Reading now: Prayer Is Good Medicine

Prayer Is Good Medicine: How to Reap the Healing Benefits of Prayer by Larry Dossey

Overview
'With the elegance of simplicity and the precision of science, Dossey shows us how we can create a lasting partnership between faith and medicine.' DEEPACK CHOPRA, M.D.

Publisher description:
Counter Physician Larry Dossey – one of today's foremost authority and most highly sought-after speaker on the relationship between prayer and healing – offers practical methods and illuminating explorations of the what, where, how, and why of the power of prayer to affect our health. Putting aside confounding scientific jargon. Dossey employs his trademark style of informed and warmly anecdotal writing to examine people's hopes and expectations of prayer, as well as their anxieties and misconceptions. For readers who want to understand the spiritual dimension of health and healing. Dossey has created an invaluable and inspiring resource.

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Since Larry Dossey wrote his first book, Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine, he has toured the world meeting with audiences as diverse as Pentagon employees, church groups, and the British parliament. ... Prayer Is Good Medicine divides these discussions into four neatly contained sections. As prayer moves into the center stage of Western medicine Prayer Is Good Medicine acts as a modern-day prayer book as well as an ethical touchstone for healers and seekers.
From Publishers Weekly
Unlike medical practitioners in the East, many physicians in the West argue that the healing power of science is far superior to, and often incompatible with, the healing power of prayer. Yet, physician Dossey, attentive to the ways in which spiritual health affects bodily health, demonstrated in his Healing Words that the capacity of prayer to heal, combined with the capacity of science to heal, is far greater than the healing power of medicine alone. ...

CONTENTS:
PART ONE: THE EVIDENCE
Testing Prayer Is an Act of Worship
Experiments in Prayer Can Help Heal the Religion/Science Split
The Impact of Prayer Experiments on Religious Beliefs
The Scientific Understanding of Prayer Is Limited
Prayer Is Not Just a Placebo
Prayer Is Not Required to Go Anywhere

PART TWO: THE CONTROVERSY
Evaluating the Criticism That "Prayer Kills"
Celebrating the Diversity of Prayer
Praying for Others Without Their Consent
Using Public Funds for Prayer Research
Medical Malpractice and the Failure to Use Prayer

PART THREE: WHAT IS PRAYER?
The Universe Is Prayer
Prayer Is an Attitude of the Heart
Prayer Is What It Needs to Be
A Prayer for Prayer
Distinguishing Between Religion and Prayer
The Body Does Not Distinguish Between Prayer and Meditation
Ordinary Magic

PART FOUR: HOW TO PRAY
Credentials Don't Matter in Prayer
Children Are Prayer
Four-Legged Forms of Prayer
A Doctor Tests Prayer
Overcoming Ambivalence and Confusion About Prayer
Who Can Benefit from Prayer?
When We Need to Pray, We Will
There Is No Best Way to Pray
More Prayer Is Not Always Better
Choosing to Pray Privately or Publicly Depends on Our Temperament
You Can Pray in Your Dreams
Glimpsing the Infinite
Forgiving Ourselves for Getting Sick
Praying "Thy Will Be Done"
Praying for Corn in Iowa
The Answer Isn't Always Yes
Be Careful What You Ask For
Beware of Negative Prayer
Prayer Helps Us Be Warriors, Not Worriers

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Sacred Spaces: Readings

Books that inspired in 2012

They say books are out. Ebooks are all in. But, the story is other wise.
Ethan Vesely-Flad's blog has a post on 12 books that inspired me in 2012.
From Ethan's list I like Sacred Ground by Eboo Patel.

Book Description:
In the decade following the attacks of 9/11, suspicion and animosity toward American Muslims has increased rather than subsided. Alarmist, hateful rhetoric once relegated to the fringes of political discourse has now become frighteningly mainstream, with pundits and politicians routinely invoking the specter of Islam as a menacing, deeply anti-American force. In Sacred Ground, author and renowned interfaith leader Eboo Patel says this prejudice is not just a problem for Muslims but a challenge to the very idea of America. Patel shows us that Americans from George Washington to Martin Luther King Jr. have been “interfaith leaders,” illustrating how the forces of pluralism in America have time and again defeated the forces of prejudice. And now a new generation needs to rise up and confront the anti-Muslim prejudice of our era. To this end, Patel offers a primer in the art and science of interfaith work, bringing to life the growing body of research on how faith can be a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division and sharing stories from the frontlines of interfaith activism. Patel asks us to share in his vision of a better America—a robustly pluralistic country in which our commonalities are more important than our differences, and in which difference enriches, rather than threatens, our religious traditions. Pluralism, Patel boldly argues, is at the heart of the American project, and this visionary book will inspire Americans of all faiths to make this country a place where diverse traditions can thrive side by side.

What do others say about this book:
“Interfaith cooperation is one of America’s founding ideals. It still sets us apart from much of the world. Eboo Patel has lived that value and, in this book, spreads that good word. Uplifting and invaluable, Sacred Ground is essential reading for our polarized era.” —Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin

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Info courtesy:

http://sannapergel.blogg.se

UNDERBAR BILD

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Jamais La Paix, "The essence of beauty is unity in variety." -Felix Mendelssohn: