September 2020 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 
Beholden receives 2016 Grawemeyer Award in Religion
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Recent Posts
- “Conversations in Religion and the Healing Arts: Panel and Colloquium”
- Welcome, Students
- And the leaves shall be…
- Borderline Health for all: July 28 webinar
- Kinetic words for a soul in transfigural space
- Learning from Ebola
- Orthodox Relief: Resource
- WWGD?
- “Doctors in the Choir” (and all articles): free download through June!
- Want to be a force for good? Report positive news.
- Solidarity
- Just because
- Keeping our temples straight
- Public Health, Religion & Spirituality Bulletin: New Essays Online
- Fielding Hospitality: Rural Restauranteurs
- A few thoughts on disease, community, and grief
- Webinar: Pandemics: Past, Present, Future
- Being Neighborly in Berlin Prayers
- Open for Worship: Outdoors Encouraged
- Racial inequities in America: Glimpses from the Firehose
Author Archives: srholman
“Conversations in Religion and the Healing Arts: Panel and Colloquium”
Conversations in Religion and the Healing Arts: Online Panel Discussion and Public Colloquium Wednesday, October 14, 2020 3:30-5:00 PM (Central US time) Panelists: Anna Rebecca Solevåg, Professor of New Testament, VID University, Stavanger, Norway: “Medical Knowledge and Religious Conviction in … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Upcoming Event
Borderline Health for all: July 28 webinar
more about the webinar: Webinar & Report Launch The Health Crisis on the Northern Mexico Border: Cross-Border Implications of U.S. Immigration Policies Tuesday July 28, 2020 | 10 AM ET There is a growing public health crisis at the northern Mexico … Continue reading
Posted in Booknote, Educational resource, Upcoming Event, Web resource
Kinetic words for a soul in transfigural space
“Count me worthy to take my fill of delight in Thee, that dancing with joy I may magnify both Thy comings, O Lord who art good.” (from the Irmos of the Second Canon of Matins for the Feast of the … Continue reading
Posted in Reflection
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Learning from Ebola
Here’s a useful digital exhibit from the CDC Museum, on the role of people’s individual choices in getting viral epidemics under control. Lots of links and voices to make it perhaps a useful student engagement or bare bones to guide … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Online Lecture, Web resource
Orthodox Relief: Resource
More about the relief funds and application here More about Professor Demacopoulos More about the religious ideas behind Orthodox “humanitarianism”
Posted in Overheard
“Doctors in the Choir” (and all articles): free download through June!
Recently published in the Journal of Early Christian Studies, an article I’ve been working on for some years (with great delight) on the images of holy doctors on the wall in the choir of the church at the monastery of … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Web resource
Want to be a force for good? Report positive news.
New from the Harvard University Human Flourishing Program: VanderWeele & Brooks: “A Public Health Approach to Negative News Media: The 3-to-1 solution,” American Journal of Health Promotion 2020; DOI: 10.1177/0890117120914227 Commenting on the value of reporting good news even amidst … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Web resource
Public Health, Religion & Spirituality Bulletin: New Essays Online
Re-posting from PHRS update on the Spring/Summer issue, now online: Public Health, Religion & Spirituality Bulletin: Issue 2, Spring/Summer 2020 We are pleased to release the second issue the Public Health, Religion and Spirituality Bulletin, a publication of the Public … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Web resource
Fielding Hospitality: Rural Restauranteurs
This has got to be the most cheering true current-events story I have read in ….. a while & entrepreneurial idea for the unemployed? (assuming you own a field)
Posted in Job Description, Marketplace photo, Overheard
A few thoughts on disease, community, and grief
read the essay
Posted in Educational resource, Op-Ed, Reflection, Web resource
Webinar: Pandemics: Past, Present, Future
Fascinating new Webinar featuring experts from the Department of History at Ohio State University, who discuss past pandemics, from plague to influenza and HIV, to help better understand the current global health crisis. Panelists include Prof. John Brooke, Dr. Jim … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Online Lecture, Web resource
Open for Worship: Outdoors Encouraged
Happy news from my favorite local public health department: More details online….. Details (pdf) (“…..ok, so how do we make this work?…….”)
Posted in News, Overheard, Web resource
Racial inequities in America: Glimpses from the Firehose
Below are true “jots”, tiny glimpses from the firehose of media on the current crisis; the two sources below may be important for classroom (and other) discussions of health ethics, religion, and racial disparities in the USA: “The African American … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Web resource
New! Infectious Historians (podcast)
Click on image above or here to learn more and listen!
Posted in Educational resource, Web resource
Tech-free worship across back gardens
“We are learning different ways of being Church…I read our Sunday Eucharist at noon with my elderly neighbour at a safe distance in my back garden..” -an Anglican priest in the U.K.
Posted in Overheard
It’s been said before
“Certainly that [person] were greedy of Life, who should desire to live when all the world were at an end…” -Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) “Religio Medici” [the Religion of a Physician] written about 1635
Posted in Overheard
Holy (week) Light
revisiting this gift, and the quiet strength of indoor, natural light in a holy week
WHO on “Having Faith during COVID-19”
Page 2 of the World Health Organization’s April 9 daily “situation report” on the pandemic offers encouragement and specific suggestions to support faith communities as they work to shape effective responses: Learn more at the WHO Information Network for Epidemics … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, News, Overheard, Web resource
Medieval advice on handwashing
“If you want to be healthy, wash your hands often.“ -Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum 4, written in the 11th or 12th century, translated into modern English by Patricia Willet Cummins (Chapel Hill: North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Reflection, Web resource
Tears and Mourning: 17th Century Sermons on Plague & Loss
John Featley (d. 1666) was an Anglican priest and chaplain to the English kings, Charles I and Charles II. During his lifetime, Featley published a number of sermons on tears and mourning in situations of loss and difficulty. These included … Continue reading
Posted in Booknote, Educational resource, Web resource
I Must Go Down to the Beach(es) Again…
(the title of this post is of course a variant on a famous poem by John Masefield, one recited to me repeatedly throughout my childhood, by a beloved bard for whom it was, far more than a poem, a lifelong … Continue reading
Posted in Photo essay, Reflection
Laughing with Julian of Norwich
Learn more about: This book Julian, from her site in Norwich today Amy Laura Hall How Professor Hall sees the world in March 2020 through Julian’s perspectives.
Posted in Booknote, Educational resource, Overheard, Web resource
“I am at the house of God. But the angels are holding their breath.”
Yes, half of the time he is on the other side of the world; and yes, I’ve seen him maybe once in the past 3 years – but this emergency medicine physician is still my friend, and neighbour, here speaking … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Reflection, Web resource
New Article: “Tale of Two Tables”
Note on communion and contagion: This article–prepared for press weeks ago–refers to a published research study that reported a very low infectious disease contagion risk connected to the religious ritual practice of communion (aka eucharist) using “common cup”. Such risks … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Web resource
Meanwhile “Scotland Outdoors Podcast” Lowers Blood Pressure
Yesterday’s podcast proves that it is still possible to enjoy the great outdoors (safely) at this time–and a caller (not me) attests to it also measurably lowering her blood pressure. Listen and download recent episodes.
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Reflection, Web resource
NIH Director on pandemic, faith, and friendship
Valuable article in yesterday’s Atlantic: Learn more from the NIH:
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Web resource
Gregory of Nyssa: Contagion Revisited
I am reminded that this much-cited article from the Harvard Theological Review that I wrote many years ago might be of interest to some in these days–despite the Gregorys’ certainly wrong views about germ transmission.* *and yes it’s copyrighted, so I’ll take … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Web resource
“Feeling is contagious, healing is contagious”
Cheers and praises (again) to Canada (!!) for publishing encouragement like that in this story, in the midst of a difficult time worldwide: (In case you opt not to view, the phrase, “Feeling is contagious, healing is contagious” is from … Continue reading
Posted in Overheard
Religion & Public Health: Learning from the [ancient] past
Read this new essay (and more!) in the latest issue of the Public Health, Religion, and Spirituality Network Bulletin. Learn more about the Network
Posted in Educational resource, Web resource
Feeling Rusty? Read a Book.
“He who dwells (literally: pounds, hammers) upon books shall cleanse his heart from rust.” -Ephrem the Syrian* *trans. Arthur Vööbus, History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient: A Contribution to the History of Culture in the Near East, vol. 2; CSCO … Continue reading
Posted in Booknote
Short Audio Reflection: On Psalm 43
Susan Holman, John R. Eckrich University Chair in Religion and the Healing Arts at Valparaiso University, offers a reflection for Monday Morning Prayer at the Chapel of the Resurrection Feb. 10, 2020. Speaker series: Journeys of Faith: Wilderness, Hope, and … Continue reading
Posted in Online Lecture, Reflection, Web resource
Bearing Winter : Valentine for Bibliophiles
To step away from the endless grey of mid-winter, let me introduce you to this little friend glimpsed reading last summer in a deep afternoon light: And lest you wonder what it is that keeps him so fascinated with his … Continue reading
Posted in Booknote, Reflection
Pain by Art Scale: Updated
First posted here in 2018, a 2020 LINK UPDATE: Learn more about the use of art in medicine: “What Doctors can Learn from Looking at Art” (Dhruv Khullar, New York Times 2016) Ars Practica: Observation in Practice (a teaching model)
Posted in Overheard, Photo essay, Web resource
Masks and Quarantine: The Voice of the Poor
What does “disease containment” mean for those who are poor, need to go to work, and live in the isolation of house quarantine without a mask? A letter published in this week’s Lancet offers a glimpse. … Continue reading
Posted in Overheard
Global Catholic Health Care: Conference April 17-19, 202…1
UPDATE: THIS CONFERENCE HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL 2021: Learn More (free registration)
Posted in Conference, Educational resource, Upcoming Event, Web resource
Religion, Spirituality, Health (Durham UK): spring seminars
If you are in the UK, keep in mind this semester’s research seminars (listed below) sponsored by the Centre for Spirituality, Theology & Health at the University of Durham. Seminar discussions are at the postgraduate level, and are open to … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
An Apple a Day? – Diet and Regimen in Ancient Jewish and Related Traditions (CFP)
The Program on Medicine in Bible and Talmud, of the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS) invites interested scholars to submit proposals for papers at this summer’s meeting in Wuppertal (Germany), in a session focusing on “An Apple a Day? … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Hippocrates, Muslim Physicians, and the Five Books of Moses…
UPDATE (April 2020): THIS CONFERENCE (cancelled in 2020) is now POSTPONED and will take place in Columbus in March 2021 Learn more about the conference and registration.
Posted in Conference, Upcoming Event
Morality & Global Health: Panel at Harvard Friday Feb 21
Global health in cross-cultural settings can involve numerous complex situations. Many have accused global health practitioners, despite their best intentions, of cultural imperialism due to their imposition of certain (usually Western) norms and worldviews as they attempt to improve health … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Upcoming Event, Web resource
Maria Skobtsova Film – Update!
After more than three years in the works, the film, “Love to the End” is available for viewing! This 50-minute documentary, developed by students at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts, tells the story of Mother … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Web resource
“Theology and Spiritual Care Beyond Story”
New online talk sponsored by the Spirituality, Theology, and Health Seminar at the University of Durham’s Department of Theology and Religion: Rev. Dr. Chris Swift is a Methodist chaplaincy director in the UK. Learn more here. ABSTRACT: Stories are … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Online Lecture, Web resource
The unbelievable Christian Creed (Grawemeyer winner 2019)
Congratulations to Stephen Patterson, winner of this year’s Grawemeyer Award in Religion, for his book , The Forgotten Creed: Christianity’s Original Struggle against Bigotry, Slavery, & Sexism (Oxford University Press, 2018):
Posted in Booknote, Educational resource, News
