Posts tagged ‘newspaper’
One path to health care, or another choice?
By John D. Clague, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Oregon
I’m curious about what’s missing in Oregon’s media on health and health care. You see plenty on health care reform, lots on the latest trends in conventional medical research, and much discussion about society’s hopes for a cure to our most obstinate health challenges. What you don’t see reported much is the public’s increasing pursuit of alternative and integrative health practices.
People are concerned about their health, evidenced by the fact that 80% of adult internet users are looking for information about health. And I believe that people are looking for solutions to their health concerns outside the mainstream system.
One emerging trend is the inclusion of alternative and integrative medical services by hospitals in their array of offerings because many of these practices are proving to be effective, they are less expensive than traditional care, and the public is using these services more and more. In fact, Americans pay $34 billion per year out of pocket for complementary and alternative medicine.
However, Michelle Andrews reports in Kaiser Health News:
“Although research supporting the efficacy of various complementary therapies is increasing, if hospitals confined themselves to those procedures supported by evidence there wouldn’t be much to offer,” says Ian Coulter, a senior health policy analyst at the Rand Corp. “(The same could be said of many conventional medical treatments, or course.) So hospitals pick and choose, based on what they judge to be most effective and what they believe patients want.”
According to a survey by the American Hospital Association and the Samueli Institute, the most common treatments offered by hospital outpatient centers were massage therapy, acupuncture, and guided imagery (visualization and mental techniques designed to reduce stress). Pet therapy, massage, and music/art therapy are the most popular on an inpatient basis.
One practice not listed above, but practiced by 49% of those surveyed, is prayer. I practice prayer on a regular basis with good results. I also value the practice of a healthy lifestyle.
I don’t pay a lot for my health care, and in fact I don’t have any negative side effects. What I do have is good health and I feel good, mentally and physically.
I’m wondering why Oregonians aren’t reading or hearing much about these trends in health care. Sure, they aren’t the dominant resource for a healthy life in today’s complex society, but certainly they’re significant enough to warrant regular attention for the benefit of Oregon citizens.
Beyond Coping to Healing
Today’s guest post is by a friend and colleague, Bob Clark, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Florida. His post is a beautiful discussion of where we need to be after dealing with a crisis. Just coping may actually be more harmful than the healing that is necessary and possible. I know you will find Bob’s post interesting and helpful. John D. Clague, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Oregon.
There’s coping with a crisis….and then there’s healing it. And there’s a world of difference between the two. Healing is about transformation and renewal. Coping is about making do, staying put…just dealing with it.
Here’s an example. A good friend’s daughter made an award winning documentary about 9/11 called, “New York Says Thank You”. I hope you’ll take the time to watch it, because it documents the process of a huge collective healing. It shows how we can go beyond just dealing with it to healing it. It shows real lives being transformed, lifted out of crisis mode and healed.
As I was watching “New York Says Thank You” it made me think of other examples of the difference between coping and healing. For instance, our national health care system, at the center of such rancorous political debate right now, needs to move beyond the ruinously expensive business of managing or coping with disease to healing it. How can this happen?
Ten years ago at this time, in the wake of the 9/11 disaster, churches were overflowing. Attendance at churches, synagogues and mosques was peaking. Hollywood and pro sports were on hold. We all “got religion” so to speak. And healing began immediately. Nobody wanted to linger in the ashes of shock and grief. We immediately rallied as a nation. Our love for each other poured out and into Lower Manhattan. The healing process began immediately…and has continued for over a decade now.
Can we move our health care crisis beyond coping to healing? And can our collective response to 9/11 serve as a model? I think so. A collective, focused, prayerful response has immense power, as we saw in the weeks and years following 9/11. There are ways to move forward and innovations that can take shape as the result of prayer.
An October 14, 2008 editorial in the The Christian Science Monitor told us that “Paradigm-shattering innovation is clearly needed in healthcare reform.” The article, “Keep Choice in Health Care”, offers some valuable insights about moving together, as a nation, beyond coping with our health crisis to healing it.
