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.
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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.
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.
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.”
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.”
Bypassing 'Big Pharma' with Alternative Medical Treatment
Holistic, non-toxic therapies gain ground in wake of drug recalls
March 14, 2008 --
Pamela Hoeppner, author of The Breast Stays Put ($15.99, paperback, 978-1-60477-103-9), is living proof that alternative treatments can not only keep you healthy but win the battle against cancer. She, along with two other new authors from Xulon Press, is spreading the word that people must take charge of their own healthcare and now have choices other than conventional medicine. In the wake of the healthcare crisis and repeated drug recalls, Americans are discovering the body's miraculous ability to heal itself through non-toxic and alternative therapies, or what one physician has called "the medicine of the 21st century."
After running her own successful business in Wellness Alternatives, Hoeppner faced the unthinkable. She was diagnosed with a malignant, fast-growing breast cancer. She declined all conventional treatment and chose an alternative approach with an impressive track record-- Protocel®. In her inspiring book, she shares her courageous story of overcoming a deadly diagnosis and provides prevention and treatment information. "With the Internet, and the world of alternative medicine it opens up only a click away, people today are taking charge of their lives, especially their health, and they're searching for options. The Breast Stays Put was my way of telling the world, 'You do have options--I found my answer--and I'm living proof that bona fide options and choices exist!'"
Author Ricki Pepin's son suffered for more than a decade with an unexplained, disabling illness. Desperate for answers, Pepin embarked on an intensive search for answers amid confusing and often conflicting medical data. She discovered seven biblical principles that she believes is God's prescription for healthy living. God's Health Plan: The Audacious Journey to a Better Life ($17.99, paperback, 978-1-60266-698-6; $27.99, hardcover, 978-1-60266-699-3), is based on her effort to find help for her child. "It's about wholeness and restoration of mind, body and spirit," says Pepin. "It's about adding life to your years, not just years to your life."
The seven principles encompass food choices, medical care alternatives, and environmental stewardship practices that will create healthier lives and a replenished world. Pepin believes we stand on the brink of a medical paradigm shift from fighting disease to maintaining health, but individuals face enormous frustration as they begin to take charge of maintaining their own health. "There is so much information available in the health industry today, and it is often hard to decipher what is true and what is mere hype," Pepin says. "This book will help ordinary people to sift out the fads and fallacies and find God's principles on health, which can lead to their own physical and spiritual restoration."
In the midst of confusing modern-day diets, food restrictions, and unnecessary fear-inducing food warnings, What the Best Doctor Recommends (paperback, 978-1-60477-552-5) reaches out to the many disillusioned souls who struggle with unnecessary food-related battles. Written by "Ms. Abigail" (penname), the book presents time-tested biblical secrets to eating--secrets which have been programmed within us since creation. It offers a simple, realistic, and logical solution for today's broad spectrum of dieting debates and health issues. Those principles helped the author completely overcome all her food-related issues on a physical, mental, and emotional level. "My mission is to spread a message of hope, one that lifts the confusion and relieves the frustration that countless diets and food restrictions have created in the lives of many," says Ms. Abigail.
Xulon Press, a part of Salem Communications Corporation, is the world's largest Christian publisher, with more than 5,000 titles published to date. Retailers may order the books mentioned above through Ingram Book Company and/or Spring Arbor Book Distributors.
Why Now Is the Natural Time to Learn the "ABCs" of Spiritual Healing
(HealthNewsDigest.com) - Spring is in the air and with it comes an innate need to clean and declutter your emotional and spiritual world. Intuitive psychologist and author Susan Apollon shows you how to find inner peace and let the sun shine in.
It happens every spring. As sunlight reawakens tiny buds and fresh breezes dust the fields with lilacs, a strange compulsion kicks us out of our winter stupor. We actually want to clean. Floors suddenly seem grimy and corners cobwebby. The cluttered basement starts to really bug us. Even that previously insurmountable task—window washing—sounds like a good way to spend a Saturday. Intuitive psychologist Susan Apollon says our annual spring cleaning frenzy is more than mere tradition: It's the manifestation of a primal urge for renewal on a deeper level.
What exactly is spiritual healing? Apollon says it's about balancing our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and actions. It's about becoming whole. Healing takes place when we reclaim our power, wisdom, or spirit, which we often bury during the process of life, and when we reconnect with our soul or higher self, as well as with the Universe or God.
On a more practical level, it means learning to live in such a way that you don't spend all your time fretting about the future, worrying about your kids, or obsessing over health issues. And it means coming to a place where you refuse to settle for a job, a relationship, a lifestyle—a life—that doesn't fulfill you.
Understanding the Law of Attraction
Spiritual healing happens when we work with the Law of Attraction, which is basically an understanding that energy attracts like energy. Apollon explains it this way: Given that everything is energy and vibrates, and given the Law of Attraction, wherever we are vibrationally, we attract to us experiences of a similar level of vibration. What we choose to focus on (thoughts, images, beliefs) causes us to vibrate at a particular level, resulting in either good or not good feelings. Focusing on thoughts or images that cause us to feel relatively good or better will enable us to be at a higher level energetically and, consequently, will draw to us a higher level of vibrational experience.
In other words, when you worry about your job, your grades, your children, your health—and that is what you do most of the time—your dominant energetic level is quite low. Being in this state causes you to experience events and situations which are of equally low vibrations.
The trick, of course, is to become conscious and aware of how we are feeling in order to allow ourselves to do the work of cleaning up (or out) our spiritual closets and bringing in what feels energetically better. This allows us to attract to us wonderful things and experiences that we want—our hopes and dreams—rather than those things and experiences we don't want.
To do this we need to be really clear about our intentions, says Apollon. We need to decide what it is that we intend to do or make happen in our lives that will make us feel good or better (happy, satisfied, joyful, peaceful). Once we have our intentions in mind, we can give them power and help to create them by giving ourselves permission to really focus on them.
Practice Your ABCs
Once you have clarity regarding your intentions, it's time to practice what Apollon calls "the Art of your ABCs." Intertwined with the ABCs technique is another one, which she refers to as the "Face, Embrace, and Replace" method. Here's how it works:
· A is for AWARENESS and ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Become aware of your thoughts and images at the "head" level that do not feel good at the heart or belly level. Here, you're "Facing" what makes you feel bad.
Put your hand on your heart or belly and ask yourself, Am I feeling good (or okay) or not good at this moment? If your answer is "not good," put the same hand on your forehead and ask yourself, What is my thought, picture, or image that makes me not feel good?
Now, take time to Acknowledge or "Embrace" the picture or thought. Give yourself permission to really feel the pain associated with your thought or image stored deep within you. Kick, scream, or cry it out—for a few moments, or more, if needed, but not too much more, if possible.
· B is for BREATH and BREATHING OUT YOUR PAIN. Learn to use the Gift of Breath and then use your ability to lift yourself energetically to a higher level of well-being. Take three deep breaths. As you breathe in, visualize yourself breathing in the colorful and magnificent energy of the Universe or God. (Yes, actually give it a color so you can "see" it more readily.) Watch and feel this powerful healing energy coming in and filling your body with amazing warm, relaxing energy, causing you to feel so relaxed and heavy and at the same time . . . so light that you are aware of your body shifting up energetically.
· C is for CHOICE and CHOOSING THOUGHTS AND IMAGES THAT FEEL GOOD or BETTER. Here's where you "Replace" your negative energy with positive energy. You choose thoughts and images that lighten your vibrations and enable you to allow in those experiences you have viewed as your intentions, hopes, and dreams. Every moment is about choice. Be conscious of how you are feeling, moment by moment, and choose to focus on anything and everything that brings you relief and feels better or good, including your kids, pets, loved ones, or your favorite funny video. (NOTE TO EDITOR: See attached tipsheet for some healing choices.)
"Practice your ABCs and Face, Embrace, and Replace often," advises Apollon. "They are the tools that lead to healing."
If you're thinking it all sounds a bit too touchy-feely for you, don't. Apollon says these spiritual healing techniques work, even if you're a cynic. Feeling good is your birthright. Indeed, you've probably experienced the essence of spiritual healing at some point in your life—when you're so immersed in a project that you lose all sense of time and place, for instance, or when you're with friends or family and feel a surge of joy and gratitude and "rightness."
About the Author:
Susan Apollon is an intuitive psychologist, psychotherapist, and healer. For more than two decades, she has specialized in treating children and adults who are traumatized, ill (dealing with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses), grieving, and/or dying. As a master of several healing and energy modalities, a researcher of mind, consciousness, energy, and metaphysics, a student and teacher of intuition, and a survivor of her own challenge with breast cancer, she brings wisdom and compassion to those with whom she works.
We live in an era of freedom of choice. Everything in our society is designed to provide us with options; we like feeling we are in control of our own lives. Don't tell me what to watch on TV - let me choose from 100-plus cable channels. Burger King's slogan sums up our choice-driven culture, as it encourages Americans to "Have it your way."
A recent study conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows Americans are beginning to shop around more when it comes to selecting their spiritual beliefs. Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans 18 and older, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey found that more than 40 percent of the survey respondents said they changed their religious affiliation since childhood.
In addition, 16 percent of those surveyed call themselves "unaffiliated," meaning they do not identify with one particular religion or do not have any definitive spiritual beliefs. This number is startling - it is twice as large as figures from past surveys.
Americans today are simply not willing to mindlessly absorb information thrown at them about what to believe. People no longer stick to one religion, and some are not committing to any religion at all.
The survey results indicate an important trend: Americans are challenging authorities and not accepting ideas as truth simply because they were raised with them, instead they first explore multiple sides of the issue.
The survey also found that among Americans aged 18 to 29, one in four respondents are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.
An additional study by Pew conducted in February examined the spirituality of college students during their undergraduate careers, with spirituality defined as "the students' search for meaning and purpose, … their values … and their self-understanding."
College is supposedly a monumental stage in one's life, when one's values and beliefs are solidified; the fact that students gain spiritual maturity throughout their college years is no surprise.
Our generation has been raised to demand choices, and it makes sense that in our pivotal 20s, we are exploring multiple religions and questioning our faith. What is unusual is that the rest of America seems to be following our lead in this collegiate route of self-discovery.
One of the strongest American values is freedom, and Americans are now applying it to their spiritual pursuits, exploring multiple religions to try to figure out what they really believe.
The survey also found that Protestantism, the leading religion in America for generations, is actually on its way to becoming a minority faith. In the 1980s, 65 percent of Americans called themselves Protestants, but the results of Pew's survey indicate this number is now down to 51 percent.
America is becoming more of a nondenominational country, freed from the boundaries of religious institutions. People are exercising their First Amendment rights and exploring whatever religions strike their fancy. As a result, religion is being shaken out of its traditional cut-and-dry mold as Americans begin to piece together their own individual beliefs, creating a sort of custom religion derived from a sampling of sources.
Spiritual beliefs are not one-size-fits-all; they are intensely personal, and we are beginning to treat them as such. No one can tell me what to put on my iPod playlists, and I can certainly practice whatever religion I choose. I don't need to settle on one religion at all; I can create my own. People are free to believe whatever they want; this is the beauty of modern America.
Religion is just the latest part of our culture to receive the choice-filled menu treatment. So what will it be today? Would you like to try some Judaism, or perhaps a bit of Scientology? I hear the Buddhism is fantastic.
Some medical schools require students to take at least one course examining the role faith plays.
By Bonnie Booth, AMNews correspondent.
March 4, 2008.
Christina M. Puchalski, MD, was a bit of a pioneer when she created a spirituality and health course in 1992 at George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C.
The course, offered as an elective, covered spiritual practices, including meditation, as well as topics such as humor and alternative medicine.
When Dr. Puchalski first began teaching her course, 2% of medical schools offered course work in spirituality. By 2004, the figure was 67%.
Now 100 of the approximately 150 U.S. medical schools offer some variation of spirituality-in-medicine course work. And 75 of those 100 require their students to take at least one course on the topic.
Dr. Puchalski can take some credit for the change. She and a colleague developed a program in spirituality and health at the National Institute for Healthcare Research. Funding by the John Templeton Foundation -- an organization that makes grants to research projects -- has given medical schools the opportunity to develop a spirituality curriculum of their own.
100 U.S. medical schools offer some kind of spirituality course. Dr. Puchalski has worked with the Assn. of American Medical Colleges to define spirituality as part of the Medical School Objectives Project.
According to the MSOP, "spirituality is recognized as a factor that contributes to health in many persons. It is expressed in an individual's search for ultimate meaning through participation in religion, and/or belief in God, family, naturalism, humanism and the arts. All of these factors can influence how patients and health care professionals perceive health and illness and how they interact with one another."
76% of doctors believe in God, and 59% believe in an afterlife.
In recent years, more research has examined the links between faith and physicians. In 2005, a nationwide study found that 76% of physicians believed in God, and 59% believed in an afterlife. Physicians are more likely to attend religious services than the rest of U.S. population, said the study in the July 2005 Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Some experts said doctors don't know if it's appropriate to incorporate faith into medical practice. Doctors also might be unsure if they should address the topic of their patients' beliefs.
Research aside, social trends have led medical schools to consider spirituality in their curriculum planning, Dr. Puchalski said.
She said that during the mid-20th century, medicine shifted away from the physician-patient relationship and holistic care to a disease-centered model that focused more on advances in science and technology.
The switch to managed care, the diminishing doctor-patient relationship and public pressure brought demands for change. The increased criticism of the medical system as a whole, she said, also stimulated changes in medical education.
The goal today, Dr. Puchalski said, is to help medical students understand how they can be compassionate participants in their patients' lives.
The fact that many people change their religious affiliation nowadays is a healthy trend. Changing dominations shows that people are thinking about their beliefs. People are paying attention to what nourishes them spiritually and what leaves them dry, empty and uninspired. No longer are they satisfied with the beliefs that were passed down to them through their families. They want first hand experience of the Divine. The shift to a new religious paradigm relies on tuning into themselves and taking more responsibility for their spiritual lives. And that is what the Pew survey is identifying.
Often having many spiritual choices is demeaned by the phrase “the shopping mall mentality” of religion. This spiritual smorgasbord is a threat to the mainline churches that are struggling with declining membership. These churches, for the most part, are established to articulate and inculcate beliefs. But the spiritual hunger lies in establishing a relationship with the Divine, not “believing” in a masculine God who lives disembodied in the sky. The anonymous quote “Religion is for people who believe in hell; spirituality is for people who have been there” still holds true.
Underneath all the searching, we are hungry for spiritual sustenance. We long to live a symbolic life that has meaning beyond our everyday activities. We long for a safe place to express our devotion and to light a candle for our deepest hopes and longings to be manifest in the outer world. Or, we may need to support our creativity by igniting the creative spirit through insight and awakening the imagination through new experiences. Other times—as Mary Oliver says “if it all we can do to keep on trudging” then we need to find a place that will deepen our faith as we white knuckle it through.
IN the elegant foyer of The Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney, 350 business leaders have gathered. Chief executives and managers from all the major corporations are there.
They have come as members of the Australian Institute of Management to hear advice on how to be more effective in business, but not from a sales guru. They're here to listen to one of the great thought leaders of our time; father of the positive psychology movement; Mr Happiness himself, author of the best-seller, Learned Optimism, Dr Martin Seligman PhD.
Seligman is selling the happiness message to our top corporations and he intends to return to Australia next year with a team to run in-house programs. "I teach the new prosperity," he tells me later.
"Not how to get rich, but how to stay prosperous in all aspects of life: work, home and body. We need to look at a gross wellbeing indicator, not Gross Domestic Product so we can get ahead without illness, depression, anxiety and fear stopping us in this new, positive paradigm."
Indeed, there has been a paradigm shift in corporate thinking since I last worked as a finance journalist in the "greed is good" 1980s and 90s.
Cairns says this is the new frontier - business with a spiritual edge. "I don't use the word spiritual. It is about transformation. To get the most out of your business and people, you have to work on yourself first. Buddhism has given me a profound sense of meaning and purpose."
Akehurst says: "I was an anxious over-achiever driven by anxiety, wanting targets to be met, and fear of failure. The change is that I have become mindful of the moment, I am only motivated by the positive, and have learned the value of authenticity and integrity. When you tell the truth to the people you work with, you save so much valuable time and money."
Rennie from McKinsey, a promoter and fan of both Seligman and Rinpoche, says: "When I tried to sell this type of thinking into the corporate market 10 years ago I was considered a heretic. Now it's mainstream."
Meanwhile, David White, a director of Port Jackson Partners who is organising the meditation event, says what's really being taught is "the science of the mind" and how to transform thinking to achieve quantifiable results.
International Business Week summed it up thus: "It may sound flaky but a growing number of companies are setting off on spiritual journeys ... in search of a soul as a way to foster creativity and motivate leaders." The list includes US corporate giants such as AT&T, Boeing and Xerox, not to mention the World Bank, where leaders sit in a semicircle once a week and "connect".
The crux of the new prosperity movement is happiness, not a superficial happiness but a deep, resounding contentment born of having abundance in all areas of life: work family and play.
As Seligman says, happiness doesn't come from pleasures alone, such as making money or having sex, but from adding a deep sense of meaning - what the Buddhists and yogis call bliss.
