Quaker Perspectives
Living & Health: A Personal Account by Bill Ratliff
Bill originally wrote this account for his family about his experience with cancer and the approaches he has been using to deal with it.
On Praying for Others - and Ourselves by Peter Blood
Intercessory prayer was rare just a few years ago among FGC Quakers. Many meetings today have a period where Friends "hold others in the Light" at the conclusion of meeting for worship.
Willingness and Health by Peter Blood
This is a paper I wrote back in 1987 while I was studying spiritual direction at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. It is a reflection on ways that holistic health can lead to blame or self-blame towards the person who is ill and suggests an alternative "contemplative medicine".
Holding One Another in the Light, by Marcelle Martin
Praying for each other - intercessory prayer - deepens our connection to God and helps bring healing to individuals & communities. Marcelle's pamphlet is a personal account of her discovery of & experiences with intercessory prayer. It describes the many forms this takes among Friends today, from meetings for healing to a prayerful witness for peace on earth. (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #382, 2005)
4 other Pendle Hill Pamphlets dealing with these issues:
Profession and Practice: Quaker Perspectives on Healing as Ministry, by Maureen Flannery MD (#363, 2002)
Gift of Days: Report on an Illness, by Mary Morrison (#364, 2003)
Sickness, Suffering, and Healing: More Stories from Another Place, by Tom Gates (#341, 1998)
A Song of Death, Our Spiritual Birth: A Quaker Way of Dying, by Lucy Screechfield McIver (#340, 1998)
George Fox's Book Of Miracles
Edited by Henry Cadbury, Foreward by Rufus Jones. The founder of Quakerism was a healer as well as a powerful writer, preacher & religious leader, manifesting this gift in over 150 recorded instances of cures. These miracles were critical to spreading the word about Quakerism in the initial years. New introductions by Paul Anderson and Jim Pym help readers appreciate the place of this material in the overall understanding of Fox's contributions to Quakerism.
Available from QuakerBooks.
Christian Perspectives
Living Through Pain: Psalms and the Search for Wholeness, by Kristin M. Swenson
Bill Ratliff writes that "This is the best book I have found on pain and suffering. The first three chapters deal with the problems of pain and understanding it. Then she looks at six Psalms in successive chapters and draws out the various ways that the psalmists dealt with this difficult subject. Surprisingly, but realistically, the Pslams contained no common approach." (Waco,TX: Baylor U. Press, 2005, hardcover).
4 books by Gerald May MD
Jerry May was a psychiatrist on the staff of Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation for many years until his death from cancer in 2005. His books are not on healing issues per se but they explore better than any other books I (Peter) am familiar with the ways that spirituality, mind & body are deeply interwoven - issues that are at the heart of the ideas I will be presenting at QPCC in March.
- Will & Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology (1982)
- Addiction & Grace (1988)
- The Awakened Heart: Opening Yourself to the Love You Need (1991)
- The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness & Spiritual Growth (2004)
Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice, by Stephanie Pausell
The final chapter of this 2002 book by a Protestant theologian is on “honoring the suffering body.” The book concludes: “Through the vulnerability of our bodies, God has given us into the care of one another. What tender responsibility. What joy, what pain. Thanks be to God.”
Other Religious Traditions
Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Kabat-Zinn is founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic and director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care & Society at U. Mass Medical Center. Workshops on mindfulness as a way to improve patient care, reduce professional stress and suppport patient healing are being taught at many medical centers around the country.
Other books by Kabat-Zinn:
- Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness
- Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
Here’s the Buddhist book that Bill and I both like (he used it in his ESR death and dying course and I have given it to friends who are dealing with loss as well as used it myself):
Facing Death and Finding Hope: A Guide To The Emotional and Spiritual Care Of The Dying, by Christine Longaker (1997)
A Buddhist book that is helpful in dealing with losses and facing the possibility of one's own or a loved one's death. A good related website
A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last, by Stephen Levine
A friend of Maureen Flannery MD suggested that her friends read and meditate with this 1997 book as a way to support her through the process of living with and dying of cancer. Stephen Levine and his wife Ondrea have written many other books on dying and grief from a Buddhist perspective. The most recent is Unattended Sorrow: Recovering from Loss and Reviving the Heart (2005). He is also the author of Who Dies?.
When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Harold Kushner
This 1981 classic and other books by a liberal Jewish rabbi offer useful approaches to dealing with suffering and tragedy. Maureen writes that Kushner’s emphasis on “when” not “why” has been helpful to her in dealing with pain and loss in her work and her life.
My Grandfathers Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging, by Rachel Naomi Remen
Remen is a physician who brings to her work with dying patients her grounding in Judaism andher own experience of living with a serious chronic illness. Both this 2000 book and Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal, her earlier 1996 book, contain wisdom about self-care for those of us involved in the work of care giving and healing.
Medical Science & Healng
Reinventing Medicine, by Larry Dossey MD
Dossey talks about our just entering into the era of nonlocal medicine where healing is done at a distance. Citing the 150 studies done on the healing effects of prayer at a distance, he posits a new paradigm for healing that takes seriously the human conscious and its participation in a universal conscious. This is beyond the mind-body paradigm and is exciting and challenging to conventional modes of healing. One physician, upon hearing Dossey speak, said, "If what you say is true, then we doctors could be sued for medical malpractice if we do not pray for our patients!"
Also by Dossey:
- Healing Words: The Power of Prayer & the Practice of Medicine (1993)
- Prayer Is Good Medicine: How to Reap the Healing Benefits of Prayer (1996)
Speaking of Faith: Stress & the Balance Within
The American Public Media show Speaking of Faith recently featured a leading rheumatologist, Esther Sternberg MD, who has grown over the years to become convinced of the interconnectedness of spirituality and physical healing. You can download this show and listen to it from the show's website.
In her book, The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health & Emotions, Sternberg explores recent developments in science and medicine that provide support for understanding the ways in which bodies respond to spiritual work and issues. Here is a review of the book.
Love, Medicine & Miracles: Lessons Learned about Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience with Exceptional Patients, by Bernie Siegel MD
Another one of the "classics" of the field - this one from 1986. Siegel is a surgeon who was deeply moved by the emotional and spiritual transformation that many of the cancer survivors he worked with went through. My (Peter's) ambivalence with his ideas is that those with life-threatening illnesses may end up feeling they have "failed" if they do not experience healing through these approaches. Peace, Love & Healing: Bodymind Communication & the Path to Self-Healing: An Exploration (1989) is another of Siegel's books.
Here's a link to an online article by Siegel entitled "Accept, Retreat & Surrender: How to Heal Yourself" that summarizes pretty well some of his basic ideas.
Getting Well Again by O. Carl Simonton MD, Stephanie Matthews Simonton & James Creighton PhD (1978)
Over 20 years ago, the Simontons (a physician couple at the time) began experimenting with using guided imagery, relaxation techniques & meditation as a way of fighting cancer. Carl Simonton's latest book, The Healing Journey, focuses heavily on the personal account of one cancer patient, Reid Hansen.
The Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing & Regeneration, by Norman Cousins
This 1979 book by a well-known journalist on his successful fight against a cripplling disease was the first best seller on mind-body connections. Cousins used his body's own natural healing resources in overcoming his illness in close collaboration with his physician. One of the main things he did was watch hundreds of hours of comedy films.
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