pull a puppy’s tail, but not a rattlesnake’s.”
“She did not have faith. She did faith. Basic trust, like God, is not a noun: it is an experience.”
“If poets are blind to love, psychologists are struck dumb.”
In describing how Sigmund Freud could not experience joy, “What an irony it is that in German freude means joy.”
“…bonobo chimps and Homo sapiens are are the only two species to make eye contact during sexual intercourse.”

Senia Maymin, MBA, MAPP, is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of www.PositivePsychologyNews.com, a 30+ author daily news site about the latest research and applications of positive psychology, offered in English and Chinese. Senia has taught positive psychology at the Masters level at the University of Pennsylvania and at the Chicago Graduate School of Business, and has taught business communication skills at the Masters level at NYU.Furthermore, Senia works with individuals and companies to bring positive psychology tools to businesses (www.Senia.com). Senia has a background in entrepreneurship (past President of two high-tech start-ups) and finance (Morgan Stanley, hedge fund). Senia is a member of the Forum Committee for the Springboard Enterprises ALLTHINGSMEDIA venture forum for women entrepreneurs. Senia completed her AB in Mathematics and Economics at Harvard University, her MBA at Stanford University, and her Master in Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Senia speaks Russian, French, and Japanese.

Labels: behavior, emotion, evolution, George Vaillant, Senia Maymin, spirituality

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Sunday, June 01, 2008

In Japan, 72% irreligious; 56% believe in supernatural

The Yomiuri Shimbun Survey

Seventy-two percent of Japanese do not have any specific religious affiliation, but many still believe in supernatural forces, according to a recent Yomiuri Shimbun survey.

According to the survey, 26 percent of respondents said they believed in a religion, virtually unchanged from a similar survey conducted three years ago. Only 37 percent said religion was important for living a happy life.

Views of people's religious sentiment were split, with 45 percent of respondents saying Japanese had little religious faith while 49 percent thought otherwise.

However, 94 percent of respondents said they respected their ancestors, and 56 percent claimed to have had some form of supernatural experience.

The results suggested that many Japanese feel little affinity to a particular religion, but many do harbor feelings of respect for things that are scientifically unproven.

The Yomiuri Shimbun interviewed 3,000 randomly selected people across the country face-to-face on May 17-18, of whom 1,837 gave valid answers.

Asked about what happens to people's spirits after they die, 30 percent said they believed they would be reincarnated, 24 percent said they would go to another world and 18 percent answered they would vanish.

The recent popularity of new forms of spirituality and other new age-related beliefs, such as an interest in previous lives and guardian angels, was particularly prominent among female respondents. Although 21 percent of all respondents said they were interested in such thinking--far below the 75 percent who were not--27 percent of women saw the appeal of such beliefs, whereas only 13 percent of men said they felt this way.

To the question about what should be taught as religious education at school, 71 percent said students should be taught about "respect for life and nature," 31 percent said "histories of major religions," and 21 percent selected "the meaning of religion" and "tolerance for people of other faiths." Only 7 percent preferred not to have religion taught at school.

Respondents were allowed to give more than one answer to this question.

Views on religious groups were somewhat standoffish, with 47 percent saying these groups' activities were unclear, and 43 percent believing they use fear-mongering and other aggressive approaches to disseminate their beliefs. Thirty-six percent said they felt these groups were good at raising large amounts of money.

These three answers occupied the top three slots to the same question in Yomiuri surveys in May 1998 and August 2005.
(May. 31, 2008)

Labels: ancestors, Japan, religion, spirituality, supernatural, Yomiuri Shimbun

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Friday, May 30, 2008

Spiritual fitness is as important as physical fitness

By Ch. (Capt) John M. Boulware - 55th Wing Chapel
05/29/2008

Spiritual health - let's call it spiritual fitness - takes discipline too. Faith exercised regularly grows strong and vibrant; faith ignored becomes weak and flabby. William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army; Mother Theresa, the missionary to India's poor; Amy Carmichael, who established a home for the children of Hindu temple prostitutes; Billy Graham, noted as the greatest evangelist of the 20th century; and Corrie ten Boom, whose family hid Jews from the Nazis - I am sure all of these are listed among God's spiritually disciplined heroes.

They are heroes because they knew that it is their faith and their spirituality that ultimately made them uniquely human and of substantial value to the rest of the world.

I want to offer to you then four things I believe will assist you in becoming more spiritually fit. First, stretch. Without stretching and enriching your soul through spiritual learning, you can overextend or hurt yourself or others. Remember, you are only able to receive from others that which you have given. When you're at work or at home, be sure to stretch your mind and heart in new ways to incorporate the daily changes that have occurred not only in your life, but in the lives of your co-workers or loved ones. Be willing to give of yourself and not take others for granted so your relationships will be enriched and not suffer instead.

Second, do knee bends! Knee bends require having the right attitude. Become a "servant" leader or a devoted wingman and "bend down" to help others. Being a "servant" leader or wingman means being patient with others, being willing to do the jobs that don't get noticed but are essential to mission accomplishment, and being kind to someone who you may not like or who you know may not like you. Bending down to lift others up in your life, whether it is a co-worker, your spouse, children or a friend or foe, can be the greatest reward if your spiritual nature is as developed as it should be.

Third, cultivate spiritual team building activities. As "iron sharpens iron," we too help equip each other spiritually for the fight. Aiding in team and family growth takes being a good team player. This means working for consensus on decisions, sharing openly and authentically with others regarding personal feelings, opinions, thoughts and perceptions about problems and conditions. It also means involving others in the decision-making process, providing trust and support, having genuine concern for the problems of others; and being willing to compromise.

Finally, look in the mirror. Constantly evaluate your spiritual centeredness and accept who you are including your gifts as well as your limitations. Live up to your potential and believe that through both the good and the bad you are a vital and integral part of your family and all of your other relationships. If you're disciplined and perform the spiritual development exercises prescribed here, then as you become more engaged at work and at home both your Air Force and your personal family will notice not only are you more physically and mentally fit, but you are also more spiritually fit in order to successfully obtain personal achievement, relationship bliss and overall job-related mission accomplishment.

©Suburban Newspapers 2008

Labels: faith, family, John M. Boulware, service, spirituality

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

You don’t need to know music to appreciate it

May 28th, 2008
By Amjad Ali Khan

What is music? There may be any number of scientific explanations about pitch and vibrations but it is difficult to explain how ’sound’ becomes ‘music’. It has more to do with human nature. Music is a unique and precious gift of god to mankind. Music is a celebration of life. The wonderful truth is any music, from anywhere in the world, is based on the same seven, beautiful musical notes: Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni or Do Re Me Fa So La Ti.

These seven notes are the ‘alphabet’ of a universal ‘language’. Of the seven notes, the first and the fifth are fixed while the remaining notes have sharps and flats, making a total of 12 notes. Music has been in practice for at least 5,000 years, yet we have not been able to discover a 13th note!

Musicians and listeners of music have been communicating with each other across all barriers through this ‘language’ from time immemorial. As we use flowers in worship, welcoming, honouring, departure and celebration, no matter what our race, origin, religion or language, we similarly arrange musical notes into ‘bouquets’ or compositions that display all our human feelings and emotions.

Musical vibrations can convey moods and emotions and have the ability to mould and shape our consciousness. Different types of music can have different effects on the mind -both positive and negative. Our mind is like any living organism. It must be nurtured and needs stimulation to develop and grow. Music is one of the most important ‘foods’ for the intellect. Each musical note is connected to this most important part of our minds.

Music has many faces. Conversation, recitation, chanting and singing are all part of music. Music can be either vocal or instrumental. Vocal music appeals to most of us because of its poetical or lyrical content. Instrumental music, on the other hand, such as what I play on the sarod, is pure sound. It needs to be experienced and felt. Since there are no lyrics, there is no language barrier between the performer and the listener, and that is why instrumental music transcends all barriers.

A wonderful and strange mystery of Indian classical music is the fact that one can spend a lifetime trying to attain knowledge and perfection and still feel that one has only touched a mere drop in an ocean. Along the journey of searching and discovering, the learning never stops. Its understanding changes with every year a musician lives. This is true sadhana. Some of the greatest sadhaks in Indian classical music were Swami Haridas, Swami Tyagaraja, Swami Muttuswamy Dikshitar, Swami Shyama Shastri, Purandara Dasa, Swati Tirunal, Baiju Bawra and Miyan Tansen (from where my family gets its musical lineage). They are responsible for the solid foundation of the art in both north and south India.

There is an old saying, “Swara hi eshwar hai”. In every culture, music has its roots in spirituality. Music has always been an internal part of the worship of god. That is why hymns, carols, bhajans, shabads, kirtans, etc., are all forms of prayer. Through music we can convey our innermost feelings. From childhood it has been my aim to be able to sing through my instruments, whether it is Dhrupad, Khayal, Thumri or folk. When I’m performing, in search of perfection and excellence with eyes closed, I feel connected to a cosmic power from where I receive the messages which my audiences experience. When I am able to get across to my audience, when I can get them involved, I find that my listeners always give me the inspiration to create that special atmosphere, the ambience where music, the musician and the audience become One.

Music is essential for mind and body. Pure music like the sarod, violin, etc., listened to with concentration restores the subtle mental imbalances that crop up in today’s modern lifestyle. People today need more than ever to cope with tensions, distress, depression and struggle to find peace and relaxation. Sound pollution is also a daily hazard. Music helps to retune one’s system. That is why eminent doctors and psychologists are prescribing certain type of music as a form of therapy and treatment for stress disorders. Noisy music on the other hand can be damaging to human mind and body. Music, like the sarod, needs to be heard at moderate volume and with concentration to avail of its positive effects.

In western classical music, a composer scores a composition that is read and sung or played by the vocalists or musicians. In the Indian classical system, there is no written or scored music. It would be extremely difficult to record and subsequently interpret the subtle nuances on paper. We therefore follow an ‘oral’ tradition. Music and musicality is passed on from guru to shishya directly through the guru-shishya parampara. In this manner, music has been handed down from generation to generation. For musicians, classical music thus becomes a way of life.

Music is the greatest wealth that I inherited from my forefathers. One that I am constantly sharing with my disciples. It was a great moment in my wife Subhalakshmi’s and my life when my two sons, representing the seventh generation of musicians in my family, began to play the sarod. Considering today’s distractions and musical pollution, if Amaan and Ayaan are playing today it only shows the wish of god that this tradition should be carried forward.

My other inheritance was the house of my birth in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, which was the birthplace of four generations of my family. Today, with the aid of the central and state governments, it houses ‘Sarod Ghar’, a museum of musical heritage; a tribute to my guru and to all our great musicians of the past. It houses, apart from the instruments of my ancestors, the instruments and artefacts of great musicians from all over the country. Should you find yourself in the vicinity of Agra, you are most welcome to visit this humble house of music in the neighbouring town of Gwalior.

(Amjad Ali Khan is a renowned sarod maestro. He can be reached at music@sarod.com)

Labels: Amjad Ali Khan, inspiration, mind, music, spirituality, worship

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Friday, May 23, 2008

Should Kids Learn to be Spiritual?

Posted May 20, 2008

Instead of viewing spirituality as the holiest or the highest, what if we considered it to be a foundational coping skill, a guide for every action in our lives?

That's just how the teachers at a unique program called Spirituality for Kids (SFK) view spiritual values--not as beliefs to adopt, but as skills to learn because they help us cope. They claim that spirituality can and should be taught; and that (in today's harsh world) the people most in need of it are children.

Currently offering their special training program to kids (all the way from New York's Lower Eastside to the Middle East), last week in New York City, a lively team of SFK teachers gave an assembly for adults hosted by designer Donna Karan at the Stephan Weiss studio in New York City. Donna herself is a SFK strong supporter.

"Simple activities can be so powerful and kids really get it," Donna told me. "As they add their bead to a necklace, they understand that this is my individual bead, but together with all the other beads, there's a necklace. We're connected and we need each other. Without the connection, there's no necklace."

At her event, panels alternated with exercises, giving adults a taste of the SFK approach. Lighting each other's candles to share the "inner light," dialoguing with one's inner "opponent," or learning that feeding one's neighbor was the way to receive nourishment oneself. It may sound silly but it was surprisingly moving even for the cynical among us.

For myself, I've spent countless hours in retreats, workshops, and practices, learning these kinds of lessons. But experiencing them in this embodied and playful way was both heart warming and team building. My classmates, adults some of whom regularly practice adult-style spirituality, felt the same way.

Karen Berg, the founder of SFK, (whose husband directs the Kaballah Center) views the program as the vehicle to "give the gift of interconnection."

"Schools emphasize the skills of reading and writing," she told the assembly. "But the skills that endow emotional intelligence are equally vital. You carry them into life."

A recent Rand Corporation study conducted by policy analyst, Sarah Gaillot, found that the SFK's offerings produce tangible benefits, building in young people four key areas of resilience: in social skill, self-esteem, sense of purpose, and problem solving. Those skills are crucial for all children; but they are especially vital for children facing great duress.

In Malawi, one million AIDS orphans have grown up stigmatized, nursing sick parents, and living under the cloud of their parents' immanent death. Sylvia Namakhwa, a Malawian who directs the SFK program in her country told the group that she viewed SFK as a life-saver for the kids she teaches.

"Before SFK, the kids regularly wound up on the streets or in prisons. It was every man for himself. Now they have a way to cope, and a reason to join together."

In her world, spirituality is not high minded, but practical. With the resilience they develop through experiencing SFK, Namakhwa's Malawian youngsters are more likely to stay in the shelters where they can receive the minimal food and social services, rather than taking to crime.

So--why should kids learn to be spiritual? To cope with the world we adults have created or allowed to be. When the day comes that we've create a social and global order based on spiritual values like connection, inclusion, and sharing, then hopefully children can learn to be spiritual just by watching us.

For more information on SFK, please go to: SFK.org. To join the Better Health Campaign, please sign up at: www.Health-Journalist.com For more on Donna Karan's initiatives, go to www.urbanzen.org

Labels: children, Donna Karan, Karen Berg, spirituality, Spirituality for Kids

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The Golden Rule is meant to be shared

May 16, 2008 - 1:50PM
Lawn Griffiths, Tribune

Cover the religious landscape for any time and it’s obvious that belief runs too deeply to suggest one group of believers found and embraced the real truth, while the rest are just lost souls, floundering in falsehood.

Lawn Griffiths on Spiritual Life

That’s why I find real hope in the ecumenical and interfaith efforts — those of faith with courage to learn from each other without any obligation or intention to abandon their own core beliefs. They welcome chances to discover the beauty and integrity of other faith systems. They find awe in the common ground. They celebrate that some from other faiths truly seek to live out their beliefs authentically no matter how radically they may differ from their own. They don’t judge, and they don’t feel that consorting with other kinds of seekers will dishonor their own religions. In their own ways, they strive to understand the mysteries of God. They balance teachings of their formal traditions with their own line of reasoning and free agency. It’s called a “faith journey.” They work cooperatively to share their best for peace and understanding.

Clearly some religions encourage open-mindedness and stretching so that a follower truly owns and embraces what unfolds and evolves in their own distinct experiences.

Other faiths, however, are far more strict and legalistic, insisting that adherents absorb their solid, historic teachings and not stray. They are warned of the dangers of what might seep into their minds from the “outside.” Orthodoxy now, orthodoxy forever.

I value people having transforming experiences that impel them to abandon bad habits, destructive behavior, self-centeredness, greed, hostility ... In truly loving Jesus, for example, they can honestly say they are new people, a new creation. I distrust, however, those so mesmerized by charismatic teachings that they cede away critical thinking.

So much of the whole discussion falls into just two areas — 1) escaping the pain and struggles of life on earth for life everlasting salvation; or 2) the social gospel that calls on the believer to love, to work for justice and to bring comfort to the poor and disenfranchised. All week, the words of theologian Brian McLaren, as expressed May 10 in this Spiritual Life section, have resonated with me. He talked about the difference between mercy and justice. We can strive to provide relief from the pain of the moment or we can make systemic changes to end injustice so that changes made for good actually last. McLaren said unjust systems keep throwing people into misery, and “mercy brings us to relieve some of their misery, but until we confront the unjust systems by doing justice we’re never going to make a change ... I think what churches in America, especially evangelical churches, are just waking up to is the way we have to deal with systemic injustice, not just charitable giving to people in misery.”

Three weeks ago, I was among 10 people and some organizations that the Arizona InterFaith Movement honored at Phoenix Convention Center with Golden Rule Awards. (www.interfaitharizona.com). The fourth annual award recipients included Arizona Cardinal Kurt Warner and his wife, Brenda (Courage in Sports award); the dean of Valley rabbis, Rabbi Albert Plotkin (religion award); and Rep. Mark Anderson, R-Mesa (government award). I won in the media category. More than 900 folks, representing a wide range of faiths, turned out. It was fascinating to watch six-minute videos on the recipients and see authentic ways people have devoted their lives trying to bring light to the darkness.

When AFM’s executive director, the Rev. Paul Eppinger, notified me of the award in February, my immediate reaction was one of unworthiness and a realization that we media types have a too-easy opportunity to be Golden Rule-esque in simply showcasing the great good. And I realized Arizona has a shortage of media people focused on spirituality and faith and the honor may have come my way because of the small pool of media folks dealing with faith.

Then I quickly remembered the late Darl Andersen, the Mesa man who worked tirelessly to promote living the Golden Rule, giving away bumper stickers touting it and seeking religious understanding. He belonged to several interfaith groups and was famous for taking clergy of many faiths to lunch to help them understand his faith, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He’d invite his dinner companions to educate him on theirs.

I wrote several features on Andersen, including one when he died in 2000. Andersen and I talked over lunch four or five times across a dozen years, and the one-time Mesa Unified School District governing board president was always effective in making his point and just being a smiling bundle of love made flesh.

He never lived to see the annual Golden Rule banquet with more than 900 attendees from dozens of diverse religions, nor the new Golden Rule specialized Arizona license plate, nor Arizona being declared, in 2003, the nation’s first “Golden Rule State” with a program through the Secretary of State’s office to recognize people for “good deeds and acts of kindness.”

It is appropriate that one of the awards given was the Darl Andersen Award, presented by his son Wilfred Andersen, one-time Arizona spokesman for the LDS Church. This year, it went to Dennis Barney, who combined charity and civic and church duty with successful development work and family life.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s so simple. It’s a universal message that is said many ways in all the languages and religious creeds. If we would really live it and believe in it, justice and peace could follow.

Labels: Golden Rule, interfaith, Lawn Griffiths, religion, spirituality

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With age come happiness and improved self-esteem

By Richard Griffin/Growing Older
Mon May 19, 2008

Happiness, it turns out, increases with age.
At least, that’s what a new study has found. Older people are happier than any other age group.

And the main reason why this holds true? According to what Professor Yang Yang, the study’s leading researcher, has told Reuters News Service, it’s largely due to an increase in self-esteem.

She also found that “happiness in later life is closely related to early-life conditions and formative experiences.”

You may have your doubts, but the study looks solid. It comes from the University of Chicago and is based on surveys of Americans conducted over a 30-year period.

The researchers interviewed between 1,500 and 3,000 people each year. So the findings do not rest on a slim sample.

That it began three decades ago suggests that happiness has been a subject of interest for a lot longer than one might have thought. I had considered it something of a fad that sprouted only recently.

For the past few years, it has been of serious interest to social scientists, part of the so-called Positive Psychology movement.

Defining happiness, however, turns out to be difficult.
Tal Ben-Shahar, who teaches a course about happiness to packed rows of Harvard undergrads, sees it as a combination of pleasure and meaning. For him, you need both to make you happy.

In his delightful book “Stumbling on Happiness,” another Harvard psychologist, Daniel Gilbert, writes: “The you-know-what-I-mean feeling is what people ordinarily mean by happiness.”

He then shows in detail how the subject is a lot more complicated than this definition (and this column) might lead you to believe.

The findings of the Chicago researchers run counter to received opinion. Left to themselves, most Americans might have classified old people as basically unhappy. Don’t they have to put up with a lot more grief than young people?

Though not myself a researcher, I judge these findings consistent with experience of many of my age peers. An oft-repeated sentiment that one hears from people from 30 on up: I wouldn’t ever want to go through my 20s again.

(Incidentally, that is not a sentiment I exactly share. I would welcome another shot at it. Of course, this time I would get it right.)

In my more rational moments, however, I do relate to the findings of the survey. My happiness quotient has indeed increased, and I now claim higher marks than previously.

For fear this be mere grade inflation, however, let me qualify this claim. Almost surely, my current happiness will undergo serious tests and resulting ups and downs. I fully expect things to go wrong.

But that belongs to the uncharted future. The present looks quite good to me, despite the ongoing chagrin I harbor over many events. The damage the neo-cons have done to this country, for example. And the grief I feel for the people of Burma/Myanmar, of China, and those living in other parts of this troubled world.

Like many others among my age peers, I got off to a good start with happiness. One of the first things I read as a child came in Sunday school from a little book full of questions and answers.

The second question asked why God made me.
And the answer, if I may here abridge the words a bit, told me it was for me to be happy.

Of course, the slings and arrows of actual living tend to weaken our hold on happiness. Life surprises us with unexpected blows that move us off course. The deaths of dear ones, for example, make happiness sometimes feel remote.

But, even then, self-esteem continues to promote happiness. That means openness to loving and being loved. And that loving begins with loving yourself and being ready to forgive and be patient with yourself.

As suggested above, I think that spirituality promotes happiness. Among human goods, having an interior life rich in spirit surely deserves a high rank.

Among other ingredients for happiness, one of the most important is being at peace with others. It astonishes me how many people are at odds with their relatives or former friends and associates.

It is hard to imagine anyone being happy without a sense of humor. Unless you can laugh at certain human predicaments, you will almost surely become unhappy.

Closely related to a sense of humor is a sense of perspective. If every little happening can upset you, how in the world can you stay even reasonably happy?

Do something for other people. Almost by itself, I have found, being willing to reach out to others will promote happiness. Even if you are largely incapacitated, a word or gesture directed toward another person has the potential to make you feel better.

Finally, writing makes me feel happy. You may not feel the same way about this activity but to make something — a sweater, a bookshelf, a garden — can prove a powerful source of happiness.

Richard Griffin of Cambridge is a regularly featured columnist in Community Newspaper Company publications. He can be reached by e-mail at rbgriff180@aol.com or by calling 617-661-0710.

Labels: Americans, God, happiness, humor, meaning, Richard Griffin, self-esteem, spirituality, survey, Yang Yang

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'Faith and health go together,' Tutu tells U.N. in Geneva

By Peter Kenny, May 21, 2008

[Ecumenical News International, Geneva] Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a man known for speaking out about injustices from whatever side they come, and for his charismatic preaching peppered with heart-wrenching anecdotes. However, when he visited the United Nations in Geneva on May 20, he stressed the link between "faith and health."

Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 at a time when black South Africans were rising up in revolt against his country's apartheid racist system of white domination, and he was a vociferous opponent of the regime. Still, he also famously intervened to stop militants who were trying to kill a local member of a black community by setting fire to a gasoline-soaked tire and placing it around his neck, because he was suspected of being an informer.

The Nobel peace laureate said that people who were suffering under tyranny these days were in Zimbabwe, Burma and Tibet. The archbishop has condemned the totalitarian actions of the government of Zimbabwe led by President Robert Mugabe, and did so long before other Church leaders dared to. He also fights his government for what he has labelled as their heartless policies to those living with HIV and AIDS.

"It is a Godly coincidence that nearby the World Council of Churches is also celebrating its 60th anniversary," Tutu, who is 76, told his U.N. hearers. "Together, the WHO and WCC share a common mission to the world, protecting and restoring body, mind, and spirit.

The archbishop added that it was important that 2008 also marked the 40th anniversary of the Christian Medical Commission, whose values and experience in primary health care shaped the 1974 WHO Guidelines for Primary Health Care, which were reaffirmed at Alma Ata (the then capital of Kazakhstan) in 1978.

"You see, we -- faith and health -- have been together a very long time. Health is not only freedom from suffering and illness but, according to your Constitution, 'Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.' These words enshrine the fundamental reason you are here, and suggest something of what we share in our commitment to the world together," asserted Tutu.

He added, "Perhaps it would be good for us to include the recognition that there is an intrinsic relationship between God and humankind, which can be acknowledged as 'spiritual well being'? Perhaps one day this notion of well being can be included in the WHO definition of health?"

Labels: Desmond Tutu, faith, health, Peter Kenny, spirituality, United Nations

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Spiritual Living

Stella Gray
Monday, May 12, 2008

In all the hustle and bustle of daily life it is vital that we find sources to nourish and feed our souls as well as our physical bodies. No one can do this for us; we have to find ourselves that which supplies us with food for our mind and spirit.

Have a vision of how you would like to enhance your life spiritually. Find a quiet place to sit with your journal and reflect on the following questions.

. What does my ideal spiritual life look like?
. What qualities do I want to bring into my life - forgiveness, gratitude, hope, compassion, etc.?
. Where do I turn for help -books, organisations, people?
. What do I value, how do I live these values everyday and how can I enhance them?
. Who and what am I grateful for?
. How can I move forward on my path of spiritual living?

Take time to think before you answer these questions so you can allow your vision to expand and grow. Consider what qualities you want to develop in yourself and what you would like to engage in on a regular basis. You could develop a meditation practice, attend regular church services, take calm walks in nature, work in your garden or listen to inspirational music. Read spiritual poetry and writing regularly. Think about developing a specific value or emotion like - joy, peace, love, patience, understanding, forgiveness or faith.

Keep a separate 'gratitude' journal where you write everyday all the things you are thankful for, you will be surprised at how many things you can be grateful for daily.
Now explore the things that might prevent you from achieving these goals.

How do I sabotage myself from living my true spiritual self?
What can I change in my environment that can help me?
Who or what can help me grow?

How can I be more creative to improve my spiritual life? Being part of a spiritual group can be a big advantage.
Having considered the roadblocks to truly nurturing and finding you mind and spirit, ask yourself the following questions:

. Who are my role models?
. Are they the right role models to guide me on this journey?
. What are my sources of music, reading and inspiration?
. Are they truly inspiring me to growth?
. Even though I'm apart of a spiritual group, how can my contribution help the group improve?

If you're not currently in a group, you may consider starting your own group with like-minded people, where you pray together, sing together, read poetry or inspirational materials together. Maybe you want to write your own poetry or spiritual writings where you express your gratitude, values, love and belief.

We often believe that we are unable to change the path of our lives however, by defining our spiritual values, our source of nourishment and how these are manifested in our lives, can only serve to enhance the quality of our journey through life. In this way we can shift our lives in a positive direction and serve to be an inspiration to others.

Labels: gratitude, spiritual journal, spiritual values, spirituality, Stella Gray

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Monday, May 12, 2008

Agnostic feels a tug after Sunday in church

by Steve Lopez
May 11, 2008

Page one. Click on "external link" to see the complete article.

I'm coming up on 40 years of slogging through life without any religious affiliation, and for the most part, I have no regrets. Last Sunday, though, I was standing before a couple hundred members of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena and found myself envious.

I had been asked to talk about my three-year friendship with a musician who slept on the streets of skid row when we first met.

Life with Mr. Nathaniel Ayers is opera, with great soaring arias and sudden crashes, I told the parishioners. I feel good about having found ways to help this man whose promising career ended with a breakdown 35 years ago. But at times, I worry that my good intentions have brought him more attention than he might have wished.

In describing the journey, the soul-searching and the rewards of giving, I used the words "spirituality" and "grace." As I did, I saw people nodding as if I belonged in that room with them.

But wait. I'm an agnostic, and quite content.

So why did I feel such a connection? Could my stubborn resistance to faith be slipping?

No way, I told myself after leaving the church. Religious fervor has done an awful lot of harm in the world, dividing people, sparking wars, producing an endless parade of charlatans and hustlers.

And just look at how religion is playing out in the presidential campaign, with the running battle over which candidate is linked to the worst and most hypocritical human being who claims to speak for God.

Is it Sen. John McCain, who sought the support of televangelist John Hagee? Hagee, you'll recall, referred to the Catholic Church as "the whore of Babylon" and said God whipped up Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for sins that included "a homosexual parade."

Or is it Barack Obama, who recently had to distance himself from his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.? Rev. Wright suggested in a sermon that the phrase "God bless America" should really be "God damn America."

He also offered congregants his theory that the government created the HIV virus to kill off blacks, and recently said that the Rev. Louis Farrakhan, who is seen by many as an anti-Semite, is one of recent history's leading voices.

I spoke about all of this with my wife, whose beliefs and non-beliefs are similar to mine. She mentioned that our daughter, just shy of 5, had asked a couple of questions lately about people who practice different faiths and what it all means.

I've always felt that what we believe in and how we live are the only forms of spiritual guidance we need to give our daughter. But maybe that's the lazy man talking -- the one who used to skip Catholic church on Sunday and watch ballgames on TV instead.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt, my wife and I agreed, if we were to show our daughter that our values are important enough to us to clear time and to celebrate and honor them in a ritualistic way.

I don't know that either of us is ready to make a decision about all of this, but I did go back to All Saints a few days after my appearance at the Rector's Forum to mull things over with the Rev. J. Edwin Bacon Jr.

I felt a bit of a tug, I confessed to Bacon, while speaking to his parishioners. Bacon, who missed my presentation but later watched it on video, said he sensed there was "a moment" in the room in which we all connected. I was speaking about giving, he said, which releases the divine in all of us.

"Martin Luther King is my north star," said Bacon, who grew up in Georgia. As a young man, he met King, whose work he calls a "prophetic vision, a blend of spirituality and justice, spirituality and peace."

In this week's Sunday sermon, he said, he would talk about how the Rev. Wright comes out of that same tradition of identifying injustice and demanding change.

"The role of the church is not to be the servant of the state but to be critical of the state, and that's where Jeremiah gets it right," Bacon said. "The role is to stand with those who have been marginalized and say to the state, 'You can do better.' "

But Wright went off course with some of his comments, and his ego didn't serve him well, Bacon said. It's one thing to question connections between U.S. foreign policy and the rise in terrorism, Bacon said, but another thing entirely to suggest that God should damn America.

Labels: All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, atheism, church, Rev. J. Edwin Bacon Jr., spiritual experience, spirituality, Steve Lopez

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Saturday, May 10, 2008

Keeping the faith? More people look inward to find peace

By Amie Jo Schaenzer
The Reporter ajschaenzer@fdlreporter.com

People, apparently, are pretty wishy-washy when it comes to religion.

A recent study conducted by the Pew Forum -- one of the largest and most extensive of its kind -- shows Americans are switching religions and choosing to be "unaffiliated" more than ever before, said Brian H. Smith, chairman for the department of religion at Ripon College.

Organized religion throughout the nation, as well as locally, is on the decline, with nearly 16 percent of all men and women today not belonging to any particular affiliation.

The extensive survey released in February shows more than one-quarter of American adults, 28 percent, have either left the church they were raised in or have chosen no religion at all, according to the PewUnited States Religious Landscape Survey.

Smith said the sharp increase locally in contemporary, non-denominational Christian churches shows residents are opting for the more "upbeat services" over the traditional types of worship offered by mainstay Catholic and Protestant churches.

Ken Nabi heads one of the largest evangelical churches in Fond du Lac, Community Church, and says his congregation has seen steady growth over the past 28 years, with a current weekend attendance of 850 to 900 members.

He said many choose Community Church, N6717 Streblow Drive, because the message offered is more in-tune as to what people today want to hear.

Why?

Today, more than in years past, people are looking inward to find peace and longstanding types of worship do not offer the type of spiritual escape they want, Smith said.

"Today, people want an emphasis on the goodness of a person and not so much that they've sinned and they're bad," Smith said. "Traditional services do not nourish their spirit."

Likewise, the Pew research shows the makeup of some of the more traditional types of religion is changing: While 51.3 percent of Americans today claim to be Protestants, the group is fading, according to the survey.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church experienced one of the greatest net losses because of affiliation changes, according to the survey, with one in three Americans being raised Catholic and only 1 in four sticking with Catholicism today.

Despite the changes, the vast majority is still affiliated to a Christian religion. According to Pew research, 78.4 percent of Americans are Christians, while 4.7 percent belong to other religions, including 1.7 percent who are Jewish and 0.7 percent who are Muslim.

In Fond du Lac, changes in religious affiliation have proven gradual, said Michael Ketterhagen, associate professor of theology at Marian University.

Traditions among young people

One in four Americans ages 18 to 29 say they are not affiliated with a religion, according to the survey. Many in this age group —whom Smith teaches at Ripon College — he refers to as "nightstand Buddhists." They keep a Buddhist statue on their nightstand, he said, read Buddhist text because they like the message, but do not practice the religion.

This translates into cherry-picking highly individualized ways to be spiritual and seek faith, Ketterhagen said.

"They pray at night and they get involved in organized religion less," he said. "They still have a strong commitment to connect with God or their own personal spirituality that they call all different types of names. It's more personal and they will pray at night, meditate or go out in the woods to be closer to nature."

In the past, young people have left the church during their high school and college years only to return when they got married and settled down. The Pew survey suggests that is less likely to happen with today's youth.

Smith thinks this demographic niche will continue to mix and match religions to fit their needs, instead of returning to their childhood church. He envisions a type of spiritual smorgasbord — drawing upon Buddhism, for meditation; Judaism, for ethics; and the Lutheran religion for its Christmas and Easter services.

Labels: affiliation, Amie Jo Schaenzer, church, religion, spirituality, youth

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Speaker Recommends Spiritual Connections For Elderly

REBECCA RAKOCZY, Special To The Bulletin
Published: May 8, 2008

ATLANTA—A person’s faith and religious life may change as he or she enters into old age, but that doesn’t diminish the need for spiritual connections to nourish mental health.

Finding out how to spark those connections in elderly populations was the topic of the second annual Spirituality in Aging Partnership series, a half-day conference sponsored by Catholic Charities Atlanta.

With keynote speaker Nancy Kriseman, who is a licensed clinical social worker in gerontology and author of “The Caring Spirit,” more than 100 people—comprised of pastoral care staff, personal caregivers and health ministry nurses—were given advice on how to connect to their clients in a more holistic and spiritual way. The gathering took place at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in midtown Atlanta.

Kriseman asked audience members about their own definitions of spirituality and spoke about her experiences with her aging parents, while also encouraging the audience to share their experiences. Her mother suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, and died recently; her father had pulmonary lung disease and dementia and passed away several years ago.

“A lot of times we think if an older person was not a spiritual or religious person, they don’t need spiritual care,” Kriseman said. “But the majority of people in the world are spiritual in some way.

“For caregivers it is important to ask the question,” she said. For example, “How do you know the spiritual state of the person who has dementia? If you don’t know, ask their family members, ‘how has their faith carried them through life?’”

Even if the person did not have a strong faith foundation or did not demonstrate that faith to the outside world, spiritual connections can be made through music, like singing a familiar hymn or song, in ritual or prayers, or in comforting scents, like baking bread or cookies, she said. “It can mean asking ‘what does faith mean to you,’ or ‘what does grace mean to you,’” she said. It’s also important that you encourage a spiritual connection by asking questions about pictures of people and things that matter to them, she added. “We need to help our elders find their jingle,” she said.

Connecting with an elder’s spiritual side to “find that jingle” doesn’t have to be reserved for pastors, she said, although she acknowledged circumstances when pastoral intervention was needed.

“The work of the spirit is not just for pastoral folks,” Kriseman said. For caregivers—including those taking care of parents—it’s important to refresh their own spiritual life and not become “dispirited,” especially in the knowledge of an incurable condition, like Alzheimer’s disease, she said.

“People do need the space to grieve every time (their loved one) changes,” she said. “But if you’re caring for a parent, it’s important to remember this is a role change, not a role reversal—your mother will always be your mother.”

Kriseman also encouraged those in attendance to give permission to embrace their own spirituality, even as they care for someone who is not their relative. “Very rarely do caregivers get to talk about their own spiritual care,” she said.

“It’s a blessing to work with older people—you’re helping them finish well,” she said.

Patti Miller, coordinator of family faith formation at St. John Neumann Church in Lilburn, was listening to Kriseman’s words carefully. Miller came to the conference not only to learn more about spirituality and aging to pass on to her congregation, but also because she has three family members who are elderly.

“This is at the forefront for me,” she said. She came with fellow parishioner Sherry Johnson, who has worked with adult faith formation and RCIA at their church and has been a trauma care nurse for years. “This (spiritual side of care) was not always at the forefront, but it’s becoming more a part of nursing,” Johnson said.

As their parish ages, said Miller, “a lot of families are asking these same questions (that Kriseman brought up.) We wanted to find out what’s new out there from a Christian and Catholic perspective.”

Said Krygiel of Catholic Charities, “ It’s our responsibility to take care of our senior population.” He cited the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops 1999 statement, “The Blessings of Age.”

All parishes and churches are called to respond to this,” he said. “We cannot sit idle.”

Labels: caregivers, elderly, faith, mental health, Rebecca Rakoczy, spirituality

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Tuesday, May 06, 2008

More doctors recommending dose of God for their patients

Tribune staff report
May 2, 2008

You might think a hospital sounds like an odd place to launch a spiritual quest. But for some patients, that's precisely where they find religion.

In fact, some doctors even rely on divine intervention to assist them in the healing process.

Tribune reporter Joel Hood's story this week about a continuous prayer week held in Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital illustrated how some hospitals recognize and embrace their role as a spiritual destination.

Dr. Yong Kim was one of the staff recruited to pray. An elder at his Korean Methodist church, Kim spent several hours praying for his patients' recovery. He told Joel that prayer is vital to a patient's recovery.

Kim is one of a burgeoning number of doctors who factor prayer into treatment, said Dr. Robert Klitzman, an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. In interviews with 50 doctors, Klitzman learned that many are oblivious to patients' spiritual needs until they become patients themselves.

Has the threat of a serious illness prompted you to reassess your relationship with God? Do your doctors tend to your spiritual well-being too?

Labels: doctors, God, health, hospital, Joel Hood, prayer, spirituality

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Monday, April 14, 2008

Hispanics help reshape US Church

Hispanics help reshape US Church

By Kevin Connolly
BBC News
April 14, 2008

In the remote village of Chimayo, where the mountains of New Mexico swell up out of the desert scrub, the faithful pray for miracles, and offer a clue to the pressures and influences helping to reshape modern American Catholicism.

One of the faithful gathers "holy dirt" - believed to have mystical powers

The ancient tribal peoples of the region believed that the fine, sandy soil from the local hillsides had mystical powers to heal broken bodies and broken lives, and there are plenty of 21st century American Catholics who agree with them.

The soil is kept in a small, dry, shallow well in a side chapel of the church, and the faithful queue to collect it, using a children's plastic beach shovel to pour it into containers brought from home. They touch samples of the soil to affected areas, they offer it to dying relatives, they ask priests to bless their sample. And they believe.

"I definitely felt the Holy Spirit in there; the presence is everywhere here, whether the healing is spiritual or physical," she told me.

Folk beliefs

Hispanic immigrants bring with them a vitality and a tradition of folk beliefs

Like many other churches across the south and west of the United States, the decor at the church of Chimayo and the tone of worship are set by Hispanic immigrants, who bring with them not just the Spanish language, but a vitality and a tradition of folk beliefs that are very different from the values of Catholics in the colder cities to the North.

Immigration from Latin-American countries though (and the high birth rates among those groups) are more than making up for the decline. About a half of all American Catholics under the age of 40 are Hispanics, and that proportion will continue to grow.

"Church of immigration"

Luis Lugo of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life says that is simply evidence of an old historical pattern repeating itself in a new community.

"The growth (of Hispanic influence) has really been since the major changes in US immigration policy in the mid 60s, so it really would once have been very much a European Catholic church: Irish, Italian, German influence," he says.

The truth is that while Chimayo creates an awkward dilemma for the modern Church (several people there told me of miraculous cures, but there's no sign that the Catholic authorities intend to start to promoting or publicising them).

On the one hand, it inspires claims that might be difficult to substantiate under the scrutiny of modern science. But on the other, there is a spirituality to the place that helps to bring a much-needed vitality back to a Church over which the priestly child sex abuse scandals of recent times still throw a long shadow.

Damaged confidence

The crisis created difficulties at many levels, chief among them, of course, is the trauma suffered by the many victims whose suffering was eventually publicised after years of secrecy and shame.

For the Church, the cost of compensating those victims is crippling and will continue to be a drain on resources for years to come.

But perhaps more importantly, it damaged the confidence of ordinary Catholics in their priests and bishops.

Even Father Funtum, an engaging and convincing spokesman for the spiritual energy at Chimayo, had his story of being falsely accused of perversion by a parishioner who happened to see him pat a small child on the head at a church social.

That charge was absurd but it is a demonstration of the extent of how almost every conversation about American Catholicism (like mine with Father Jim) ends up being dominated by the issue of abuse.

We will know soon the extent to which Pope Benedict intends to address the subject, but it's highly unlikely that he will get through the visit without it being raised.

We already know that the Pope won't be heading for Chimayo - not this time around anyway - and in a way, it's a shame.

If he wanted to get a feeling for how the American Church will look in the future - more Hispanic, more charismatic, more populist and perhaps more mystical - he could do worse than to travel into New Mexico's mountains to see for himself.

Labels: Catholic, Chimayo, Hispanics, holy dirt, Kevin Connolly, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, spirituality

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Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Religious teaching straight to your iPod

Spiritual podcasts show "religious traditions trying to keep alive and relevant," says researcher David Roozen.

By Ron Barnett, USA TODAY

Evangelists have long used the airwaves to get their messages out to a mass audience. But now, podcast technology is opening the doors to a wider variety of religious teaching than ever before, available on demand and delivered automatically to the computers of a growing number of Americans hungry for spirituality.

A survey last year by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that more people used the Internet to look for religious and spiritual information than to download music, participate in online auctions or visit adult websites.

And a list updated recently by the podcast directory Podcast Alley shows 2,462 podcasts in the religion and spirituality category, the fourth highest among 21 categories, and more than in sports, news and politics.

"The good news about podcasts is this is probably another example of religious traditions trying to keep alive and relevant," says David Roozen, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.

Labels: David Roozen, Internet, Pew Internet And American Life survey, podcast, Podcast Alley, religion, Ron Barnett, spirituality

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Monday, March 31, 2008

Religion at the register

To retailers such as Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby, spiritual principles go hand in hand with profits

By Dana Knight
Posted: March 31,2008

When customers walk into Chick-fil-A, they get a side with their chicken sandwich that's rare in the world of monstrous fast-food chains: Christianity.

No bones about it, this company's business philosophy is based largely on biblical principles -- including the decision to remain closed on Sundays, when the company could be making big bucks at its 1,356 stores.

Once scared to speak out about religion in business, more and more companies are coming out of the spiritual closet. No organization actually tracks the number of companies driven by a religious philosophy, but there are plenty of examples.

Nationally, Hobby Lobby closes its doors on Sundays, so its employees and customers can honor the Sabbath.

Intel sponsors employee-based religious networks, and Deloitte & Touche offers employee prayer groups. Other companies, such as Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and subsidiaries of Wal-Mart, hire chaplains to visit employees in hospitals, deal with their mental health issues and even deliver vows at their weddings.

Locally, the McDonald's on Olio Road in Fishers features a Bible on the wall and Scripture. And at Transformations Salon and Spa on Madison Avenue, Christian music plays and Scripture is written on the walls.

Most spirit-based businesses say they aren't trying to shove religion down customers' throats. It's simply a way of doing business.

Dan Cathy is the son of Chick-fil-A's founder, S. Truett Cathy, who started the business in 1946, when he opened an Atlanta diner know as The Dwarf Grill.

The elder Cathy and his son have stuck to the values the chain was founded on.

"Nearly every moment of every day, we have the opportunity to give something to someone else -- our time, our love, our resources," Truett Cathy wrote in his book "Eat Mor Chikin: Inspire More People." "I have always found more joy in giving, when I did not expect anything in return."

Still, Chick-fil-A has recorded 40 consecutive years of annual sales increases. And some might attribute that to the company's philosophy.

A study by McKinsey & Co. found that when companies engage in programs that use spiritual techniques for their employees, productivity improves and turnover is greatly reduced.

Chick-fil-A has some of the most committed employees in the industry, "given the strong principled, religious and value-driven corporate culture," said Richard Feinberg, a professor of retailing at Purdue University. "Committed employees do better. One would think that closing Sundays would hurt business, and in a sense it does, but it improves employee business relationships and leads to the commitment that the others do not have."

Customers are drawn to the restaurant not only for the food but also for the values.

Danville resident Jared Wade was eating at the Avon Chick-fil-A last week and walked up to Cathy to thank him personally for his business philosophy.

"Being a Christian, I really admire what you are doing," Wade told Cathy. "I have had to fight to get Sundays off, and what Chick-fil-A does is incredible."

And different. Even Family Christian Stores, the nation's largest Christian retail chain, which had been closed on Sundays, decided to open its doors seven days a week several years ago.

Chick-fil-A stands out for its integrity and values, said John Livengood, president and chief executive officer of the Restaurant & Hospitality Association of Indiana.

"Being closed on Sundays probably enhances that reputation as they forgo profits to stay true to their values," he said.

Labels: business, Chick-fil-A, Christianity, Dana Knight, Hobby Lobby, religion, retail, spirituality

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Sunday, March 30, 2008

Doctor is harbinger of healthy living

April 1, 2008,
Posted On: 3/28/2008

Singh’s new book details physical, mental balance

By Paul Imbesi

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Dr. Bindya Singh, 45, has been interested in living healthy – physically and mentally – since her teenage years, which gives her a lot of expertise on the subject. In her new book, “Nine Easy Steps to Complete Health and Well-Being,” Singh puts this expertise to work.

Singh became interested in spiritual health when she was about 15 years old when she accompanied both of her arthritis-stricken grandmothers to religious conferences, looking for help with their affliction. According to Singh, she enjoyed the religious trips with her grandmothers because she learned about the peace and calm that can come from spiritual conversations.

A healthy mind, body and spirit are the three cornerstones to Singh’s new book on health. “Unless you can control your mind, you really cannot address the needs of your body,” she said. Singh is the director of outreach and community education at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, specializing in neonatology and pediatrics, and a clinical faculty member at Stanford University. She went to medical school at Lady Hardinge Medical College in New Delhi, India. Singh is also the founder of the Healthy Center Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes healthy living.

In her book, Singh talks about the importance of a stress-free, positive attitude mindset. She said negative attitudes can have long-term effects on bodies, which can lead to harmful physical effects like hypertension, stress-induced heart attacks and depression.

She added that people can relieve their minds from stress through meditation, which she delves into by talking about simple steps to master the practice.

Singh’s book also covers topics like eating right, sleeping right and exercising. She said her book addresses the long-term needs of living well, which helps differerentiate it from many of the other diet and exercise books out there today.

“This book completes the picture because it gives you all the aspects of health that you need to get under your belt,” she said.

The roots of Singh’s book stem from a period in her life when she was reading and attending conferences and seminars on health-related subjects.

According to Singh, she took copious notes on these topics and began writing her book about nine years ago, after deliverying a baby. She admits she still cannot explain why she started writing, but said it consumed her.

She said she originally wrote for herself, her family and friends, but her parents told her to go further with her information since it presented such a full view of health, unlike today’s segmented books that only focus on eating well or the body, for instance.

Singh said her book is for anyone who cares about themselves, their families, and want to attain not just physical, but also long-lasting mental and spiritual health. She said it contains information to help anyone looking to control their life and be healthy and happy.