Property developer Bruno Grollo, of Rialto fame, understands this. "You work so you can gain security and material wealth, but money never made me happy. I made money but I never felt the way I did when I was 18 or 21, so I realised that money didn't matter. Transcendental meditation is the closest thing to the euphoria of youth I have discovered," he once confided to me.
With an international Happiness conference being held in Sydney in May, the medical statistics bear out the premise. Happy people live eight to 10 years longer and fight off illness at double the rate of others.
The Reserve Bank's Akehurst, admired for his leadership qualities, shuns the notion that working with concepts such as happiness and authenticity is the "soft and fuzzy" option. "This is hard-nosed business practice. It creates tough but fair leaders."
He says: "Authenticity is a beautiful, time-saving process. When you cover up, people know it's not true and trust is damaged. If you say something isn't working, everyone says that's bad, and gets on with fixing it. Otherwise it takes ages to get things sorted." Personal growth leads to efficiency.
It's two decades since I wrote my book The New Boy Network on the excesses of the 1980s. In some circles people joked that to be interviewed by me was the kiss of death, as those I had revered for their enthusiasm and determination seemed to go down like tenpins: Larry Adler, father of Rodney; textile king Abe Goldberg; Alan Bond; Christopher Skase; Adsteam's John Spalvins; Robert Holmes a Court and Coles Myer's Brian Quinn.
Many Asian visitors went with them, such as Thai confectionery mogul Jack Chia and Malaysia's Lee Ming Tee.
Why? I have thought a lot about it the past decades, myself having moved to Byron Bay to embrace wellness. I have observed that what drives you can drive you over the edge. My own journey echoed theirs. A workaholic, a believer that somehow external success would take away that nagging sense of fragility and unworthiness that so many of us feel, I soon discovered external success was like water to sand and resulted in burnout and bad decision-making. At the height of my own career, burnt out and suffering depression, I walked away.
Years later, having sat at the feet of people involved in personal growth: Buddhists, yoga teachers, wellness and longevity masters, I have unravelled the greatest mystery of all.
The answer to happiness is the ability to live now, comfortable in your own skin whatever the circumstance.
Greek poet C.P. Cavafy talks about not being so outcome-driven, not so eager to get to Ithaka, mythical home of Odysseus. Rather, he says, to be able to enjoy the journey itself on the high seas will teach us to appreciate the riches of Ithaka when we arrive. Seligman calls it being in the flow of life. The Buddhists call it absorption in the moment.
Others simply describe it as the pleasure of stroking your child's face or playing with the family dog. Whatever it is, those able to connect from the heart, rather than through ego alone, seem more able to achieve enduring success.
Indeed, coming back to Sydney to put into practice what I've learned, I have found a different corporate landscape. While some - such as the recent spate of overgeared entrepreneurs - are still suffering for their sins of hubris and being too driven, it's a rapidly changing world.
Funds management icon Brian Sherman is fighting for animal rights, our Prime Minister is fighting for home care for his son, and former Microsoft mogul Daniel Petre is taking time off to be with his wife and kids - all for the sake of joyfulness and meaning.
According to Gordon Cairns, words such as empower have replaced command and control, while abundance and prosperity have replaced wealth.
My new column, Business Life, is about the things that matter: business and life, work and play, passions and health, heart and soul - in balance. In a world in which happiness is the hottest new corporate commodity and health and success depend on it, it's no longer a dream to have it all. It's a necessity.
That simple question can play a powerful role in healing our lives.
One of two pages. Please click on external link for complete articleFeb 27, 2008
Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote: "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." Rachel Remen, M.D., has spent much of her 40-year medical career helping patients and doctors find their why. A colleague of mine at the University of California, San Francisco, and founder of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness, she has been a pioneer of integrative medicine, exploring the powerful ways in which our emotional, mental and spiritual states may directly affect our health. Dr. Remen is also the author of the best sellers "Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal" and "My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging" (both from Riverhead Books). I spoke to her recently about how understanding and pursuing what matters most to us can help to heal both body and soul. Excerpts:
Dean Ornish: There is a lot of suffering in the world right now, and it's experienced on so many different levels—a lot of edginess, anxiety and fear. You often describe how suffering can be a catalyst for transforming our lives. In what ways?
Rachel Remen: Very negative experiences, including anxiety and fear, have the potential to cause us to question the way we've been living. They're a wake-up call. They make people think more deeply about things and ask themselves questions like: What's important? What really matters? How do I want to spend my time, my money, my energy? How do I live more deliberately according to the things that are important to me? Just a very simple two-word question—"What matters?"—can change your life and the lives of people around you.
