In 1998, the Inter Lutheran Coordinating Committee on Ministerial Health and Wellness published a booklet concerning issues of health, faith and ethics, titled A Letter on Peace and Good Health.  The “letter,” which was the outcome of three years of joint study by representatives of the ELCA and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, was sent to […]

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, located in Naperville, Illinois, initiated a parish nurse program in May, 1985, creating a vital link between this faith community and a faith-based health care system.  Naperville at that time was one of the fastest growing communities in the state of Illinois and Our Saviour’s was growing into a large congregation.  […]

The question has been asked, “How does one remain whole after the death of a life partner whom you have loved and lived with for many years?” As I have reflected on that question and looked back on my life since my husband died, some answers have emerged. First, I needed to come to grips with […]

The beach is not the place to work, to read, write or think.  I should have remembered that from other years… At first the tired body takes over completely…  One is forced against one’s mind, against all tidy resolutions, back into the primeval rhythms of the seashore…  And then, some morning in the second week, […]

If sin is the “age old rebellion,” then would Adam have refused to go to the doctor if he got sick? Biblical history often seems to present a clear connection, even a synthesis, between sin and illness—certainly between sin and death and conversely forgiveness and healing—and perhaps, between life and health.  But we who live […]

I believe we are all spiritual by nature.  In other words, we are in search of something other than ourselves, i.e., an “otherness.”  I prefer to call that otherness God. Meister Eckhart wrote, “God is always at home.  It is we who have gone out for a walk.”  The center of our lives is God, […]