“Destiny is the choices you make with the chances that you’re given. So I hope that we all can make healthy and happy choices,” she said.

Labels: Bindya Singh, meditation, mind-body connection, Paul Imbesi, spirituality

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Friday, March 28, 2008

Child Happiness Linked to Spirituality

CBN News
March 27, 2008

CBNNews.com - New research shows spirituality is a major factor in children's overall happiness.

A study conducted by the University of British Columbia measured how a child's spirituality, and factors like temperament, affect the child's sense of well being.

"Our goal was to see whether there's a relation between spirituality and happiness," said Mark Holder, an associate professor of psychology and the study's co-author. "We knew going in that there was such a relation in adults, so we took multiple measures of spirituality and happiness in children."

Spirituality accounted for about five percent of happiness in adults, but a surprising 16.5 percent of happiness among children.

"From our perspective, it's a whopping big effect," Holder said. "I expected it to be much less. I thought their spirituality would be too immature to account for their well-being."

The study tested 315 children ages 9 to 12.

Next, researchers hope to survey children in a country where Christianity is not prominent and compare the results.

Source: Religion News Service

Labels: children, happiness, Mark Holder, spirituality, University of British Columbia

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Thursday, March 27, 2008

Surgeon writes about the spiritual side of medicine

Professor Q & A

By: Aly Van Dyke

Allan J. Hamilton is a professor of surgery at the UA. He graduated with honors from Harvard Medical School and finished his neurosurgical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. Hamilton has worked at the UA for 18 years.

Hamilton recently published "The Scalpel and the Soul." In the book, Hamilton delves into the correlation between the physical and spiritual aspects of surgery by recounting his experiences with spirituality in and out of the operating room.

Hamilton began working on the book in 2004, and it was released March 13. The book is available in the UofA Bookstore for $23.95. He sat down with the Arizona Daily Wildcat yesterday before his book signing in the UofA Bookstore to talk about the book.

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Wildcat: Who is this book written for?

Hamilton: Mostly patients who are facing severe illness or major surgery. The second group is probably people in the health care profession who are taking care of these patients.

W: What were you trying to accomplish?

H: I was hoping to pass on some lessons I learned from patients about harnessing their own emotional and spiritual energies to enhance their recovery.

W: What is one experience you talk about in your book?

H: I had a young man who had a brain tumor, a malignant cancer, and I operated on him and took care of him. His big hobby was fishing. He went through the regular regimen of chemo and radiation. He came to me one day and said, "I know I'm going to beat this thing, but if things really get bad, I want you to promise me you'll tell me when it's time to go fishing." And it went on for several years and unfortunately the tumor grew back and he had multiple operations, but the tumor was invading his brain and his spinal cord. One day I took him aside, and I asked him if he remembered when we talked about when it was time to go fishing, and I told him it was time. And the next morning his family called me and told me he was dead. And I think I snipped that cord of hope he had. I think when he saw me give up, he gave up. It just taught me that no one has the right to take away somebody else's hope.

W: In your book, you list some "Rules to live by." Could you tell us some?

H: I'll mention a couple of my favorites. One of my favorites is, "Don't let yourself be turned into a patient." A hospital has a way of removing your identity ... I really think that's a bad idea. I think you want to assert your identity. So bring your favorite T-shirt and wear your crazy sweat pants. Instead of those little paper slippers they give you, go get the big, fluffy, bunny slippers that you love. You aren't a disease in that bed. You are a patient in the bed with a disease. Music has a lot to play, I always tell patients to make their own soundtrack for their recovery. I tell them to put together some music that will convey some of the emotions that they want.

W: Do you think, as a surgeon, you lose any credibility in talking about spirituality?

H: I don't think it's credibility that you lose. Surgeons are a very, very conservative group. We are masters of technique. We are as mechanistic a field as there is. So I think that field of colleagues asks if we should really even be talking about this. And yet you have a lot of them that come up to you and say, "I've seen things I couldn't explain and I didn't dare tell anybody." I think there are a lot of people that are just afraid to discuss it. Nobody talked to me about this. You go right into this with your patients, and you don't realize that their spiritual challenges are going to have an effect on you too.

W: Do you think medical schools will start addressing the spiritual issues of surgery?

H: They are. I think patients are really insisting on it, and I think the younger generation is responsive to it. Fifteen years ago we had less than 10 percent of medical schools even having anything related to spirituality in medicine. Now it's nearly 70 percent.

Labels: Allan J. Hamilton, Aly Van Dyke, medicine, patients, spirituality, surgery, The Scalpel and the Soul

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Saturday, March 22, 2008

Surgeon writes book on spiritual side of medicine

03.20.2008

Heidi Rowley
Tucson Citizen

Early in Dr. Allan Hamilton's career, a young boy who had spent months in a coma after suffering severe burns claimed to see his recently dead father standing at his bed.

Hamilton told the boy, named Thomas, that his father had died. The boy's reaction was to wave to his father and tell the doctor that it must be his father's spirit watching over him.

Hamilton, a surgeon for 25 years, 18 with the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, was not religious or spiritual at the time of Thomas' surgery and rejected those things that could not be explained by medical science. Thomas' faith was the start of the doctor's journey into the spiritual and supernatural.

Hamilton's experiences into the unknown while becoming a successful brain surgeon and now a surgical consultant for the TV show "Grey's Anatomy," are chronicled in his new book, "The Scalpel and the Soul: Encounters with Surgery, the Supernatural and the Healing Power of Hope."

He said the book is his personal spiritual evolution, which happened because of his patients. Those experiences include an American Indian shaman telling him to let a patient die and a woman who was brain dead during surgery but remembered conversations between the doctors and nurses.

Since his book's release, Hamilton said he's gotten three reactions. Some people have told him that surgeons shouldn't discuss spirituality. Others have been grateful that someone is finally brave enough to talk about spirituality and medicine.

The third group, he said, is medical residents and interns who tell him they are relieved to learn that there can be more to medicine than just the science.

Hamilton didn't see Thomas for another eight years as he continued his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. As he prepared to leave on his last day, he encountered a woman and a teenage boy who had obviously been a burn victim. At that moment he realized it was Thomas.

He wrote in his book: "As I saw Thomas smile and wave, I reminded myself I had been permitted to watch the mortal threads of my life, interweave with the strands of the spiritual powers in Thomas' life. . . . This eight year-long adventure was not just the story of a surgical residency. It was a message: We're never solitary mortal beings."

Labels: Allan Hamilton, faith, Heidi Rowley, medicine, spirituality, surgery

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Monday, March 17, 2008

Do your habits reveal what's important to you?

By MARK ANSHEL
DNJ Columnist

The determination to live a life that is meaningful, consistent with our values and reflects our passion about what really matters is called spiritual capacity. It is our spiritual side that should drive our behavior.

We often neglect our spiritual side, which is evident by not taking better care of our health. We forget there are others who love us, depend on us and want us to stay healthy for as long as possible.

In turn, we want to have the energy to enjoy our passion — what really matters to us, such as our family, friends, faith and achievements at work.

Writers refer to "spiritual capacity" as the force behind what we do — the energy of purpose, our values, and beliefs about what's really important — what defines our character.

Here is a profound (and challenging) question: How can we respect and honor the people we love if we dishonor ourselves by living a careless and unhealthy lifestyle?

We adapt to the storms in our life without consideration of the long-term consequences. Our stress-management program consists of eating large portions of high fat food, avoiding physical activity — just too uncomfortable and, oh, yes, not enough time and then wonder why we feel miserable — taking yet more medication and having little energy for doing what gives us the most pleasure.

Challenging question: Why would a person who loves his or her family, has a strong spiritual component and lists family, health, faith, work excellence and compassion toward others as his or her most important values, live a life disconnected from those values?

What areas in your life do you need to improve in order to expand your spiritual capacity? Take this test of "The Spiritual Truth" about you. Check the items that apply to you.

Those areas you check form your "story" that explain a lack of spiritual incentive to improve your health and live a life consistent with your values.

