A Place of Healing by Joni Eareckson Tada

I just finished Joni Eareckson Tada's latest book A Place of Healing.  Friends, if you have never read or listened to anything by Joni, please do.  I don't know how else to describe this woman except as a global treasure for the body of Christ.  The path marked out for her by the Lord has been so unique and her ministry and message so profound that it is simply impossible to estimate what value she has brought to the Church over the years.  I still remember the life-changing impact her book Heaven: Your Real Home had on me years ago as a young youth minister in Oklahoma.  Now, having tasted the tears of nearly 15 years of ministry, sitting to learn at Joni's feet again is a very refreshing and humbling experience.  I was sad that she wasn't able to come to Cape Town for Lausanne III back in 2010.  I still hope I get a chance to meet her this side of eternity.  So, go and read (or listen to, it is available in audio) Joni's book and also check out the ministry she leads at Joni and Friends.

Canada's "Healthy Immigrant Effect"

I have had a number of refugee friends complain to me about the U.S. health care system. These complaints usually coincide with them coming to the end of their initial medicaid benefits and having to start paying for their own health insurance. Many have friends or relative in Canada which is sometimes thought of as magical land of free health care. So, it is with them in mind that I post the following - a very, very intriguing article about why moving to Canada can be hazardous to you health. Enjoy!

Why Canada is hazardous to their health: "Since the 1990s a growing body of data has suggested that most newcomers arrive in Canada healthier than the native-born population, only to have that advantage erode over time. New immigrants tend to live longer than the Canadian-born population, but within a decade of resettlement, their mortality rates creep up, as do their rates of chronic disease. In looking at almost a decade of data in its biannual National Population Health Survey, Statistics Canada also found immigrants were almost twice as likely as native-born Canadians to report feeling unwell. Recent non-European immigrants - the largest proportion of newcomers we currently admit - were the most likely to report their health declining from good or excellent to fair or poor."

Externalized Pathology and Internalized Identity « Flexner Book Club Blog

Below, I link to an article by Jessica Lee that relates to refugees and mental health. I think this is a huge issue and I applaud Lee for the challenge that she is issuing to health care providers who find themselves treating refugees. I certainly believe she is on the right track. Typical Western psychological diagnoses probably miss the mark in refugee cases. Lee suggests insights derived from Freud which effectively pushes back against a overly simplistic diagnosis such as anxiety or depression. However, Freudian analyses should be expected to likewise fall short as they too arise from a specifically Western cultural context. Western sociologists and psychologists will have a hard time fully grasping what’s going on with refugees as long as they don’t wrestle well with the specific anthropological and diasporological dynamics relevant to their cases. For example, Lee's article doesn’t make mention of survival and dependency issues and the male-emasculating effects of camp life. There is no mention of the influence of folk Hinduism, high-context communication, or social collectivism on Bihan’s situation. So again, I think she is on to something and I applaud it. Health professionals must be challenged to go deeper and think more critically about these cases if wellness is truly desired. Of course, as is often the case (wink, wink), getting a missiologist to weigh in on things can just really help everyone all around.

Externalized Pathology and Internalized Identity « Flexner Book Club Blog: "Externalized Pathology and Internalized Identity
by Jessica Lee
I work with refugees in Philadelphia. Butler’s chapter Melancholy Gender/Refused Identification makes me reconceptualize my clients’ struggles in the resettlement process. Butler expands on Freud’s idea of melancholia into a discussion of melancholic incorporation, arguing that identity results from disavowed grief. She states, “the lost object is, in that sense, made coextensive with the ego itself” (p. 247). Many of the refugees I encounter exhibit melancholia—where they are “unwilling to avow and hence grieve” the loss of their homeland. For these refugees, perhaps melancholia is what enables them to internalize their national identity."

Not-so-Ancient Wisdom on Sleep & Rest

Today let me offer a fun little video that presents a simple truth that many of us in ministry should take to heart.

 

Are you an Edison?  I suppose there might be a few of you out there.  I think I'm probably much more of a George.

It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.
(Psa 127:2)

Blessings!