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Health care professionals, clergy, chaplains, social workers, and others who counsel people in medical crisis often find themselves faced with deeply painful questions: Why is this happening to me? Am I dying? Why should I live? I'm just a burden to others.

Here is a workbook that suggests healing verbal responses to such expressions of spiritual pain. The author, an internationally recognized expert in spiritual caregiving, points out that wanting to help is one motivation for learning these skills, but there are also evidence-based reasons: helping patients express their innermost feelings promotes spiritual healing; spiritual health is related to physical and emotional health; spiritual coping helps patients accept and deal with their illness; and patients tend to want their health care professionals to know about their spirituality.

Lessons, tips, and exercises teach how to listen effectively, with guidelines for detecting and understanding the spiritual needs embedded in patients' conversations. Suggestions are provided for verbal responses to patients who express spiritual distress, including tips for building rapport, using self-disclosure, and praying with patients. A FAQ section deals with frequently asked questions and miscellaneous information, such as:

By practicing and using these healing techniques, Taylor explains, healthcare professionals will be able to provide patients responses to their questions that allow them to become intellectually, emotionally, and physically aware of their spirituality so they can experience life more fully.

 

In When Sickness Heals, Dr. Siroj Sorajjakool draws on more than ten years of studies on health benefits in relation to spirituality, especially focusing on the function of "meaning." He expounds on his theory that healing is primarily the function of meaning, and meaning transcends sickness and even death itself. He concludes that what people ultimately seek in life is the healing of their souls. 

 

 

Sorajjakool brings many Eastern and Western resources to his conversation on health, meaning, and healing. He incorporates the perspectives of theologians and philosophers like Paul Tillich, Carl Jung, Søren Kierkegaard, Raimundo Panikkar, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and John Macquarrie; as well as references to religious texts, including yin and yang, and alchemy.

 

 

A clear, distinct understanding of spirituality in clinical contexts is presented, with an argument for the role of meaning in the healing process, based on evidence that there may be healing even in the face of death. Sorajjakool identifies the transitional processes people may go through as they seek to make sense of their experiences during a health crisis. He suggests an alternative approach to spiritual assessment and provides methods of spiritual care that speak to the soul.

 

 

Why is it that the majority of people, from all socio-economic, education, and ethnic backgrounds, ascribe to some sort of faith? What draws us to religion? What pushes us away? And what exactly is religion anyway?
Defining religion over the past century has, ironically, led to theories that exclude belief in God, proposing that all systems of thought concerning the meaning of life are religions. Of course, this makes it impossible to distinguish the village priest from the village atheist, or Communism from Catholicism.  Worse yet, it makes all religious behavior irrational, presuming that, for example, people knowingly pray to an empty sky.
Renowned sociologist of religion Rodney Stark offers a comprehensive, decisive, God-centered theory of religion in his book, Why God: Explaining Religious Phenomena. While his intent is not to insist that God exists, Stark limits religions to systems of thought based on belief in supernatural beings—to Gods.  With this God-focused theory, Stark explores the entire range of religious topics, including the rise of monotheism, the discovery of sin, causes of religious hostility and conflict, and the role of revelations. 
Each chapter of Why God? builds a comprehensive framework, starting with the foundations of human motivations and ending with an explanation of why most people are religious. Stark ultimately settles what religion is, what it does, and why it is a universal feature of human societies.
Why God? is a much needed guide for anyone who wants a thorough understanding of religion and our relationship to it, as well as a firm refutation to those who think religion can exist without the divine. 
 

"The test of all happiness,” said G.K. Chesterton, “is gratitude."

Learning to experience gratitude involves being grateful as an attitude, not as a reaction when good things occur. To be grateful, one does not need to wait until things are perfect. In fact, practicing gratitude makes one receptive to life's blessings, and these blessings continue as we continue to be thankful.

In one study, described by author Robert Emmons, participants who wrote about five things for which they were grateful experienced more positive emotional states and were more likely to help others over a period of ten weeks than were participants who wrote about the hassles and stressors they experienced during the same time.

"Love wholeheartedly,” says Brother David Steindl-Rast, “be surprised, give thanks and praise—then you will discover the fullness of your life."

Gratitude provides gifts to both the giver and the receiver, and this illuminating book will inspire readers to recognize just how truly blessed we are.

This treasury of practical morality, personal inspiration, and daily guidance is perfect for people of all persuasions. The organization facilitates group or personal study and spiritual development.