What’s Next: Will health care industry, individuals act on the lessons learned? – Crain’s Detroit Business

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COVID-19 has challenged the U.S. health care industry like no other pandemic, disaster, regulatory or payment change in modern history.

Hospitals have streamlined over the past 40 years to efficiently deliver care at the highest possible quality, but also to maximize profits or stretch limited resources. They have drilled on emergency preparedness plans.

But the COVID-19 pandemic upended cost-saving approaches and exposed weaknesses in hospital staffing strategies designed to limit nurses and other health care workers to daily inpatient volumes.

The failure of hospitals to be prepared for COVID-19 in March and April is a systemic problem that has been criticized for years by nurses and health care unions. The "short staffing" of critical departments often leads to employee dissatisfaction, burnout and resignations.

COVID-19 exposed many hospitals' lack of personnel and supplies to adequately treat the hundreds and thousands of patients requiring critical and intensive care. Of the nation's nearly 1 million hospital beds, only 10 percent are reserved for intensive care.

The federal government also was woefully unprepared, with insufficient reserves of ventilators, respirators and other personal protective equipment. A national emergency coordination plan for COVID-19 testing, use of face masks and stay-at-home orders in regions of high viral spread also failed to materialize.

Governments have underfunded public health systems for decades. As county hospitals have closed, public health clinics have been used to provide free or low-cost services for the under-insured or uninsured.

Nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and behavioral health providers also were caught flat-footed. The pandemic sliced through many long-term care facilities predominated by seniors in their 70s, 80s and 90s, many with multiple chronic diseases and weakened immune systems.

Nearly 25 percent of the deaths to COVID-19 in Michigan were at nursing homes.

Long-term underfunding of post-acute care facilities and of behavioral health care also has played a role in unpreparedness in Michigan for the influx in COVID-19 patients and community impact.

So far in Michigan, more than 84,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19 with more than 6,200 deaths. Probable cases and deaths are about 5 percent higher than those totals. The infection rates and deaths also are much higher in the minority population with 26 percent of Blacks and 8 percent Hispanic groups affected, indicating to federal officials social and health inequities.

What we've learned: Within one week of the first COVID-19 positive case on March 10, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered the shutdown of a number of businesses, including theaters, bars, casinos and indoor restaurant dining, to limit community spread. She has issued more than 170 executive orders and directives related to COVID-19.

Still, some question whether the state response was quick or strong enough, given that Michigan ranked in top three states for positive cases and deaths into June. As of Aug. 3, the state ranks No. 8 in death rates by population at 65 per 100,000.

Hospitals have been shoring up supply chains by investing in American companies for personal protective equipment and rethinking "just-in-time" supply and staffing strategies.

They also have reorganized medical departments to quickly pivot to critical and intensive care uses if COVID-19 volume increases.

Physicians, dentists and other outpatient health care providers are preparing for a new normal that includes social distancing patients and using telemedicine and other technologies.

Doctors of COVID-19 patients now closely watch for blood clots, place ventilated patients on stomachs and monitor organs such as lungs, heart, liver, kidneys and brain.

Unanswered questions: Big ones are when will vaccines be available; how effective will they be and how long will they last. In 2019, the influenza vaccine was 45 percent effective but only about 65 percent get inoculated. More will be needed to stifle COVID-19.

What's next: Experts say the world must be prepared to more quickly contain and then coordinate a response to the next pandemic. Doctors and hospitals are preparing for a possible second wave this fall. They say they are more prepared now than in March and April. They have stocked up on personal protective equipment, ventilators and oxygen support machines and medicines known to minimize the virus' inflammatory effects. They also can quickly reopen intensive care units designed for COVID-19 patients and more appropriately triage and isolate patients.

Rapid and widespread viral testing and vaccine development must be perfected as a first line of defense.

But the bottom line, say experts, is that after public alerts are given and containment and protections are put in place, it is up to individuals to accept shared safety rules to reduce community spread and deaths.

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What's Next: Will health care industry, individuals act on the lessons learned? - Crain's Detroit Business

Psychological impacts of this moment are overwhelming, Black mental health care providers say – Street Roots News

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Portland therapists serving the Black community say theyre at capacity as protesters and others fill their appointment slots

ZaDora Williams is busier than ever. As a therapist and social worker in Portland who services the African American community, her waitlist has grown exponentially since Portlanders began rallying around the Black Lives Matter uprising.

Many people seeking counseling services at Williams private practice, Sankofa Center for Healing, are participants in the protests spurred by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

When Williams initially noticed this trend, she looked into how the regular deployment of tear gas and munitions might be impacting her clients mental health. She was shocked to find that while chemical irritants continue to be deployed on protesters,there was little peer-reviewed research exploring this topic.

So, in June, as part of the research team at Dont Shoot Portland, she helped expose the mental and physical health risks of tear gas being deployed on Portlands demonstrators.

If youre tear-gassed, that can also bring about anxiety and trauma symptoms, she said. Just witnessing someone getting tear-gassed, you can experience vicarious trauma.

A review widely cited in that report which aided Dont Shoot Portland in landing temporary court-ordered relief on the use of tear gas under certain circumstances was particularly revealing. It showed the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression after collective actions like the ones taking place in Portland are comparable to the impacts of natural disasters, terrorist attacks and armed conflicts.

Compounding the trauma of a daily life punctuated by panic-inducing crowd-control munitions are centuries of oppression of Black people. Its happening now, and its happened for a long time, said Anthony Jordan, the addiction services manager for Multnomah County. He was moved to open Agape Healing and Consulting to provide training to workplaces following the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager in Florida.

I started doing research and looking at the manifestations of slavery and family history, and the impact that slavery had on my family over time, Jordan said. It started making sense to me that this situation with Trayvon Martin had impacted me, not necessarily because of his death but because of all the other historical things that had been felt. And it was unresolved.

When Jordan spoke with Street Roots in July, hed seen 10 requests for trainings in the span of a single week; its a lot more than hed get in a week before the movement began.

Adding to the current moment is the increased sharing of photographs and video footage of violence perpetrated against Black people on TV and across social media.

Making a spectacle of violent footage on TV and across social media, Jordan said, has deep historical roots related to the lynching of Black people in public squares. The difference now is that the audience is much larger because of todays technology.

To show us in the public square doesnt seem like a new concept. Theyre not understanding the impact its having on the people who look like the people theyre showing over and over again, he said. Its like, sometimes I wonder, what is the purpose? We know he was killed by the police. Do you have to show us so much to prove the injustice?

Paired with a raging global health crisis that disproportionately affects people of color in the U.S., the psychological impact of the moment for many is impossible to ignore.

I think its exhausting. Its exhausting for more than one reason because I think a lot of Black people, before anything the pandemic, before the protesting, before any of those things they were already experiencing significant racial injustices and systemic racism, he said.

Williams said most Black therapists she knows are fielding the same influx of new patients she has seen at her practice. When she spoke with Street Roots in July, she acknowledged she was on a waitlist for therapy services herself.

Theres not enough mental health services to meet the needs of the African American community right now, she said. Thats one of the detrimental effects right now, is that people need the services because theyre fighting against the system that is oppressing them. And then you also have to be harmed during the process.

Since protesting began, Williams is seeing more clients with symptoms like hypervigilance, panic and anxiety.

A word in the name of Williams practice, sankofa, comes from the Ghanaian language Twi.

It means to go back and fetch what has been lost or taken, she said.

Its often accompanied by the image of a bird walking forward, its head turned, looking back at the path it has carved. Looking back, Williams said, is a necessary part of sustaining oneself in the present moment.

Thats kind of my approach, she said.

Williams said that to better understand the Black experience, the history of abuse in the medical and school systems must be understood. Growing up on the east side of Chicago, she couldnt help but notice how many Black children were diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or punished for behavior when their symptoms aligned more closely with signs of traumatic stress.

Historical trauma is here; we feel it. Its killing us; its killing Black moms. Its due to institutionalized racism and implicit biases, Williams said.

For those seeking services that account for these culturally specific traumas,the population of therapists and counselors in Oregon is overwhelmingly white.

A report from the Oregon Health Authority in 2018 surveyed more than 3,000 professional counselors and licensed marriage and family therapists across the state, and more than 90% of respondents were white. Black therapists and counselors encompassed less than 1% of the workforce, and even fewer were Indigenous.

The numbers do little to reflect the needs of Black people experiencing the burden of racism,who are disproportionately affected by higher rates of mental health issues. The increased need for mental health services is national, NPR reported in June.

It can be challenging not seeing someone that looks like you helping you, said Jonicia Shelton,who works as a therapist at Portland Public Schools and runs her own private practice, Talks with June.

I think we forget sometimes that were impacted by white people, and that people arent taking that into consideration, she said. It is always a different feel to have someone who looks like you talk with you. Because a lot of their experiences are close to yours.

At the moment, Shelton has around 30 clients and much to her dismay she also isnt able to accept any more. When she was 5, she lost her mother, and growing up, she began unpacking the inner workings of her own familys trauma. Interactions with a social worker growing up led her to pursue mental health and social work.

