Beholden receives 2016 Grawemeyer Award in Religion
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Recent Posts
- 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
- New! Infectious Historians (podcast)
- Tech-free worship across back gardens
- It’s been said before
- Holy (week) Light
Category Archives: Overheard
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
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
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
Concentrate on something very, very small
“If you want to write about big things, you have to concentrate on something very, very small and then unpack from there.” -Helen MacDonald, podcast interview with Tim Clare, “Death of 1o00 Cuts,” Season 2, Episode 38, at 1 hr. … Continue reading
Posted in Overheard, Web resource
Women in Global Health: Learn, Engage, Advance, Disrupt
Read about four amazing women leaders in global health, recently named the inaugural 2019 Jane Jie Sun cohort of the Women in Global Health LEAD Fellowship at Harvard University. The group includes the founder of a non-profit tackling HIV/AIDS in … Continue reading
Posted in Overheard, Upcoming Event
“But nobody noticed when the albatross had disappeared”*
Apropos of not much else on this blog: I’ve had a warm spot for the albatross ever since, one very special summer in college, living a short train ride from Geneva in Switzerland, the children in my apartment generously let … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Marketplace photo, Overheard, Reflection, Web resource
New Review: Public health of crowded religious (and sports) events
New in today’s Lancet: read more
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Web resource
Get a Witness without Buying the Book
Want to enjoy a baker’s dozen of fascinating stories about “peacemakers, community builders, and agitators for faith and justice” without forking over cash for another book? Visit the podcast and download thirteen free full-length interviews with each of the contributing … Continue reading
Posted in Booknote, Educational resource, Online Lecture, Overheard, Web resource
Thy will knows no end in me.
“I thought that my voyage had come to its end at the last limit of my power – that the path before me was closed, that provisions were exhausted and the time come to take refuge in silent obscurity. But … Continue reading
Posted in Booknote, Overheard, Photo essay, Reflection
Webcast on Religion & Public Health Partnerships! April 3, 2019
Free webcast on Wednesday, April 3, 2019 to celebrate and discuss the March 2019 American Journal of Public Health special section on “Faith-based organizations and Public Health Practice.” The webcast,”Finding Common Ground: Partnerships in Religion and Public Health,” will be … Continue reading
Posted in Conference, Educational resource, Overheard, Upcoming Event, Web resource
Community Health Course Free Online
Community Health Academy Reimagining the education of community health workers and leaders for the digital age. Registration is now open for the Community Health Academy’s first free, online course through HarvardX and edX, Strengthening Community Health Worker Programs to Deliver … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Web resource
Climate change for children, 1924: Revisited
A driller named Doyle made a fortune in oil And built a great mansion so high That sparks flying bright from his chimney at night Burned a hole in the top of the sky Frederick J. Forster, On the … Continue reading
Posted in Overheard, Reflection
Islam and Refuge: Podcast
The University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre offers reports, free podcasts, and more related to refugee issues around the world today, including regular attention to religion. This podcast, “Islamic Traditions of Refuge in the Crisis of Iraq and Syria,” is … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Web resource
Moving across borders is bad for health – but doesn’t need to be
“Restrictive entry and integration policies are linked to poor migrant health outcomes in high-income countries. Efforts to improve the health of migrants would benefit from adopting a Health in All Policies perspective.” Lancet Global Health report, March 2019; read here In … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Web resource
Countenancing Hunger
This week revisiting “old” news–which in media alas means published ten years ago or more–still worth hearing, I stumble again across this wonderful interview from 2007 with Sara Miles, author of Take This Bread, and founder of an altar-based food pantry … Continue reading
Posted in Booknote, Educational resource, Overheard, Web resource
Ritual as end-of-life care: Judaism
Read the Guide online Prepared by Rabbi Mark A. Popovsky For the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life, 2007
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Web resource
Mixing Religion & Medicine?
In Boston on Friday, January 18, 2019, from 6:30-8:30 p.m.: “Religion and Medicine: Should They Mix?”, cosponsored by the Veritas Forum, Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics, and The Initiative on Health Religion, and Spiritually at Harvard Medical School (HMS). … Continue reading
Posted in Conference, Educational resource, News, Overheard, Upcoming Event
João Biehl on Shaping a Sense of What is Possible
“Life stories do not simply begin and end. They are stories of transformation: they link the present to the past and to a possible future and create lasting ties among subject, scribe, and reader.” João Biehl, Vita: Life in a … Continue reading
Posted in Booknote, Overheard, Reflection
Extreme Poverty: Status Quo in the USA
“The United States is a land of stark contrasts…its immense wealth and expertise stand in shocking contrast with the conditions in which vast numbers of its citizens live. About 40 million live in poverty, 18.5 million in extreme poverty, and … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Web resource
Water and Health: Strathpeffer
Strathpeffer, a village in the Scottish highlands, was once famous for its variety of mineral springs. The Victorian health spa pumped waters up through different pipes–or, when pumps didn’t work, workers pulled sulfur-encrusted water up by the buckets. Everyone from … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard
Malala: On refugees in this moment, now
Nobel-Peace-Prize awardee, Malala Yousafzai speaks on peace, displacement, girls’ education, the important role of fathers, and the state of girl refugees around the world today. Her remarks are part of a December 6 conversation with Former U.S. Ambassador to the United … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Online Lecture, Overheard, Web resource
Let the lion lie down so the lamb can run the meeting
“When you come from where I come from you are told you can do anything and everything. I really believed that. I mean, I was a white, amazing person–who better to go help people? I made many mistakes before I … Continue reading
Posted in Overheard, Web resource
On economic, social and cultural rights 1948
On article 25 (on economic, social and cultural [ESC] rights), John Humphrey, the Canadian lawyer who wrote the first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, noted in his diary, “the two special interests that have tried hardest to … Continue reading
Posted in Overheard
Water Justice: 2018 Steve de Gruchy Memorial Lecture
Learn about the state of water as it relates to religion today in Dr. Isabel Apawo Phiri’s 2018 Steve de Gruchy Memorial Lecture, “God of Life Lead us to Water Justice.” Dr. Phiri is Associate General Secretary of the World … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, News, Online Lecture, Overheard, Web resource
Theological Voices: Syriac Women’s Choirs
“We must have women’s choirs. You are baptized in the same baptismal font–men and women. You drink from the same communion chalice. You receive the same bread. So men and women must both sing!” So insisted the bishop Jacob of … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Online Lecture, Overheard, Web resource
Implicit racial bias and the town gown
…pulling this highly recommended book down off my shelf to read again, in light of recent news events and necessary, valuable public outrage concerning the activities of a Harvard Humanitarian Initiative employee last week. City Mayor highlights what he hopes … Continue reading
Posted in Booknote, News, Overheard, Web resource
Call for Papers: Global Health Fieldwork Ethics
View the call for papers with more information here. Submission deadline: October 31, 2018. General guidelines for authors here.
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Upcoming Event, Web resource
Writing: Overheard
You don’t have to write every day. You don’t have to write what you know. You don’t have to write for publication. You don’t have to please anyone else. You don’t have to write like anyone else. You don’t have … Continue reading
Posted in Overheard
What would Solomon do?
Since posting below, welcome the Washington Post response from two New Testament theologians June 15 on the Bible’s moral mandate and support for welcoming immigrants and aliens. Thank you Professors Aymer and Nasrallah. Dahlia L, Schlanger M. Slate 2018; Jun … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Marketplace photo, News, Overheard, Web resource
The Stopping Places – and Health
Oxford Theology graduate Damien Le Bas has just published a welcome memoir on growing up Romany (“Gypsy”) in Britain. Read an extract here. Read an interview with the author. Learn more about the Roma at the FXB Center for Health … Continue reading
“The social construction of our interpretations” (Paul Farmer)
Dr. Paul Farmer reflects on the importance of anthropology in health care, in a recent Harvard Gazette interview: “…Q: How important to your career is the blend of medicine and anthropology? A: It was and is very important. … each … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Reflection, Web resource
Religion and Narrative Medicine: Table Talk
View this 30-minute conversation on the power of stories in healing. Eva Bleeker (on the left) is a chaplain who (since this video) recently completed graduate studies in narrative medicine at the Columbia program she describes in the discussion. The … Continue reading
Posted in Educational resource, Overheard, Web resource
