Swami Event Tuesday, May 22, CANCELLED due to deaths in India
Radhanath Swami - how spirituality leads to Health and Well-being
Tues, 05/22/2012 - 12:00pm
Posttraumatic Growth (PTG) Seminar
Larry Simons and Carmen DiNino Alspach, LCP, LCDC, will share tools for Posttraumatic Stress recovery
Saturday, 09/29/2012 - 9:30am- 12:30pm
Jon Allen, PhD, from the Menninger Clinic delivered the last of our Great Teacher Series talks at ISH for this year. A rapt audience filled the lecture hall and loved what they heard. Among those in attendance were Dr. Jim Lomax, Dr. Ken Pargament, Rabbi Sam Karff, and Amanda Yoder, LCSW. Dr. Allen is humble and said he knew nothing about the subject, then poured out armloads of wisdom from his work with Mentalization in Psychotherapy.
This event, schedule for Tuesday, May 22, at noon, has been cancelled due to the accidental death of seven members of Radhanath Swami's Ashram in India. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families involved and to Swami's entire community. The event will be rescheduled in the near future. At that time he will speak at ISH on "Spirituality in Healthcare." He says “Medicine should not just be looked at as a profession, but as a way for improving people’s life.”
This coming Thursday, May 17, at 5:00 p.m. at the Institute, Dr. Jon Allen of The Menninger Clinic will address the fascinating subject of “Mentalizing God.” Dr. Allen says, “Karen Armstrong asserts that God is a product of the human imagination and that God often is imbued with human characteristics. Mentalizing entails attributing mental states to others as well as awareness of mental states in oneself; hence relating to God (e.g.
Friday, May 27, a Chaplain's Continuing Ed class was held at the Institute (ISH). The program coordinators were the Rev'ds Steven Spidell and Gary Jones who called the event Chaplain Education 101. It was the first of what we hope to be many continuing education experiences for chaplains in our region. A total of 25 attended with 10 coming all the way from San Antonio. The talks can now be viewed on our YOUTUBE site (see menu bar above). 
I am pleased to announce we now have in print the story of our 57 year history in the Texas Medical Center - Uniting Faith, Medicine, and Healthcare: A 57-Year Hisotry of the Institute for Spirituality and Health at the Texas Medical Center. The author, Cathey Nickell, has done an outstanding job of interviewing dozens of people and putting their oral history together with recorded minutes of meetings and other documents to create a most enjoyable read. 
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor, stands as one of the greatest figures of courage in the 20th century. His story of his stance against the Third Reich of Nazi Germany has appeared in countless books and will be told on stage in Houston at A.D. Players' presentation of, "The Beams Are Creaking." The title is the code phrase used by those who conspired to kill Hitler. For his resistance, Bonhoeffer was arrested and sent to Buchenwald death camp. A few weeks before the war ended, this man who had more courage than his church, was hung until dead. You can read the full story in the Friday, April 27, 2012 issue of The Houston Chronicle, page F-4. The play begins on Wedneday, May 2 and goes through June 10, 2012 at A.D. Players' Grace Theatre, 2710 W. Alabama. Simultaneously, the Holocaust Museum at 5401 Caroline will offer "Bonhoeffer Tours" to theatre ticket holders. And, Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church, 6221 Main street, will hold a Panel Discussion on "Bonhoeffer: Lessons for Life Today," May 22 at 7 p.m.
I am privileged to be a member of the Board of Directors of LifeGift, an organization that procures and provides organs and tissues for transplantation. In a word, LifeGift provides life and quality of life to thousands of people every year. This month, April, is National Donate Life Month, a time to focus attention on the importance of registering organ and tissue donors. In Texas this is done through Donate Life Texas Registry at 
I recently visited with Mark Wallace, President/CEO to invite Texas Children's Hospital to become a member of ISH's Circle of Friends which he happily agreed to do. He said he had something he wanted me to show me -- a Prayer Bowl which was a gift to him from his staff when they opened the new Pavillion for Women. In the large bowl was a hundred or more cards, each with a prayer for Mark Wallace. He said, "Take one and read it." I did and was blessed. He said every day he picks a card from his Prayer Bowl and is blessed to read one of the prayers that was prayed for him.