Why?
Because most of us live by habit. We often spend our time and energy on things that, if we were to ask ourselves, "Is this really important to me?" the answer would be, "Not very." But we don't usually ask ourselves this question. We're not living our lives closest to what has meaning and passion and value for us.
Why not?
We get distracted. There are lots of pressures in life. We're multitasking a lot of the time. Many of us have become disheartened or depressed. We tend to want to numb ourselves out rather than go deep inside and find the well of renewal that is in every person. We spend a lot of time in front of the television set, maybe we tie one on over the weekend. And we're often looking for comfort rather than renewal, and those are two different things.
What's the difference?
Comfort is a temporary Band-Aid. But whatever you are trying to numb yourself from usually comes back. Renewal is healing. If you go deep within and look to live your life with greater integrity, closer to your genuine and authentic values, according to what is really true for you, then you permanently diminish the pain. You don't just numb it temporarily. Food is one of the ways we numb ourselves. Or we drink too much, or we go from relationship to relationship, constantly seeking something new.
A patient once told me, "When I get depressed, I eat a lot of fat—it coats my nerves and numbs the pain. It fills the void." Another said, "I've got 20 friends in this package of cigarettes. They're always there for me; nobody else is." In the effort to heal our pain, we often numb it so we don't look at our lives. The real healing comes from asking ourselves what really matters and having the courage to let go of what doesn't matter and take hold of what does.
When people are diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, they often realize this, as well.
Yes. There is a moment of clarity where you know what's important to you. And it often isn't the way you've been living your life but something different than that. I've worked for years with people who have cancer, listening to their stories—the view from the edge of life is a lot clearer than most of us have.
In all those years, nobody ever said to me, "If I die of this disease, I'm going to miss my Mercedes." What really matters is who you've touched on your way through life, who has touched you and cared deeply, and what you're leaving behind you in the hearts and lives of those around you. We're so busy that we may not be present in our own lives. We don't see. We don't connect. And it's all here in front of us. Many are starving in the midst of plenty.
More folks eschew organized religion but not spirituality
Updated February 25. 2008 By Molly Rossiter
As chaplain at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, the Rev. Catherine Quehl-Engel lives in a veritable potpourri of faith.
She may find herself offering guidance to the college's Jewish student group one day, leading a Catholic discussion group the next and guiding Hindu students through their spiritual journeys the day after that.
Quehl-Engel, 40, an ordained Episcopal priest, also finds herself talking with students and community members about a self-proclaimed "spiritual but not religious" identity, a spirituality that does not include organized religion.
"For some people, organized religion just doesn't speak to them or work for them. They'd rather create their own thing," she said.
According to the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, 14 percent of Americans say they don't follow organized religion, and a 2002 Gallup Poll showed that 33 percent of American adults claimed to be "spiritual but not religious." As affiliation with organized religion drops — the ARIS study found only 8 percent of Americans reported no religious affiliation in 1990 — the number of those who claim a spirituality without ties to church doctrine and politics seems to be increasing.
"Part of me thinks that this has been around a lot longer than we think," Quehl-Engel said. "There are people in all traditions who value critical thinking, or they want to ask the big questions, but they don't know if they're allowed to."
Michelle Stafford grew up in a house where her father's family instructed her on the doctrines of Catholicism and her mother's family followed an American Indian spiritual path. Having experienced both sides of the spiritual spectrum, she said she felt free to follow her spiritual needs without an organized group.
"It was easy for me to live that spiritual life; it's much freer, much more loving," said Stafford, 34, of Hiawatha, who works as a spiritual director at Serenity, 5250 Park Pl. NE in Cedar Rapids. "I feel better going to a park and meditating and listening to God that way than sitting in a church, hearing that I'm a sinner and I have to confess my sins in order to go to heaven." Spirituality, she said, does not mean that a person does not believe in God. It's likely the opposite, she said.
"Someone who is spiritual probably does believe in God very much," Stafford said. "They don't need to feel confined by a building to worship God. Spirituality is all-encompassing because it can involve religion but is much broader and open." For some, the words "religion" and "spirituality" are interchangeable. For others, however, they are two different ideas.
For many people, the decision to follow a spiritual path rather than one entrenched in organized religion comes after years of belonging to a variety of religious groups or organizations. Sam Angell, 20, remembers being afraid to tell his mother, an Episcopal priest, that he no longer wanted to attend church youth gro
