illness
When a culture’s immune system is compromised
Lyndsey Medford’s beautiful new book looks to interconnectedness amid the diseases of capitalism and injustice.
Pastors, like everyone else, need paid family and medical leave
When I was diagnosed with cancer, I was shocked to find I had no paid leave or legal job protection.
by Amy Ziettlow
Where our deep sadness and the world’s deep hunger meet
Sometimes vocation springs not from joy but from trauma and grief.
Discovering our voices together after my wife’s stroke
With her own voice changed by the stroke, she wanted to hear the Bible spoken aloud by her husband.
Leila Chatti writes intensely physical poems about faith, illness, and sex
The poetic vision of Deluge reconciles Muslim and Christian themes.
How I learned to love worshiping via video call
I'm immunocompromised. My ability to attend worship has long been determined by the CDC.
When Jane Tompkins couldn’t move, she read
Confined by illness, the feminist literary scholar dove into the complete works of V.S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux.
Cancer and good news
Todd Billings weaves his struggle with a rare form of blood cancer together with probing biblical and theological reflection.
Illness as hermitage: How Parkinsons became my spiritual practice
One day, as I considered my routine of pills and naps and exercises, I saw that it is not unlike praying the hours.
Once in the West: Poems, by Christian Wiman
Christian Wiman offers further evidence that his voice is among the most compelling in contemporary poetry. These poems are filled with theological conundrums, unanswered questions, brutal answers to questions never formed, and above all, contradictions.
reviewed by Jill Peláez Baumgaertner
My life with ALS: Depending on the care of others
At 52 I was lead pastor of a large, vibrant church. Then I was diagnosed with ALS, and I began to call on my faith community in a new way.
Disrupted, by Julie Anderson Love
After her bleak diagnosis, Julie Anderson Love learned that hope has nothing to do
with passivity. She was, she writes, "the patient from
hell."
reviewed by Marilyn McEntyre
Let’s talk about death: End-of-life decisions
It’s tempting to blame partisan politics for last summer’s debacle over “death panels” and the very idea of doctors and patients holding conversations about the end of life. But the truth is: these conversations are difficult. Although some people welcome them, others approach the subject of death cautiously. Many of us would rather not explore what awaits us in the final years or weeks of life. Perhaps this reluctance explains why only one in five Americans has completed an advance directive for medical care.
Role reversal: Pastor as patient
When I began in ministry, I'd enter a hospital room with a bit of trepidation, as if entering a strange and alien land. I wasn't sure what I'd encounter there and how I might respond. I wasn’t used to the sights and sounds and smells—the sight of someone hooked up to a tube, the occasional snoring or groaning of a roommate, the antiseptic smell that sometimes barely conceals the various human smells that infuse the air. I didn’t know the customs of this land either—for instance, whether I should stop praying when a doctor entered the room, or introduce myself to the doctor, or leave the room when the doctor begins the consultation. But now, after 25 years as a pastor, I've been in hundreds of hospital rooms, and they all look familiar.