Shelton urges people who can't find or afford a therapist to engage in self-care by talking to trusted mentors and unplugging from social media.

"Everybody doesnt have to see a therapist all the time," she said. "They can go to church, they have preachers, they have life coaches, they have teahcers that they love."

She said that she knows a lot of people who would make amazing therapists but that the difficulties of attaining and affording licensures stand in the way.

Williams sees that, too. She said recruitment of Black individuals to mental health fields is lacking, and its really noticeable in school systems where Black counselors and therapists are few and far between.

And then the support of, when we get Black people into those fields, what does the support look like, to sustain and keep Black people in those lines of work? she said. There are significant gaps around even practitioners just not taking the time to account for what the Black experience is, and how that may be showing up.

The concept of trauma-informed care seeks to ensure, in part, that workplaces and health care systems account for the systemic impacts that racial, historical and familial trauma may have on people. Those who lead workshops on the topic, such as Steffannie Roache, have seen an increased demand for education around it since the protests began in late May.

Roache also provides culturally specific therapy services for Black, Indigenous and people of color at her private practice, which is also at maximum capacity. Its overwhelming, she said.

Thats one of the difficult parts of whats going on right now, she said, is people trying to feel OK and do what they need to bring about social justice, but at the same time, they have their own mental health issues, anxiety and depression.

She said she is seeing far more requests than usual for her workshops and has had to turn some of them down.

In June, Roache participated in Trauma Informed Oregons web discussion series, which features the Black mental health care providers doing this work in the state. The organization, formed in 2006, seeks to share resources around trauma-informed care, and is aimed at preventing and ameliorating the impact of adverse experiences on children, adults, and families, according to its mission statement.

On one hand, Roache said, shes glad to see companies and organizations wanting to learn.

On the other hand, she said, theres a demand for us and its not just me theres a demand for us to be the teacher-trainer for free.

Roache compares the requests to asking the victim of a violent crime to teach the perpetrator about the negative impacts of their actions.

When you are wanting to engage honestly, you want people at the table to actually help make changes to policy, procedures, to make real change; then we can chat about that, she said. Its got to be more than this piecemeal, one-off check the box sort of thing.

Will this increased interest in providing more equitable mental health care practices across the state be sustained when protesting in the streets stops?

Im hoping that people will become more trauma informed, especially as it relates to race and whats going on in the world, Shelton said. I definitely think its going to continue to grow and get better as long as were in this pandemic because people will open up the doors more. We shall see.

Charley McNeely, the director of outreach, inclusion and community engagement at Trauma Informed Oregon, said sustaining the momentum will require far more than an increased interest in trauma-informed training. She seeks to highlight marginalized populations and the movement of trauma-informed care and to make sure the care is inclusive to the people who need it most.

Right now, shes documenting the experiences of people with different racial, class and gender identities during the coronavirus pandemic, and through the Black Lives Matter movement. Shes also working on providing families with information navigating the uncertain future of the upcoming school year, while working with Trauma Informed Oregon to determine how the organization will move forward through the pandemic.

She told Street Roots that trauma-informed care can be summed up in two words: meaningful relationships. And while its been challenging to craft those relationships online during the pandemic, McNeely said that the United Sates current crossroads have pushed the concepts of trauma-informed care from theory to practice.

I think it shows that theres a need for trauma-informed care to happen all the time, she said. Now is the time to make it, operationalize it and make it part of your infrastructure and how your organization operates. Its the perfect storm for that to happen, unfortunately.

Creating a more trauma-informed workplace means undertaking a whole cultural shift, McNeely said, and true change calls for better representation for people of non-dominant culture identities in the Oregon Legislature, passing laws and using inclusive language.

I think having a seat at the table from the very beginning is where it starts if you want to shift power, she said.

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Psychological impacts of this moment are overwhelming, Black mental health care providers say - Street Roots News

LAFCO dissolves the Palm Drive Health Care District – Sonoma West

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On Wednesday, Aug. 5, the Sonoma Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) voted unanimously to dissolve the Palm Drive Health Care District. LAFCOs action was recorded with the county the next day. The County of Sonoma, the successor agency for the health care district, now inherits all of the district's assets, liabilities, debts, records and taxing authority.

With the stroke of a pen or a keystroke LAFCO put an end to the 20-year saga of the Palm Drive Health Care District (PDHCD), which was founded in 2000 to provide support for Palm Drive Hospital.

The dissolution of the district will have no effect on the hospital, which was sold in 2019 to a private company, AAMG, for use as a long-term acute care facility.

Once the district sold the hospital, long-time critics, like former PDHCD board member Jim Horn, argued that the district no longer had a reason to exist and started a petition campaign to dissolve it. Under the gun of the petition, the district ultimately decided to dissolve itself and has spent the last few months negotiating the terms of the dissolution with the county. Last week, LAFCO simply took matters into its own hands and dissolved the district on its own accord.

Youd have thought that would be the end of it. Youd be wrong.

A new non-profit rises from the ashes

In a move that infuriated critics, the Palm Drive Health Care District granted $200,000 on its way out the door as seed money for a new nonprofit, the Gravenstein Health Action Coalition, which had until the dissolution operated as a subcommittee of the district, granting funds for local public health initiatives.

Critics say the $200,000 grant violates Measure W, the parcel tax measure that funded the district and for which most folks in west county pay between $100 and $155 a year. The dissolution of the district doesnt end these yearly payments. They will now be collected by the county and will continue for 15 to 20 more years, until the districts debts are paid off.

In a celebratory missive to his supporters after the dissolution of the district, Horn named this grant as one of the outstanding issues still left to be resolved.

First is the $200k in Measure W taxes that the district illegally granted in the last few weeks to a new non-profit group established by the district itself, Horn wrote. We will try to convince the county to claw back that money for use in paying down (the districts) debts.

A related question is whether the public will ever get to see the Hanson-Bridgett report, which supposedly contains a legal opinion on whether the district is allowed to use Measure W money to make such general public health grants in the first place.

The county is now the successor agency so it has the Hanson-Bridgett report, and it can decide what it wants to do about it, said PDHCD board member Richard Power, who ran on a platform of dissolving the district. They can decide whether they want to claw back the $200,000 from this new entity.

That phrase, claw back, came from an email from county assessor Erick Roesser who threatened that the county might do just that if the parcel tax proceeds didnt meet the costs of paying and administering the districts debts.

Will the hospitals new owner have to pay the county $1.2 million?

Power said that another outstanding issue is the question of whether AAMG, the hospitals new owner, will have to pay the county $1.2 million. The district sold the hospital for $2 million in cash and a $1.2 promissory note that, among other things, specified that AAMG would keep the urgent care open for at least 10 years or else pay an additional $1.2 million. AAMG closed the urgent care this spring because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The question of whether to pursue AAMG for the additional $1.2 million is now a matter for the county to decide.

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Health Care Workers of Color Nearly Twice as Likely as Whites to Get COVID-19 – Kaiser Health News

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Health care workers of color were more likely to care for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19, more likely to report using inadequate or reused protective gear, and nearly twice as likely as white colleagues to test positive for the coronavirus, a new study from Harvard Medical School researchers found.

The study also showed that health care workers are at least three times more likely than the general public to report a positive COVID test, with risks rising for workers treating COVID patients.

Dr. Andrew Chan, a senior author and an epidemiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, said the study further highlights the problem of structural racism, this time reflected in the front-line roles and personal protective equipment provided to people of color.

If you think to yourself, Health care workers should be on equal footing in the workplace, our study really showed thats definitely not the case, said Chan, who is also a professor at Harvard Medical School.

The study was based on data from more than 2 million COVID Symptom Study app users in the U.S. and the United Kingdom from March 24 through April 23. The study, done with researchers from Kings College London, was published in the journal The Lancet Public Health.

Lost on the Frontline, a project by KHN and The Guardian, has published profiles of 164 health care workers who died of COVID-19 and identified more than 900 who reportedly fell victim to the disease. An analysis of the stories showed that 62% of the health care workers who died were people of color.

They include Roger Liddell, 64, a Black hospital supply manager in Michigan, who sought but was denied an N95 respirator when his work required him to go into COVID-positive patients rooms, according to his labor union. Sandra Oldfield, 53, a Latina, worked at a California hospital where workers sought N95s as well. She was wearing a less-protective surgical mask when she cared for a COVID-positive patient before she got the virus and died.

The study findings follow other research showing that minority health care workers are likely to care for minority patients in their own communities, often in facilities with fewer resources, said Dr. Utibe Essien, a physician and assistant professor of medicine with the University of Pittsburgh.

Those workers may also see a higher share of sick patients, as federal data shows minority patients were disproportionately testing positive and being hospitalized with the virus, Essien said.

Im not surprised by these findings, he said, but Im disappointed by the result.

Dr. Fola May, a UCLA physician and researcher, said the study also reflects the fact that Black and Latino health care workers may live or visit family in minority communities that are hardest-hit by the pandemic because so many work on the front lines of all industries.