The front page of the Houston Chronicle for Friday, April 13, 2012 shows man from India beginning the day with a classic Yoga exercise and he says yoga is good for one's health and increases longevity. He is correct. The vast majority of over 3,000 studies reveal there is a positive correlation between consistent spiritual practices and greater sense of well-being, overall better health and even a lengthening of one's life. So, maybe we should all join this man in the park, watching the sunrise, stretching our limbs and renewing our soul as we begin a new day.
Today I heard speakers sharing every aspect of LifeGift, an organization that provides organs and tissues for transplantation across Texas. Among the speakers was the smiling man pictured -- Jordan Merecka. Jordan was born with a congenital heart problem and spent a year of his young life waiting for a heart transplant. For six months he was kept alive with a mechanical heart. He said in October, 2011 he had just about given up hope that he would receive a new heart. At his moment of dispair, Jordan prayed that God would touch the heart of a family somewhere to release a heart that would be compatible with his body. The very next morning he received a phone call 
I just read a disturbing article on KevinMD.com written by David Houle and Jonathan Fleece and entitled, 
Here is what Rabbi Roy Walter says about his upcoming talk on April 5, 5:00 p.m. "Jewish liturgy is always primarily in the plural we, us, our, as opposed to I, me, my to bind us to our community. Yet the individual is always addressed by its themes. Passover and Yom Kippur address communal suffering and redemption, and Yom Kippur on personal failings and atonement.
Bee Moorehead, Director of an organization known as "Texas Impact," reported in an article in the Sunday, March 25, 2012 Houston Chronicle, page B9, that 60 national, state and local religious organizations have united to say that "No child of God should want for health care because he can't afford it." In doing so, they experessed their support of Medicaid expansions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). They say nowhere is the Medicaid expansion more significant than in Texas because a million uninsured are set to gain health insurance in 2014-15 because of this expansion (a quarter of Texas' uninsured population). The interesting thing about the article was her assurance that "Acts on behalf of the needy and vulnerable, whether volunteered as indiviauls or commanded by society, formed the framework of the understanding of right and wrong in the history of Judaism, Christianty and Islam." 
Micahel Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic Magazine has an interesting and challenging column every month in Scientific American magazine. In the April, 2012 issue, he has an article entitled "Climbing Mount Immortality" and it is thought provoking as always. He summarizes Stephen Cave's book, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization" which identifies four immortality narratives: (1) Staying alive, (2) Resurrection, (3) Soul, and (4) Legacy.
Last Wednesday, Feb 29, a delighted audience filled the lecture room at ISH to hear MIT-trained physicist Gerald Schroder, PhD, share on "The Unity of Science and Genesis." Schoeder had come to the U.S. from Jerusalem to receive the prestigious 
Cameron Denzen Hammon shares her painful experience with post-partum depression, her struggle with why God did not heal her, and after her ordeal ended can say: "After a few weeks on medication, the fog dissolved. One night I slept five consecutive hours and awoke with new clarity; my understanding of God would never be the same. My pride had stood squarely, like a linebacker, between me and that phone call. For six painful months I suffered, and so did my family, because I insisted on my own understanding of how God would, or should, heal me." Check out her story about Post Partum Depression and the Prozac nation here:
Physicist and Biblical Scholar, Gerald Schroeder, is a favorite author of mine. I have read his great book The Hidden Face of God and I now have in my hands, The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom (Simon and Schuster, 2009). I think it is a must read, especially for the confirmed athetist or agnostic.
I am reading a great book entitled, The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth by Gerald L. Schroeder (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001). Schroeder is a MIT-trained scientist and has worked in both physics and biology. A previous books of his, The Science of God, was a best seller. In this book the author says that, properly understood, the findings of science provide positive reasons for faith. So, instead of science disproving religion, just the opposite is true. In the prologue to his book, Schroeder says,
On Dec 6, 2011, the Wall Street Journal published an interesting article outlining the role of hospital chaplains. The article says the majority of hospitals in America provide chaplain servies and studies indicate patients value the care they receive. To further document the work chaplains do, the Templeton Foundation has established a $ 3 million dollar grant which will encourage evidence-based research in this area. Previous studies have shown that patients want their spiritual concerns addressed while they are being cared for medically.