Think about it, and ask yourself this: What is your legacy after you are gone? How do want to be remembered?

Uncover your spiritual truth

Check the ones that apply to you.

Commitment/Passion

_ Not fully committed

_ Lacking long-term energy (perseverance)

_ Lacking passion for work

_ Lacking passion to improve my health and energy

Vision/Purpose

_ Lacking a strong sense of purpose (something greater then myself that drives my behavior)

_ My core values are not connected to my actions

_ I respond to demands based on short-term needs, not long-term consequences

_ I make expedient (quick-fix) rather than values-based decisions

Ethics

_ My actions are not consistent with my words

_ I do not lead by example

_ I do all I can to help others

_ I lack the incentive/energy to make important changes that will improve my quality of life

_ I place my needs first before the needs of others

Mark H. Anshel is a professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance at Middle Tennessee State University.

Labels: behavior, character, health, Mark Anshel, spirituality, values

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Society diverges on idea of need to attend church

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More Christians turn to non-traditional paths

SURVEY RESULTS

For decades, Christians -- four of every five American adults who identified themselves as Christians -- assumed they had one legitimate way to practice their faith: through involvement in a conventional church. A study from The Barna Group, which examines cultural trends and the Christian church, shows a majority now believe they have legitimate alternatives which are "a complete and biblically valid way for someone who does not participate in the services or activities of a conventional church to experience and express their faith in God."

* Engaging in faith activities at home, with one's family; acceptable by 89 percent.

* Being active in a house church; 75 percent.

* Watching a religious television program; 69 percent.

* Listening to a religious radio broadcast; 68 percent.

* Attending a special ministry event, such as a concert or community service activity; 68 percent.

* Participating in a marketplace ministry; 54 percent.

Less than 50 percent consider other alternatives to be biblically valid, including faith-oriented Web sites (45 percent) and participating in live events via the Internet (42 percent).

Used with permission of The Barna Group (www.barna.org), a marketing research company in Ventura, Calif., that studies cultural trends and the Christian church.

Can you be a legitimate Christian without going to church?

The question dates back to the earliest days of Christianity when post-resurrection adherents struggled to define doctrine in the decades after Christ's earthly departure. In letters to various first-century faith communities, the fledgling church's earliest theologian, Paul, wrote that individual Christians are members of the "body of Christ."

Times have changed -- dramatically -- at least according to a recent national survey of American adults.

A report from The Barna Group showed a majority of adults believe several alternatives to conventional church membership are legitimate ways to practice Christianity. The alternatives included sitting at home and watching a religious television program, which 69 percent said was "a complete and biblically valid way" to express faith in God, according to the Barna survey conducted in December.

Not surprisingly, the question of whether one can be a Christian without going to church drew strong opinions in a random survey of residents.

Some adamantly asserted the only way to be an authentic Christian is through a conventional church, where like-minded believers are educated and enabled to live following the divine example of Christ.

Others view God's grace as totally providential and not limited to dispensation through an earthly vessel.

Attitudes changing

Not too long ago, the Barna organization said most American adults -- four out of five identified themselves as Christians -- assumed the only legitimate way to practice their faith was through a conventional church. Barna is a marketing research company in Ventura, Calif., that studies cultural trends and the Christian church. But in recent decades, Barna said the pendulum has swung toward what some describe as non-traditional practices.

As a result, membership in organized Christian churches has declined in recent years, according to a 2008 yearbook prepared by the National Council of Churches. Among the 25 largest denominations, only Jehovah's Witnesses, with 1.07 million members, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with 5.78 million adherents, noted significant increases -- 2.25 percent and 1.56 percent, respectively.

Four other denominations gained members since the 2007 yearbook -- Southern Baptists, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Roman Catholic and Assemblies of God -- but the growth rates ranged only from 0.19 percent to 0.87 percent.

In a news release, yearbook editor Eileen W. Linder said 20- and 30-somethings might attend worship and other religious activities, but resist becoming official members of conventional churches.

Their reticence can lead to a religious "freedom" that is contrary to biblical teaching, Sorber said.

Many mainline Protestant and Catholic churches are feeling the pinch caused by "lone ranger" Christians.

A changing culture

The question can probably be debated endlessly and can arise in the most unlikely of settings. Several years ago, singer Bono of U2 told Rolling Stone magazine that even though he is a "believer," he finds it difficult to be around other believers. "They make me nervous. They make me twitch," he was quoted as telling an interviewer in 2005.

The only certainty is the changing face of religion, particularly Christianity, in America, which is a contributing factor to faith practices becoming less dependent on religious institutions.

Whether one accepts or rejects non-traditional practices or conventional churches, surveys show adults are an increasingly diverse and pluralistic lot who are willing to abandon their childhood faith for other options.

According to a recent national study, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found roughly 44 percent of American adults since their childhoods have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.

"People will be surprised by the amount of movement by Americans from one religious group to another -- or to no religion at all," Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum, said in a news release.

Labels: attendance, Barna Group, Christianity, church, community, faith, membership, spirituality

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Oprah, self-help book author connect with millions online

By Jodi Rave
03/16/08

"This book is about you. It will change your state of consciousness, or it will be meaningless." — Eckhart Tolle, author of "A New Earth"

On Monday, I’ll meet with my reading group to discuss Oprah Winfrey’s latest book-club choice, a spiritual self-help guide that led one televangelist to call Winfrey “the most dangerous woman in the world.”

“A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose,” is on the New York Time’s bestseller list. Oprah is helping propel the spiritual enlightenment book to dizzying heights, thanks to an unprecedented online promotion that includes a 10-week interactive Webcast discussion with her, the book’s author and an international audience.

“This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done,” Oprah said in the first discussion.

“I’ve done a lot of things in my life, but I am most proud of the fact that all of you have joined us in this global community to talk about what I believe is one of the most important subjects and — presented by one of the most important books of our time.”

As of Thursday, Oprah.com claimed more than 2 million people in 139 countries had “experienced” one of her New Earth Internet seminars.

The book’s primary focus encourages “a shift in consciousness,” or an awakening by the reader. The Web site encourages readers to discuss “A New Earth” in book clubs. Finding nothing in Missoula, the site allowed me to create one.

Here’s a bit of what we learned from the first Tolle-Oprah discussion:

Oprah: “This is not about trying to tell you how to believe. And how do you advise people to reconcile this with their religious beliefs?”

Tolle: “Well, religion can be an open doorway into spirituality and religion can be a closed door. It prevents you from going deeper. So I love reading the New Testament and I also read the Old Testament. Sometimes there’s some incredible jewels in there.

“There’s a depth to it. And it reflects your own depth when you read it. So there’s no conflict between this teaching, which is purely spiritual, and any religion. The important thing is that religion doesn’t become an ideology. And the moment you say ‘only my belief’ or ‘our belief’ is true, and you deny other people’s beliefs, then you’ve adopted an ideology. And then religion becomes a closed door.”

Oprah: “Well, I am a Christian who believes that there are certainly many more paths to God other than Christianity.”

At that point, the host took a video call from a viewer who asked: “Why is this happening now?” Why were some 700,000 watching a show encouraging an awakening of spiritual consciousness?

Tolle: “It’s happening now because we’re reaching a crisis point. Very essential things don’t happen until there’s an absolute need for them to happen. If you look at the history of the 20th century, that gives you a taste of what it will be if there is no major shift.”

Conservative estimates conclude that more than 100 million humans were killed by other humans in the 20th century, Tolle said. “It’s unbelievable insanity when you look at that history.”

“And so if there’s no shift in consciousness, we will go downhill very quickly, because we’re already in the process of destroying the planet. But there will also be continuous conflict, collective conflict, and eventually then humanity would collapse.”

Oprah: “So you think we’re at a crisis point, no?”

Tolle: “Crisis point, yes.”

Tolle’s message shouldn’t be so startling to anyone who keeps up with the daily news.

Our local reading is gearing up for our Monday discussion of Chapter 3. And I’m looking forward to being part of a conversation with “the most dangerous woman in the world.”

Labels: A New Earth, crisis, Eckhart Tolle, Oprah Winfrey, religion, shift, spirituality