The study showed that health care workers of color were five times more likely than the general population to test positive for COVID-19.

Their workplace experience also diverged from that of whites alone. The study found that workers of color were 20% more likely than white workers to care for suspected or confirmed-positive COVID patients. The rate went up to 30% for Black workers specifically.

Black and Latino people overall have been three times as likely as whites to get the virus, a New York Times analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows. (Latinos can be of any race or combination of races.)

Health care workers of color were also more likely to report inadequate or reused PPE, at a rate 50% higher than what white workers reported. For Latinos, the rate was double that of white workers.

Its upsetting, said Fiana Tulip, the daughter of a Texas respiratory therapist who died of COVID-19 on July 4. Tulip said her mother, Isabelle Papadimitriou, a Latina, told her stories of facing discrimination over the years.

Jim Mangia, chief executive of St. Johns Well Child and Family Center in south Los Angeles, said his clinics care for low-income people, mostly of color. They were testing about 600 people a day and seeing a 30% positive test rate in June and July. He said they saw high positive rates at nursing homes where a mobile clinic did testing.

He said seven full-time workers scoured the U.S. and globe to secure PPE for his staff, at one point getting a shipment of N95 respirators two days before they would have run out. It was literally touch-and-go, he said.

All health care workers who reported inadequate or reused PPE saw higher risks of infection. Those with inadequate or reused gear who saw COVID patients were more than five times as likely to get the virus as workers with adequate PPE who did not see COVID patients.

The study said reuse could pose a risk of self-contamination or breakdown of materials, but noted that the findings are from March and April, before widespread efforts to decontaminate used PPE.

Chan said even health care workers reporting adequate PPE and seeing COVID patients were far more likely to get the virus than workers not seeing COVID patients nearly five times as likely. That finding suggests a need for more training in putting on and taking off protective gear safely and additional research into how health care workers are getting sick.

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Employer Direct Healthcare Announces Partnership with Trend Micro, Inc. – PRNewswire

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DALLAS, Aug. 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Employer Direct Healthcare is excited to announce its partnership with Trend Micro, Inc. Beginning in January 2020, Trend Micro began offering Employer Direct Healthcare's SurgeryPlus benefit, a supplemental benefit providing surgical concierge services with a focus on quality care, lower costs, and a better member experience.

The members participating in Trend Micro's health plan will have access to the SurgeryPlus benefit's full-service health care concierge for over 1,400 non-emergent procedures. When they choose to utilize the SurgeryPlus benefit, members will be paired with their own dedicated Care Advocate. Their Care Advocate will assist them with everything from their selection of a surgeon, to scheduling appointments, transferring medical records, and even arranging travel, removing the stress and confusion often associated with planning for medical care.

As an added benefit, when participants elect to use a participating surgeon through the SurgeryPlus benefit, Trend Micro will waive their out-of-pocket financial responsibility (deductible and coinsurance).

John Zutter, CEO of Employer Direct Healthcare commented, "We are thrilled to partner with Trend Micro as part of their strategy to provide superior health benefits for their employees and their dependents. The current COVID-19 crisis has had profound impacts, both societally and financially. People across the country have had to put their medical needs on hold and are now struggling to navigate the system. At SurgeryPlus, we guide our clients' employees and their dependents through the health system, focusing on providing access to top-quality surgical care at fair prices."

About Employer Direct Healthcare and the SurgeryPlus Benefit

Employer Direct Healthcare is an innovative health care services business providing high-quality and cost-efficient solutions for self-funded employers and their members. The company's core product, the SurgeryPlus benefit, provides full-service surgical concierge services to covered members, managing the entire process on their behalf. The SurgeryPlus benefit helps members identify quality providers at lower costs, helping employers and their plan participants dramatically reduce surgical costs while providing satisfying outcomes for members. Employer Direct Healthcare is majority owned by Dundon Capital Partners, LLC, a Dallas-based private investment firm, founded by Tom Dundon.

Contact for Employer Direct Healthcare: 855-200-2099.

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Global Outlook for Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality in the Healthcare Market 2020-2025 – ResearchAndMarkets.com – Business Wire

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DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality in Healthcare Market - Forecast (2020 - 2025)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality market was valued at $543.23 million in 2017 and is projected to grow to $1467.83 million by 2023, at a CAGR of 18.02%.

The major drivers for Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in the healthcare market are the increasing demand for robotic surgeries instead of by-pass surgeries. Rising demand for cardiovascular surgeries is another major driver. The recovery time with these technologies is much less compared to other surgeries. The improvement in the skills of trainees by learning surgical procedures using this technology is also a driver for Augmented and Virtual reality in the medical field.

The major challenge for Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in the healthcare market is the lack of visualizing the depth, where there is a chance of making mistakes in the surgeries. The other challenge is the strain that is caused to eyes due to watching screens continuously for longer durations. The low battery capacity, that is the battery lasts only for five hours where the battery has to be charged again, when the surgery takes a long time which is also a challenge in this market. The other major challenge is the equipment cost which is very high.

The base year of this study is 2017, with forecasts up to 2023. The study presents a thorough analysis of the competitive landscape, taking into account the market shares of the leading companies. It also provides information on unit shipments. These provide the key market participants with the necessary business intelligence and help them understand the future of the market. The assessment includes the forecast, an overview of the competitive structure, the market shares of the competitors, as well as the market trends, market demands, market drivers, market challenges, and product analysis. The market drivers and restraints have been assessed to fathom their impact over the forecast period. This report further identifies the key opportunities for growth while also detailing the key challenges and possible threats.

Some of the Key players in this market that have been studied for this report include: CAE Health Care, Intuitive Surgical, Hologic Inc., Philips Health care, Microsoft, Siemens Health Care, Atheer, Augmedix and many more.

Market Research and Market Trends of Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in the Healthcare Market

Key Topics Covered:

1. Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in Healthcare Market - Overview

2. Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in Healthcare Market - Executive summary

3. Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in Healthcare Market - Comparative Analysis

4. Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in Healthcare Market - Forces

5. Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in Healthcare Market - Strategic analysis

6. Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in Healthcare Market - By Build-up system (Market Size -$Million / $Billion)

7. Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in Healthcare Market - By Type (Market Size -$Million / $Billion)

8. Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in Healthcare Market - By Application (Market Size -$Million / $Billion)

9. Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in Healthcare Market - By End-user industry (Market Size -$Million / $Billion)

10. Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in Healthcare Market - By Geography (Market Size -$Million / $Billion)

11. Augmented Realty and Virtual Reality in Healthcare Market - Entropy

12. Company Analysis

13. Appendix

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/agzw8

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

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Pharmaceutical companies are improving how they engage with healthcare providers during the COVID-19 pandemic – Healthcare Finance News

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As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmaceutical companies are changing how they engage with healthcare providers, which in turn is helping providers better serve patients, according to findings of a global Accenture survey of 720 general practitioners, oncologists, cardiologists and immunologists.

For example, most providers said pharma companies are increasingly providing education on how to better treat patients remotely and help them manage their conditions in light of COVID-19.

Pharma companies are also helping patients understand where they can access labs, infusion centers or imaging centers, and are offering solutions to providers and their practices so they can more easily afford and keep stock of therapies. In the U.S., information on affordability programs that pharmaceutical companies offer have been particularly helpful.

The survey, which was conducted in May and June across China, France, Germany, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S., indicates that many patients and providers expect these changes are here to stay.

WHAT'S THE IMPACT

While the news is mostly good, the data suggests there's more that pharmaceutical companies could be doing to support providers and patients, who want more interactions that are virtual and self-directed. For instance, 65% of providers said they value self-administration methods for patients, including auto-injectors or wearable devices -- something that has been added to more and more wish lists as the pandemic has continued.

A clear majority, 62%, said they placed value on remote monitoring tools that can track health data from the home, a number that has increased since before the pandemic. Many patients have also said that they want to go to their providers' offices less often even after the public health crisis has abated, suggesting an opportunity for pharma companies to continue to respond to the public's changing needs.

Before COVID-19, 64% of meetings with pharma sales reps were held in person. During the pandemic, this shifted to 65% of meetings held virtually. Many providers reported they expect restrictions in access to healthcare facilities will continue for some time perhaps even permanently. Indeed, 43% said they are currently restricting who can enter the office for professional reasons (i.e.: no pharmaceutical reps). Twenty-eight percent of those with restrictions said they believe it is something they may implement permanently and another 44% said they would keep the restrictions "for the foreseeable future."

But providers also said they still want to learn about new treatments and interact with pharma sales reps -- they just want to do so in different ways. Eighty-eight percent of the providers surveyed said they want to hear about new treatments despite being in the middle of the pandemic. Four in 10 providers said the likelihood of starting a patient on a new treatment has increased, as they have a greater ability to monitor patient response, more access to information on new treatments and more time to learn about them.

And in fact, 61% said they are interacting with pharma sales reps more during COVID-19 than they did before. But they want pharma sales reps to have a better understanding of their needs and the needs of their patients. For example, 58% said they have been spammed by a pharmaceutical company.

THE LARGER TREND

Despite these positive developments, many Americans are still wary of the pharmaceutical industry, with nearly nine in 10 saying they're "very" or "somewhat" concerned the industry will try to raise drug prices during the pandemic, found a June survey by the nonprofit West Health and Gallup.

Similarly, 84% are very or somewhat concerned that the general cost of care will rise, with 79% very or somewhat concerned their health insurance premiums will go up in response to the pandemic. In each of the latter two scenarios, 41% of Americans are "very" concerned.

Twitter:@JELagasseEmail the writer:jeff.lagasse@himssmedia.com

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Unions’ big lie to Quebec health care workers battling the pandemic: The government will protect you – WSWS

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By Richard Dufour 10 August 2020

Nurses at the Cit-de-la-Sant Hospital in Laval, Montreals largest suburb, staged a sit-in Friday, July 31. They were protesting dire working conditionsincluding chronic understaffing and forced overtimethat have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sit-in was part of a growing series of demonstrations and work stoppages that have taken place at health care institutions in Quebec and throughout Canada in recent months.

Many of these protest actions have been organized on Facebook by rank-and-file workers, acting independently of the unions. Like their counterparts in the United States and internationally, these workers have been impelled to act by unsafe working conditions, in particular the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE).

The palpable anger of health care workers is bound up with growing opposition among all sections of the working class to the ruling elites disastrous response to the health emergency and the economic fallout from the pandemic. But far from channelling this combative sentiment into a working class counteroffensive after decades of capitalist austerity, the unions are doing all they can to stifle and politically neuter it.

This was purpose of an op-ed column written by Jeff Begley, president of the FSSS-CSN, Quebecs largest health care workers union. Published last Tuesday in Le Devoir, a Montreal daily, the article was co-signed by many local FSSS-CSN union presidents.

It made extremely limited criticisms of the actions of the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ)-led provincial government with the aim of pacifying the scorching anger of rank-and-file hospital and CHSLD (nursing home) workers over the governments criminally negligent response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But a careful examination of the letters contents can only fuel the growing rank-and-file rebellion against the unions impotence and misleadership.

Under the title Repeating the mistakes of the first wave is not an option, the article echoes the lie that the pandemic took Canadian authorities by surprise and that their catastrophic handling of the crisis is simply due to mistakes. In reality, it is the result of a deliberate policy of putting profit before human lives.

For years, the various levels of government in Canada and Quebec ignored the repeated warnings of public health experts, epidemiologists and other scientists about the dangers from, and growing risk of, a global pandemic, and continued and intensified the budget cuts that have ravaged the health care system for decades. This was all the more criminal given that outside of East Asia, Canada was the country to experience the worst outbreak of the 2002-3 SARS epidemic, thereby exposing the devastating consequences of austerity and health care privatizations

For two critical months after the novel coronavirus had been identified at the beginning of 2020 as a major health threat, the federal Liberal and provincial governments did nothing to protect the population and front-line health care workers. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a global health emergency on January 31 for the coronavirus, the federal Liberal government waited until March 10 to even request the provinces to identify potential shortages of key medical supplies, such as ventilators and PPE.

In their Le Devoir column, Begley and the other FSSS-CSN officials attempt to sow illusions in the CNESST (Quebecs Health and Safety Commission), calling on it to force employers to increase protective measures at work. The CNESST is an integral part of the capitalist state. Its role is to protect employers from heavy lawsuits in the event of workplace accidents, and provide injured and even permanently maimed workers with meagre compensation. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the CNESST has rejected the vast majority of complaints from workers who have invoked their right to refuse to work in unsafe conditions. Half of its board of directors is made up of senior union officials, such as CSN (Confederation of National Trades Unions) Vice President Caroline Senneville and QFL (Quebec Federation of Labour) President Daniel Boyer.

Begleys letter also promotes the lie that the CAQ government, which combines anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim chauvinism with an agenda of privatization and austerity, can be relied on, or at least pressured into, prioritizing working peoples lives and livelihoods over the profits of Quebecs capitalist elite. The government, public health authorities and CNESST must take responsibility, declares Begley.

Begley makes no specific demands to address workers concernsnot even for the provision of N95 masks and other vital PPE to all hospital and CHSLD workers, or for the lifting of the emergency decrees under which the government, in the name of fighting COVID-19, has given itself the power to override all collective agreements in the health care sector and effectively conscript workers.

This only underscores that the unions will not lift a finger to protect the workers they purport to represent in the face of a pandemic that has already killed almost 9,000 people in Canada, including 5,695 in Quebec; infected more than 13,500 Quebec health care workers; and caused a global health, economic and social disaster.

Instead, Quebecs unionsand this is as true for the QFL and CSQ (Centrale des syndicats du Qubec) as it is for the CSN intend to continue and deepen the policy of close collaboration with the CAQ government that they have followed since the beginning of the pandemic.

The unions immediate response to the eruption of COVID-19 in Quebec was to proclaim their readiness to work closely with the government, and agree to an indefinite suspension of negotiations to renew collective agreements for 550,000 Quebec public sector workers. Later, when the government reversed course, on the calculation it could exploit the crisis to impose further contractual rollbacks, the unions agreed to work toward three-year interim agreements in which all questions pertaining to staffing, workloads and work rules are set aside, thereby locking in the existing ruinous working conditions for a further three years. For the past four months, the unions have kept their members in the dark, while they negotiate behind closed doors with the CAQ government on this basis.

In his article, Begley did not so much as mention the ministerial emergency orders (decrees) the government has used to reorganize workplace tasks, eliminate summer vacations, and otherwise abrogate health workers rights. That is because the unions have no intention of opposing, let alone organizing defiance of these orders, just as they have done nothing against the steady deterioration in working conditions over the past decades and the repeated use, under Liberal and Parti Quebecois governments, of emergency anti-strike laws to impose concession contracts.

Canadas union leaders have backed Justin Trudeaus federal Liberal government in its bailing out of big business and the financial aristocracy with hundreds of billions of dollars, while providing working people who have lost their jobs and income because of the pandemic with a mere $2,000 per month. The unions are also supporting the reckless back-to-work campaign being mounted by all levels of government even as the pandemic continues to spread.

The treacherous role that the unions have played during the pandemic is the continuation of their decades-long suppression of the class struggle. Since the 1980s, they have systematically isolated and sabotaged workers struggles, while politically tying them to pro-austerity and pro-war parties, from the Parti Quebecois, Bloc Quebecois and Trudeaus Liberals, to the NDP.

With the pro-capitalist unions unable and unwilling to defend their interests, health care workers must take matters into their own hands to protect their own health and lives and those of the public. The fight against a resurgence of the deadly COVID-19 virus depends on workers own initiativethe formation of workplace safety committees, entirely independent of the unions.

These rank-and-file committees must establish and enforce measures to protect workers, patients and their families in health care facilities (including ensuring adequate PPE and staffing levels and humane scheduling) on the basis of what is necessary from the standpoint of health and safetynot what the government and management claim is financially affordable. They must demand a massive reinvestment of resources in health care and the protection of all workers from the economic consequences of the pandemic as part of a broader political struggle for a workers government committed to socialist policies.

Through these committees, health care workers will be able to forge close ties with working people throughout the public sector and industrynot only in Quebec, but in the rest of Canada, the US and internationallywho are facing the same big business assault on jobs, working conditions and their lives.

We urge workers who want to establish such rank-and-file health and safety committees to contact the World Socialist Web Site.

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Unions' big lie to Quebec health care workers battling the pandemic: The government will protect you - WSWS

Health care will cost this much in retirement but probably even more – MarketWatch

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A 65-year-old couple retiring this year should expect to spend about $295,000 on health care costs alone in retirement but quite frankly, that estimate is conservative.

The figure, calculated by Fidelity Investments as part of its annual Health Care Cost Estimate, includes Medicare Part A, Part B and Part D premiums and deductibles, but it does not include over-the-counter medications, vitamin supplements and glasses. Long-term care insurance is also not included, which on its own could be an additional thousands of dollars a month. (Fidelity also didnt take COVID-19 or related costs into account when modeling its health care cost estimates.)

Long-term care insurance covers the expenses the elderly may face when theyre no longer able to conduct certain regular activities (such as bathing or feeding) or when they need to live in a nursing home or assisted living facility. The expense was not included in Fidelitys calculation because of the sheer fluctuation in prices and variables necessary to determine the proper coverage plan, said Hope Manion, chief health and welfare actuary and senior vice president of Fidelity Workplace Consulting. To try to predict what long-term care expenses you may need is tricky and depends on the individual, she said.

See: Living in retirement during COVID-19? How to keep your cool

Some people may want to enroll in long-term care insurance, especially if they have a family history of dementia or other debilitating illnesses. The cost for coverage rises the closer someone is to retirement age, which is why Manion said people in their 40s and early 50s may want to look into plans now. The average cost of living in a semiprivate room in a nursing home in the U.S. was $6,844 a month in 2016, or $7,698 a month for a private room, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A one-bedroom unit in an assisted living facility was $3,628 a month. The cost for a health aide was $20.50 an hour.

Read: Choosing an HSA can save you money now, and make you even more later

Even without long-term care expenses, however, health-care costs are constantly increasing and future retirees will need to take that rise into account when saving and planning for their futures. The 2020 estimate of $295,000 is a 3.5% increase from last year alone, and an 18% increase from 2010. A single woman retiring at 65 in 2020 can expect to pay around $155,000 for health care during her retirement while a man at the same age may pay $140,000. This is separate from the money theyll need to pay for housing, groceries, any travel or leisure or potential inheritances they leave their loved ones (if they can or decide to do so).

Read: 5 things to know about health care in retirement

If youre thinking about your portfolio and saving strategy, you want to make sure you can take $300,000 of that depending on who you are and if youre single, half that and then look at whether or not you can live on what you saved aside from that, Manion said.

Also see: This is how much you need for retirement and how COVID-19 will change that

Along with savings strategies, Americans fortunate to have health benefits through an employer should review their offerings during open enrollment later this year. A fourth of companies said they changed employee health benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic, but 79% of employees said they dont intend to spend any extra time sorting through their options.

Its a great time for employees to be digging in, Manion said. During open enrollment, employees can see if they have a Health Savings Account available to them, which offers triple-tax benefits but can be unaffordable to some participants because of its high deductibles. They should also review deductibles, out-of-pocket maximums and what might be the impact of a major life event that occurred in 2020, such as a new baby or marriage.

There may also be benefits employees did not know existed or did not have much use for before, such as telemedicine, meditation services and wellness programs. With such a stressful and volatile year, some people and their workplaces are becoming more open to talking about mental health.

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Health care will cost this much in retirement but probably even more - MarketWatch

Anthem Foundation and March of Dimes Address Health Inequity in Maternal Healthcare – PRNewswire

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ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --March of Dimes, the leader in the fight for the health of all moms and babies, and longtime partner Anthem Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Anthem, Inc., today announced a $1.1 million grant with their latest plans to tackle America's maternal and infant health crisis, which is particularly devastating for communities of color. The partnership aims to close the health equity gap by addressing the racial disparities and social determinants of health that have disproportionally impacted Black mothers who are more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes and have premature babies compared to all other women.

The new grant will support programs in 16 states and Washington D.C with a core component of the grant focusing on health equity partnerships with more than 20 hospitals, which includes Breaking Through Implicit Bias in Maternal Healthcare training. According to the 2003 National Academies for Science, Engineering and Medicine, "racial and ethnic minorities tend to receive a lower quality of healthcare than non-minorities, even when access-related factors, such as patients' insurance status and income, are controlled." In response, March of Dimes developed this training, in collaboration with Quality Interactions, to improve patient-provider communications and treatment decisions, contributing to improved quality of care at a critical intervention point. The course provides an overview of implicit bias, its impact on the maternal infant health crisis, history of structural racism in the United States, strategies for providers to both mitigate racial bias in maternity care and to commit to a culture of equity.

The grant will also support programs for moms and babies, such as Supportive Pregnancy Care and interconception care. Through Supportive Pregnancy Care, pregnant women receive their clinical care, share support with other women at a similar stage in pregnancy, and gain knowledge and skills related to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. Interconception care programs help new moms to get information and services that promote birth spacing, smoking cessation, and mental health.

"The U.S. is in the midst of a maternal and infant health crisis, which is particularly devastating to women and babies of color. Data show that the U.S. remains among the most dangerous developed nations in the world for childbirth," said Dr. Rahul Gupta, Chief Medical and Health Officer, Senior Vice President and Interim Chief Scientific Officer at March of Dimes. "Roughly every 12 hours a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes, and the CDC reports that 60 percent are preventable. Programs like these, supported by the Anthem Foundation, are invaluable in making a positive impact for moms and babies."

In the U.S. Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causesi and Black babies are twice as likely to die before their first birthdaysii compared to their White counterparts. Systemic racial injustice has affected not only health care, but also social determinants of health, such as access to food, education, housing and jobs. These factors, together with the direct experience of racial discrimination and unequal treatment, have built a health equity gap that is directly and negatively impacting moms and babies of color.

"Anthem and its Foundation continue to lead with our commitment to improving lives and communities across our nation," said Razia Hashmi, MD, MPH, Vice President for Commercial Clinical Operations at Anthem. "For over 10 years, our partnership with March of Dimes has provided over 47,000 individuals with access to care. We are working tirelessly to create enduring change in communities across the country, and addressing the factors driving disparities in our health system and in society as a whole."

Over the past decade, Anthem Foundation has contributed close to $8 million to support March of Dimes programs aimed at reducing premature birth across the country. These programs have had a significant impact with only 7.3 percent of participants in group prenatal care delivering prematurely, compared to a national average of 10 percent.

About March of DimesMarch of Dimes leads the fight for the health of all moms and babies. We support research, lead programs and provide education and advocacy so that every baby can have the best possible start. Building on a successful 80-year legacy of impact and innovation, we empower every mom and every family. Visit marchofdimes.org or nacersano.org for more information. Visit shareyourstory.org for comfort and support. Find us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

About Anthem FoundationThe Anthem Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Anthem, Inc. and through charitable contributions and programs, the Foundation promotes the organization's commitment to improving lives and communities. Through strategic partnerships and programs, the Foundation addresses the social drivers that will help create a healthier generation of Americans in communities that Anthem, Inc. and its affiliated health plans serve. The Foundation focuses its funding on critical initiatives that make up its Healthy Generations Program, a multi-generational initiative that targets: maternal health, diabetes prevention, cancer prevention, heart health and healthy, active lifestyles, behavioral health efforts and programs that benefit people with disabilities. The Foundation also coordinates the company's year-round Dollars for Dollars program which provides a 100 percent match of associates' donations, as well as its Volunteer Time Off and Dollars for Doers community service programs. To learn more about the Anthem Foundation, please visit http://www.anthem.foundation and its blog at https://medium.com/anthemfoundation.

i [Petersen EE, Davis NL, Goodman D, et al. Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Pregnancy-Related Deaths-United States, 2007-2016. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2019;68(35):762765.]ii [Ely DM, Driscoll AK. Infant mortality in the United States, 2017: Data from the period linked birth/infant death file. National Vital Statistics Reports, vol 68 no 10. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2019.]

SOURCE March of Dimes

http://www.marchofdimes.org

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Anthem Foundation and March of Dimes Address Health Inequity in Maternal Healthcare - PRNewswire

Tenant at Advanced Healthcare at Brownwood received $67 million in COVID-19 money – Villages-News

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A major tenant at the new Center for Advanced Healthcare at Brownwood has received $67 million in COVID-19 money from the taxpayer-funded relief program.

The $67 million received by Florida Cancer Specialists makes it the largest recipient of Coronavirus relief funding in the Sunshine State.

Center For Advanced Healthcare at Brownwood

The money comes at a time when Florida Cancer Specialists continues to increase its market share in Floridas Friendliest Hometown. Florida Cancer Specialists is a headline tenant at the 240,000 square-foot state of the art healthcare facility, the Center for Advanced Healthcare at Brownwood. Gov. Rick Scott was the guest of honor in 2018 when Florida Cancer Specialists broke ground at Brownwood.

Gov. Rick Scott was the guest of honor in 2018 when Florida Cancer Specialists broke ground at Brownwood.

Florida Cancer Specialists has three other locations in The Villages.

Earlier this year, Florida Cancer Specialists agreed to pay a $100 million fine after admitting in federal court that it had worked with unnamed co-conspirators to limit cancer treatment options for patients. You can read the complete deferred prosecution agreement to which Florida Cancer Specialists agreed at this link: FLORIDA CANCER SPECIALISTS DEFERRED PROSECUTION AGREEMENT

A $20 million state fine was also leveled against Florida Cancer Specialists which is based in Fort Myers.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has vowed that the $67 million in federal COVID-19 relief will not be used to pay the state fine.

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Tenant at Advanced Healthcare at Brownwood received $67 million in COVID-19 money - Villages-News

A Spiritual Walk: What is your perfect vision for healing the world? – New Baltimore Voice Newspapers

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As last year was ending, many organizations felt the perfect vision year of 2020 was coming. It would be a good year! Facebook posts were full of positive memes as well.

And, of course, as every year closes out, we look forward to a new year with the hope and vision that something better is coming.

The roaring twenties crossed my mind. As a teen I had danced in a tap class and we all wore cool-colored costume dresses with fringe all over them. The fringe shook wildly as we danced the Charleston to some really fun music. It was a vision representing fun with only good things happening.

Now it seems that the perfect vision for this year is not what good can come into our lives, but to look behind us and ask what good can we manifest through our time in connecting with God.

During a routine eye exam we usually read a chart of letters ranging from large to small. You read until you reach the smallest set of letters you can see. It tells the doctor at what distance you can read what a person with normal vision sees at 20 feet. The goal for most of us is to see 20/20. To support us with the best possible vision we may be prescribed glasses or contact lenses.

A chiropractor once told me our eyes are meant to be level with the Earths horizon. If they are not, our body might shift itself to make that happen. The shift might tweak our spine, head, shoulders or hips in a little different position so that our vision is level.

How is your vision looking for the year 2020?

We are approaching fall weather soon. Those are the months to look back over our year and see what worked for us and what didnt, so we can let fall away all that no longer serves us.

In evaluating the first six months of 2020, I see that my vision still needs prayer and meditation. After all, my memory of the roaring twenties and dancing the Charleston was fun. Looking back at 2020, I find no fun in the chaos of a pandemic or providing a church service during shutdowns.

In my household we are all adapting to everyone working from home. Following the news is more important now because a brief story in a Facebook post or a tweet does not provide enough information. And I never miss reading the daily newspaper now, either. The daily paper has my local news, and I find it provides a more historical view of what is happening in our world today. All of this keeps me busy and requires more quiet time to meditate and process the chaos.

One day while meditating I heard: Hindsight is 2020. This rings true. Sure there is chaos, but it looks better to you when can see that its happened before. For example, right now some people dont want to wear a mask. But, if you look back to the Spanish flu pandemic, you will find people held meetings against wearing masks.

The truth is, life has existed for a long time. Anything you see has surely been seen before. Nothing is new, and we are all attached to generations of people who may or may not have made the best decisions.

Use this year of perfect vision to look back, and using hindsight, lets make better changes for future generations to look back on.

What is your perfect vision for 2020? Dont use my example use what is in your heart that you feel needs to be healed. As you are meditating, see what thought comes to you. What is important to you? Does it reflect another time in your history or the history of the world? If so, what was the previous outcome?

Hold your thoughts on what you want healed or changed. Next, let that outcome go, and visualize only what you would have the best outcome be. Do not think on how it will come; let God take care of that.

I mentioned chaos, which is the opposite of peace. If we prefer to have peace, then during meditation, when we are connecting with God, the source of all creation, we must see in our mind what peace looks like to us. We do not have to explain what is not right to God. He knows all already.

So we focus our mind on seeing what is best. Hold in your mind and consciousness what your best vision is. Letting worry fall away, simply accept the peace in knowing, your best good will be.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

Seeing you healthy, whole and perfect, just the way God made you!

Linda La Croix Is the Unity Director & Prayer Chaplain at Unity of Lake Orion. Find positive and uplifting posts on her Facebook page, A Spiritual Walk or at aspiritualwalk.com.

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A Spiritual Walk: What is your perfect vision for healing the world? - New Baltimore Voice Newspapers

ISSUES OF FAITH: The spirituality of the ordinary – Peninsula Daily News

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I LOVE TRAVELING and having extraordinary adventures.

This is because experiencing other cultures and places gives me a sense of awe, wonder and transcendence a spiritual high, so to speak.

But what does that say about the ordinary?

Where does that leave the every day?

How can we possibly feel spiritually high when travel is limited by pandemic-related restrictions?

The late, great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once challenged people everywhere to cherish the ordinary, the here and now, and the every day.

He wrote that it only takes three things to feel spiritually awake and alive:

God,

A Soul,

and a Moment.

And the three are always here.

Yes, the three are always here even as we often forget or ignore them.

Discovering the spirituality of the ordinary begins by not taking things for granted.

The ordinary is already luminous. God and the sacred are not over there somewhere.

They are all right here, where we are.

Perhaps a silver lining of the coronavirus is that its providing us all with an opportunity to get back to the ordinary, the breath by breath, and the living in each moment more fully and seeing the sacred wonder therein.

Persian poet Attar once wrote us that:

Every breath

each breath

of your life

is a precious jewel.

Cherishing each aspect of the ordinary is a spiritual practice upheld in almost all of the world religions.

This is because doing so always brings us back to gratitude for the miracle of life.

So how do we nurture a spirituality of the ordinary?

How do we halt the practice of mindlessly stumbling over everyday miracles?

Here are some concrete steps you can take:

When outdoors, attend to the sounds, smells and sights that surround you.

Take in the stars, the clouds, the new growth on a tree, the birdsong, the smell of the mountains or sea.

Before beginning a meal, stop to light a candle and/or share some meaningful words or a prayer to acknowledge your good fortune for having food to eat.

When in traffic, on public transport, or out and about on the streets, recognize the divine spark in every other person in the same space.

Before entering a difficult conversation, stop and hold the others involved in prayer, wishing for their well-being as well as your own.

Every day when you awaken, think: Today I am fortunate to be alive. I have a precious human life and Im not going to waste it. God is here. My soul is here. This day is here. I am going to savor every moment.

The pandemic-related restrictions will eventually lift.

We will be able to travel again and be wowed by the extraordinary.

In the meantime, let us use this time to locate the immanence of the sacred in and around us.

Here. And now.

________

Issues of Faith is a rotating column by five religious leaders on the North Olympic Peninsula. The Rev. Kate Lore is a minister at the Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Port Townsend. Her email is [emailprotected].

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ISSUES OF FAITH: The spirituality of the ordinary - Peninsula Daily News

SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING: It is our religious calling – News – Wicked Local Plymouth

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Who is our neighbor, and what effect do these words really have on our lives?

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There is a version of this Biblical quote, also known as the Golden Rule, in the sacred texts of every religious tradition. Love thy neighbor is a similar passage that also can be found, in some form, in religious writings all over the world.

But who is our neighbor, and what effect do these words really have on our lives?

Is our neighbor just the person who looks like us and thinks like us, those that we see regularly at work, in our families or in our religious institutions? Its easy to love those people, isnt it? Or, is our God, or Higher Power, or Great Spirit, calling us to take on the more difficult task of loving everyone, even those neighbors who look differently, or think differently, or speak a different language, or are from a different race or culture?

I remember some of the discomfort and controversy that arose when the rainbow flag started to become popular and we had conversations in our Houses of Worship about displaying it as a sign of being welcoming to the LGBTQ+ community. Many people didnt want to deal with their long-held prejudice, discomfort and beliefs that devalued the lives of our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered neighbors. It made us uncomfortable to focus our attention on those people. Then we started to really listen to the stories of our LGBTQ+ family members, friends, neighbors and colleagues. We did not know how much discrimination, violence and hatred LGBTQ+ people faced on a regular basis. We realized that, in many ways, their lives were similar to our own and some of our fears were unfounded. We became more comfortable with seeing the rainbow flag, and with appreciating what LGBTQ+ people bring to our lives and our communities.

Now, we face a new challenge as we see a renewed Black Lives Matter movement and Black Lives Matter signs appearing throughout our communities. We have to face the facts that our Black and brown-skinned neighbors have suffered horrific violence and prejudice in our society. We are now being asked to deal with our own prejudices and the racial hatred that has been passed down to all of us in our society. It is scary and uncomfortable, as it always is, whenever we are asked to look deeply within and make some changes in ourselves and our lives.

Yet, if we are truly to love our neighbor and do unto others, it is beyond time for all of us to listen to the stories and the lives of our Black and brown neighbors. It is beyond time for us to stand with Black and brown-skinned people who have been oppressed and mistreated to proclaim that Black Lives DO Matter. It is our religious calling to do so. It is what is required of us as people of any faith tradition.

The Rev. Arthur Lavoie is the minister of First Parish in Plymouth, Unitarian Universalist.

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SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING: It is our religious calling - News - Wicked Local Plymouth

The Orthodox Female Spiritual Leader Working with Converts – Jewish Journal

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In a socially distanced ceremony in Jerusalem last month, Shira Sapir accepted her certificate as a Morat Horaah (authorized to provide direction in matters halachah, or Jewish law) and Spiritual Leader from Ohr Torah Stones Susi Bradfield Womens Institute of Halachic Leadership. The honor came in the wake of a landmark decision by the attorney general that grants womens Torah studies equal governmental recognition to those of men.

A mother of six from the religious Migdal Oz settlement in Gush Etzion, Sapir is the only woman in Israel to have successfully completed the five-year course. While shes not yet fully comfortable with any of the titles (including that of Rabbanit), Sapir said the role of women at the forefront of halachah and community is of paramount importance. She points to public institutions, such as jails, that desperately need female leaders but added that every community could benefit from women at the helm. There are people who say we want to replace men, or push them out, but thats not it at all. We need to change the public consciousness. I think that on a fundamental level its correct that it should be a shared role, but every community is different and the community needs to want there to be a woman.

There are people who say we want to replace men, or push them out, but thats not it at all. We need to change the public consciousness.

Sapirs family made aliyah from North Carolina when she was a baby. She recalled as a child asking her father halachic questions and looking up the answers with him in Jewish law books. These days, her children turn to her and pose halachic questions by jokingly prefacing them with, Rabbi Mommy.

I connect deeply to the language of halachah. I feel like its a new language I acquired, she said. In the dryness, in the details, I find the essence of Judaism.