We know how to move beyond the static state of coping to the dynamic power of healing. We’ve done it before. We can do it again.
by Robert B. Clark, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Florida
Hope and comfort from Japan
A Christian Science perspective: Insights from a writer in Tokyo, Japan on finding peace and calm amid devastation from the earthquake and tsunami.
By Fujiko Signs, The Christian Science Monitor’s religious article for March 14, 2011, shares how Fujiko Signs is praying (from Japan) about the tsunami/earthquake situation.
Here in Tokyo I have created an e-mail file called “earth blessings” (not “earthquake”) – a collection of over 150 messages of blessing, messages of hope that Japan survive one of the saddest events in our recent history.
The reason I named it “earth blessings” is because I insist on seeing the beauty of earth’s gifts, instead of the curse of nature.
The only way we are improving this planet, our home, is to see earth more from a spiritual perspective, in order to realize the significance of “Thy kingdom come” and “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” – Christ Jesus’ declarations in the Lord’s Prayer for all humanity. The founder of the Monitor, Mary Baker Eddy, added her spiritual sense to these lines: “Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present”; and “Enable us to know, – as in heaven, so on earth, – God is omnipotent, supreme” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” pp. 16-17).
The only light at the end of a long tunnel of materialism is the spiritualization of our thinking. Amid devastation it’s easy to try to measure our existence from a material perspective – fear of deprivation and feeling the necessity to fight over a limited supply, whether it be of energy or opportunity. But this allows us only to repeat the history of material creation and destruction. And trusting in material force to overcome conflicts and unrest is another aspect of the unproductive, material perspective. (more…)
Christian Science healed one of America’s great artists, Howard Chandler Christy, of near blindness
Healing is central to the practice of Christian Science. My friend and colleague from Washington, Bill Scott, published this outstanding piece on his blog about a great artist who was healed through applying the principles of Christian Science. You will enjoy reading his testimony published in TIME magazine.
By John D. Clague, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Oregon
Originally published by Bill Scott, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Washington
“Scene at the Signing of the Constitution,” by Howard Chandler Christy
The famous painting, “Scene at the Signing of the Constitution,” is a huge 18′ x 26′ oil portrait by one of our nation’s greatest artists, Howard Chandler Christy. It was completed in 1940 and hangs today in the east stairway of the House wing of the Capitol building. Congressmen and congresswomen have been walking by it since the early days of WWII. It is among the best known images in the United States Capitol.
If I could, I’d like to share with our nation’s leaders how the painting represents more than a great work of art or a significant moment in United States history. It also signifies how Christian Science has been, and continues to be, a benefit to the world. You see, Christy would have never painted this amazing portrait if his sight had not been restored by Christian Science years earlier.
In the following letter, published in Time magazine on April 12, 1937, Christy recounts how he fully regained his sight by the healing work of a Christian Science practitioner: (more…)
Who would have thought…?
By John D. Clague, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Oregon, and Susan Middleton
photo: 123rf
We’ve been thinking about how different society is today than it was in the not too distant past. Sometimes I forget it hasn’t always been this way. Two years ago it was a big deal that the United States elected an African-American president. Now, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Politics aside, it seems sort of normal. We have yet to elect a woman as president. I am certain, however, that day will come too.
A little over thirty years ago we put astronauts on the moon. And yet, the chances of electing a president then who was anything but a white male were absolutely zero. So 130 years ago, a woman as a world leader? What are the chances? No way!
Well then, what if there were more handicaps involved than just gender? What about a woman with no formal education? Or Perhaps someone whose husband died or deserted her, leaving her destitute?
What if this unfortunate woman were fatally injured from a fall on the ice? Now she dies a nobody. A few friends and relatives hold a simple service at her graveside and she’s soon forgotten.
But that isn’t how this particular story ends. (more…)