Let me say Up front that I (John K. Graham, M.D., D.Min.) have always resisted comparisons between the cost of medical care in the united states and that of other countries. The Quality of care is quite different from one country to the next.
Jeffrey J Kripal is a historian of religions and Chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University. He is also a member of the Institute for Spirituality and Health’s Adjunct Faculty. Kripals’ latest book is entitled, Mutants & Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal (University of Chicago Press, 2011). On the leaf of his book Jeffrey has written, “In many ways, Twentieth-century America was the land of superheroes and science fiction, from Superman and Batman to the Fantastic Four and the X-men. These pop-culture Juggernauts, with their “powers and abi
An article in Parade Magazine, Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011, says it's been a "brutal year," but reminds us this holiday season we can choose to help our fellow Americans get back on their feet. The article suggests 10 ways we can do that.
Where there is a will, there is a way. On Sunday, November 27, 2011, The Houston Chronicle posted a story on page A29 of the newspaper, entitled, Patient's Turn to the Internet for Money, Support. The subtitle is, "Donations from family, friends, strangers save lives, grant wishes." The story features Jessica and Seah Haley who are pictured on the left.
I just received this email from Jess & Dr. Raja Paulraj.
A program instituted in the 1990s in larger cities in the US gave poor women the opportunity to move to better neighborhoods. Ten years later there was less incidence of Diabetes and morbid obesity among those who made the move -- giving support to the idea that where you live can affect your health. This study goes along with a book entitled Mind the Gap: The New Class Divide in Britain, by Ferdinand Mount, which looks at the class divide in Britan and its effect on the lives of individuals.
In my blog I have tried to keep you up with all the events in the life of little Adam, born with multiple congenital defects in India. In this picture his adoptive father gazes down admiringly at Adam who appears to be beaming up at his new-found father. God has given Dr. Raja Paulraj and his wife Jess a love for this helpless child and I want to continue to share their story, because in a cold and cruel world where a child is abandoned by his biological parents, I think it is worth reporting when a man and a woman open their hearts to provide a home and life for such a child as this.
ISH's 19th Annual Nursing Conference was a huge success with four terrific speakers -- Rev. Herb Orell; Ken Pargament, Ph.D.; Chaplain AnnMarie Wallace, and Joan Engelbretsen, RN, Ph.D. Rev Orrell set the stage saying that Nurses cannot say they will not engage in spirituality with their patients -- we always express our spirituality -- so, the only question is will our spirituality be positive or negative experience. He gave very helpful suggestions as to how to handle the "big" questions.
Dr Raja and JessI have recently been touched by the story of little Adam, a child born in India with multiple severe congenital abnormalities - absence of upper eyelids, cleft lip and nose deformity, webbing of the hands and legs, such that the child is not able to extend his legs. His parents abandoned the child at birth but a doctor (Dr Raja Paulraj) and his newly married wife (Jess) have adopted the child and the picture of them with their little baby Adam with such love, reminds me of the love God has for us. Although we too are deformed of spirit and soul, God loves us. God doesn’t abandon us or turn aside.
I have been reading with great interest a New York Times Best Selling book by Barbara Brown Taylor entitled, An Altar in the World (HarperOne, 2009). In her book Brown has chapters with titles like: “The Practice of Waking Up to God, The Practice of Living with Purpose, and the Practice of Being Present to God. One of her early chapters is entitled The Practice of Paying Attention.
I was recently introduced to a book entitled, Christian & Islamic Spirituality: Sharing a Journey, by Maria Jaoudi (Paulist Press, New York, 1993). I found the book to be an important read in view of the daily conflict between Christianity and Islam taking place worldwide. It is nice to know both share much in their spirituality which is at the very core of both religions. Of course, Islam and Christianity are two of the three Abrahamic faiths, the other being Judaism.
I recently discovered a fascinating book. The title is Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies – and What It Means to Be Human. The author, Joel Garreau, wants to awaken his readers to the fact that we are at a turning point in human history. In this century application of rapidly advancing GRIN technology (Genetics, Robotics, Information, and Nanotechnology) will transform what it means to be human.
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