In addition to Shabbat, kashrut and family purity the subjects traditionally mastered by men preparing to become rabbis Sapir passed another exam on the laws of conversion. She has worked for more than a decade with converts. It was her sense of otherness, she said growing up in an immigrant family with parents who were not born into Orthodoxy that fostered a strong sense of identification with her students. The question of Jewish identity is one we all grapple with, she said. Not just converts.

Sapir recalled a discussion with her students about the tough questions addressed to God by King David in Psalms. She emphasized the value of asking questions in Judaism. She said that in Christianity, adherents are often encouraged not to ask and just to believe. At that point, one of her students interrupted and said, No, in Christianity, if you ask questions, you end up here!

The history of conversion is a subject that fascinates Sapir and one she is hoping to research in her MA studies. Conversion has undergone seismic changes over the centuries. She said, Im looking to have a real impact on the discourse in the world of conversion in the State of Israel.

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The Orthodox Female Spiritual Leader Working with Converts - Jewish Journal

As coronavirus curtails travel, backyard pilgrimages become the way to a spiritual journey – The Conversation US

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Many major religious pilgrimages have been canceled or curtailed in an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19. These have included the Hajj, a religious milestone for Muslims the world over; the Hindu pilgrimage, known as the Amarnath Yatra high in the mountains of Kashmir; and pilgrimages to Lourdes in France.

Pilgrims have faced travel delays and cancellations for centuries. Reasons ranged from financial hardship and agricultural responsibilities to what is now all too familiar to modern-day pilgrims plague or ill health.

Then, as now, one strategy has been to bring the pilgrimage home or into the religious community.

Pilgrimage can be an interior or outward journey and while individual motivations may vary, it can be an act of religious devotion or a way to seek closeness with the divine.

Through the centuries and across cultures, those who longed to go on a sacred journey would find alternative ways to do so.

Reading travel narratives, tracing a map with the finger or eye, or holding a souvenir brought back from a sacred site helped facilitate a real sense of travel for the homebound pilgrim. Through these visual or material aids, people felt as though they, too, were having a pilgrimage experience, and even connecting with others.

One such example is the story of the Dominican friar Felix Fabri, who was known for recording his own pilgrimages in various formats, some geared toward the laity and some for his brothers.

Fabri was approached in the 1490s by a group of cloistered nuns, meaning that they had professed vows to lead a contemplative life in the quietude of their community. They desired a devotional exercise so they could receive the spiritual benefits of pilgrimage without having to break their promise of a life that was sheltered from the outside world.

He produced Die Sionpilger, a virtual pilgrimage in the form of a day-to-day guidebook to Santiago de Compostela, Jerusalem and Rome. In these cities, pilgrims would encounter sites and scenes associated with many facets of their religion: shrines to honor Jesus and the saints, relics, great cathedrals and sacred landscapes associated with miraculous events and stories.

Fabris guidebook sent the pilgrim on an imaginative journey of a thousand miles, without having to take a single step.

My current book project shows that from Lourdes to South Africa, from Jerusalem to England, from Ecuador to California, DIY pilgrimages are not just a medieval phenomenon. One such example is Phil Volkers backyard Camino.

Volker is a 72-year-old father and now grandfather, woodworker and veteran who mapped the Camino de Santiago onto his backyard in Vashon Island in the Pacific Northwest. Volker prays the rosary as he walks: for those who have been impacted by the pandemic, his family, his neighbors, the world.

After a cancer diagnosis in 2013, a few things came together to inspire Volker to build a backyard Camino, including the film The Way, a pocket-sized book of meditations, Everyday Camino With Annie by Annie O'Neil and the story of Eratosthenes, the Greek polymath from the second century B.C. who figured out a way to measure the circumference of the Earth using the Sun, a stick and a well.

For me, this guy was the grand godfather of do-it-yourselfers. How can someone pull off this kind of a caper with things at hand in his own backyard? It got me thinking, what else can come out of ones backyard?, he told me.

Volker began walking a circuitous route around his 10-acre property on Vashon Island in the Pacific Northwest. It was a chance to exercise, which his doctors had encouraged, but also created a space to think and pray.

Each lap around the property is just over a half-mile. Realizing that he was covering quite a distance, he found a map of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route to track his progress, calculating that 909 laps would get him from St. Jean Pied-de-Port to the Cathedral of St. James.

To date, Volker has completed three 500-mile Caminos without leaving his backyard.

Thanks to a documentary film, Volkers daily blog and an article in the magazine Northwest Catholic, the backyard Camino has attracted many visitors, some simply curious but many who are seeking healing and solace.

The story of Volkers backyard Camino inspired Sara Postlethwaite, a sister of the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity, to map St. Kevins Way, a 19-mile pilgrimage route in County Wicklow, Ireland onto a series of daily 1.5-mile circuits in Daly City, California.

The route rambles along roads and countryside from Hollywood to the ruins of the monastery that St. Kevin, a sixth-century abbot, had founded in Glendalough. Postlethwaite had intended to travel back to her native Ireland in the spring of 2020 to walk the route in person, but due to pandemic-related travel restrictions, she brought the pilgrimage to her home in Daly City.

Every so often, Postlethwaite would check in on Google Maps to see where she was along the Irish route, pivoting the camera to see surrounding trees or, at one point, finding herself in the center of an old stone circle.

Several joined Postlethwaites walk in solidarity, both in the U.S. and overseas.

After each days walk, she paused at the shed at her community house, where she had drawn a to-scale version of the Market Cross at Glendalough.

As Postlethwaite traced the intersecting knots, circles and image of the crucified Christ with her chalk, she reflected not just on the suffering caused by the pandemic but also about issues of racism, justice and privilege. In particular, she remembered Ahmaud Arbery, a Black jogger shot by two white men in a fatal confrontation in February 2020. She inscribed his name on the chalk cross.

For Berkeley-based artist Maggie Preston, a DIY chalk labyrinth on the street outside her house became a way to connect with her neighbors and her three-year-old son. There is a link here with the medieval strategies for bringing longer pilgrimages into the church or community. Scholars have suggested that labyrinths may have been based on maps of Jerusalem, providing a scaled-down version of a much longer pilgrimage route.

They started out by chalking in the places they could no longer go the aquarium, the zoo, a train journey and then created a simple labyrinth formed by a continuous path in seven half-circles.

A labyrinth gave us a greater destination, not just somewhere to imagine going, but a circuitous path to literally travel with our feet, she told me.

As neighbors discovered the labyrinth, it began to create a genuine sense of community akin to that which many seek to find when they embark on a much longer pilgrimage.

Volkers cancer has progressed to stage IV and he celebrated his 100th chemo treatment back in 2017, but he is still walking and praying on a regular basis. He offers the following advice:

For folks starting their own backyard Camino I think that creating the myth is the most important consideration. Study maps, learn to pronounce the names of the towns, walk in the dust and the mud, be out there in the rain, drink their wine and eat their food, relearn to pretend.

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As coronavirus curtails travel, backyard pilgrimages become the way to a spiritual journey - The Conversation US

For Ottessa Moshfegh, Novel Writing Is a Spiritual Experience – The Nation

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Ottessa Moshfegh. (Photo by Jake Belcher)

Ottessa Moshfegh plumbs the absurd and the profane for the few moments of clarity one experiences under great duress. Her fiction, with memorably unreliable narrators saddled with unorthodox desires, dramatizes the manifold ways that self-deception perpetuates the conditions of our own miseryand, sometimes, a descent into madness. Moshfegh achieves all of this with pristine prose. In this way, she hews closer to Vladimir Nabokov than she does to her contemporaries; for both writers, language is simultaneously a puzzle box and a revelation.Ad Policy

Moshfeghs latest novel, Death in Her Hands, was drafted between her breakout novel Eileen, which was short-listed for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, and 2018s My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Hallucinatory at moments but always wry, the book begins as a mystery novel, with lonely old widow Vesta Gul finding an ominous note on the ground while out on a walk: Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasnt me. Here is her body. But there is no body or evidence of any crime, and the more Vesta lets herself hypothesize what might have happened to Magda, the more she finds herself turning her investigation inward, toward the sum total of her own life.

Before the books release in late June, the author and I chatted over Skype, with Moshfegh sitting in her backyard, taking puffs on a cigarette between her considered answers and an occasional whistle to her dog. We talked about divinity, her approach to art, and getting into her characters heads.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Rosemarie Ho

Rosemarie Ho: Death in Her Hands marks a departure from your previous work in that poetry pops up here and there as plot pointsW.B. Yeatss The Second Coming is incorporated into a note Vesta writes, and the last lines of William Blakes The Voice of the Ancient Bard becomes almost a refrain toward the end of her investigation. Could you tell me more about that choice?

Ottessa Moshfegh: Vesta is someone who hasnt really been all that authentic to herself in life, so when she starts telling her story, it has a sense of performativeness. The performance is one that is literary, because she is contained by language, basically, so that seemed appropriate. There was also something naive about Vesta, how she has been in arrested development her whole life, since shes never really been alone until her husband dies. She hasnt developed a side of herself that would enable her to make straight declarations and speak plainly. Shes somebody who needs to decorate what shes saying, because maybe she feels like no one will listen otherwise. Or maybe she doesnt really know what shes saying yet. I mean, I think a lot of the book is about her refinding her voice in her space.

RH: Its interesting that Vestas performativity is instinctually literary! The novel is a very self-referential book.

OM: I see what you mean. Its a book that writes about writing and the creative process. Its a character going through somethingi.e., investigating a murderthe same way someone might go through writing a murder mystery novel. So she is essentially being guided by writing principles rather than life principles. What that allows for is this kind of solubility in the reality of her world, where things that get written can cross over from the imagination into reality, that also mimics the breakdown of what we think is her grip on her sanity or her life itselfthat maybe shes losing her grip on her actual life. That was an effect I wanted for the book. I didnt want for the novel to be a murder mystery; I wanted it to be an exploration of character and the dissolution of a life, to see what it would be like if that dissolution was something agented by the life itself. I guess thats why I called it Death in Her Hands: because she dies. She didnt kill herself, but shes experiencing her own death in a way that is also the most alive time of her life so far, in some sense.

RH: Religiosity suffuses the book: Vesta is living in Levant, driving to Bethsmane (a portmanteau of Bethlehem and Gethsemane), listening to Pastor Jimmy on the radio, and trying to avoid a police officer she decides is named Ghod, who is hellbent on thwarting her investigation. How does that tie in with her inherent literariness?

OM: The Christianity in particular is just part of the fabric of her culture. I could have written the story in any culture, but I chose to write it in the culture that I grew up close to, which was America. She was raised in a culture that was Christian and moved to a place that is also Christian; I just accepted that was the culture that Im writing about and that someone of her age and impressionability would have internalized. Theres this voice coming through the radio that isnt the voice of God, but is speaking to her from some unseen place about God, that she could now question and be critical of. In its intangibility, theres potential for doubt and criticism. I saw that element as something that she could overcome perhaps, because it had been so fundamental to her belief system. That belief system had allowed her to live such an oppressed and repressed life so far that in retooling her spiritual paradigm according to her own imagination, she was empowering herself away from a paradigm that would have her be quiet and passive and just accept whatever the world handed to her or asked of her. She was taking her life back. MORE FROM Rosemarie Ho

RH: How does this search for freedom relate to art and writing in particular?

OM: Well, I guess thats what Im still searching for. Art, for me, is like an attempt to its an expression of God within ourselves. Its a transmission of our spirit. There has to be some substance that we feel out in order to know where our boundaries are and what our consistency is. And thats why humans need relationships to grow, I think, and why we learned so much from struggle. Freedom is the ability to choose what struggle you want in order to learn what you personally desire to learn. And if you want to grow according to your own path, you can go seek out the experiences and the people that you think will help you, rather than be pummeled by external forces that you havent chosen to act upon you.

We dont want to read a story about a character that just stays the same throughout the whole book. I mean, at least I dont. Like, if the story is about that character, I am interested in how that moment changes the character through the course of the narrative. I have to think about what that character is up against and how that conflict would lead her to new thoughts, decisions we wouldnt expect, realizations about herself and her past, where she was wrong, where she had been deceived. It would be great if we could all live freely, but we havent been. So I like it when people try to get free; I like those stories. Sometimes its really misguided or theres been trauma, so the way that you approach your own freedom might actually be deleterious to yourself, or it might mean that you cant live this life, actually, that you need to move on to the next one or something.

RH: Can art be transformative, then, in that sense of getting one to live more freely?

OM: Well, I think step one is that a story can be transportive, in that you can be in someone elses life and experience and consciousness. That expands you, to imagine that you are not you but someone else with different limitations and associations. And if you can let go of who you are and be someone else for the course of reading, or at least be in that persons mind, you might have an experience that you couldnt have if you were trapped in yourself.

I dont know if I think that the definition of art is transformative experience, but things that I like are things that make me feel like the human experience is larger than just my experience. That I can feel things that I hadnt felt before. I can imagine ways of being that Im not.

RH: How do you achieve thatto write about people who arent you, especially when youre a meticulously interior writer?

OM: I think that its a really important question. If youre a writer who wants to write in the first person, I think partly you have to allow your character to speak from a place that is their privacy, and partly you have to be the author and guide your exploration of that character toward a story in which that character can have some kind of epiphany. Its like playing the piano; youre using both of your hands. One of them is feeling and seeking to understand, and the other one is directing and manipulating.

Thats what so much of writing is: a surrender to language and the limitations of language, the expectations of a story, what a reader needs to feel that theyre being handled effortlessly through a narrative, and also the magic of communication, despite all these limitations that we have. All you have in a book is the written word. Through whatever combination of words, however you order them, those are the words that the reader is internalizing silently and hearing as a voice in their mind. Its like a virtual reality experience, in a way. Once you get in there, you start leading.

But language alone cant move someone. Like, if I just wrote one word over and over again, its not going to have the same effect as if I sang the same note. Like, you can sing the same note a million waysyour artistry can come through in how you do that. But I can only write words, letters. I can change the font, but its still going to be the word. So my job is to put one word next to another word to create a sentence or phrase, something evocative so that in your mind youre not going to just be seeing words; youre going to be seeing what Im evoking with them. Its something that emanates from the language but is not the language itself. I mean, thats the trouble, thats the trouble that I love: that we just have words when were writing, and we have to get them to do something, you know?

RH: How do you write divinity, then, to express God within your characters?

OM: Sometimes it looks like coincidencethats the most obvious way. As vague as this sounds, the way that I experience it as a writer is when I can detach from my own voice, or the expectations that I have for a character or a narrative voice, and hear something else that isnt me. Divinity is the thing that isnt me; its the thing that Ive been trying to hear. So much of my consciousness is like in this one area, and when Im writing, I have to somehow access this other area where other peoples stories and experiences can be larger than mine. Which isnt to say that I feel like Im writing about strangersI get to know my characters very intimately, and sometimes they feel friendly and sometimes they dont. McGlue [from her debut novella McGlue] was not a friendly narrator to me, and really, neither was the character in My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

RH: Really? In what way?

OM: I mean, she hurt me a lot. It hurt to put myself in her place. It hurt less to be in Vestas place because she wasnt so hard. Vesta is, I think, by nature a caring person, and shes motivated by her curiosity in a way thats empathic and appreciative of beauty. The pain that she felt is all in the past, so it was almost like its safe now, because its over. And yeah, shes a bit alienated from society, and her judgments can be harsh and maybe unkind, but theres a benevolence to her relationship to her world in general. I wasnt afraid of Vesta, and actually having to enter her mind and world and story was a relief.

RH: Can hostility be generative for art?

OM: Well, I dont know. I mean, people should be as hostile as they want in their writing. Do it there, dont do it out in the world to other peopledont fucking hurt anybody, basically. Writing requires, at times, an incredible amount of self-restraint and surrender. Sometimes anger or some other very powerful emotion can help you be motivated to get past your own shit and access the bigger thing that you want this book to communicate. Im not going to write a book about how somebody cut me off; that wouldnt be a good book. I think intense emotions can be good energy to make us want to be creative.

RH: Why are you attracted to the novel form?

OM:The process of writing a novel, for me, feels like the most exciting thing that I do. Its starting with nothing and creating everything. And the novels that I write, I feel like I put everything into themthey become my life. In a short story, I kind of feel like my point of view is stationary and the story just comes out like so, but with a novel Im moving in all these directions, and I feel freer. What Ive learned from writing each novel has been so immense and abstract, in many ways beyond the psychological. If my mind were space the way that Vesta describes her mind-space, I can feel that space shifting, changing dimensions, moving and filling and expanding in different colors I dont know, its a very spiritual experience. Its like conquering your own ego or something, which is impossible.

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For Ottessa Moshfegh, Novel Writing Is a Spiritual Experience - The Nation

The role of kindness in the spiritual life – Aleteia IT

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The word kindness is frequently talked about in the secular world, but what does it mean in the spiritual life?

Fr. Francis Xavier Lasance included thoughts from Fr. William Faber about kindness in his early 20th-century book, My Prayer Book, which help shed some light on the role of kindness in Christianity.

He begins by writing, The worst kinds of unhappiness, as well as the greatest amount of it, come from our conduct to each other. If our conduct, therefore, were under the control of kindness, it would be nearly the opposite of what it is, and so the state of the world would be almost reversed.

Faber continues by defining kindness and explaining how it fits into a Christian worldview.

Kindness is the overflowing of self upon others. We put others in the place of self. We treat them as we would wish to be treated ourselves. We change places with them. For the time self is another, and others are self. Our self-love takes the shape of complacence in unselfishness.

In this sense, kindness is not merely an external act, but chiefly an internal one, where we put others above ourselves.

Fr. Faber goes so far as to say that kindness in thought leads a soul closer to sainthood, If [someone] habitually has kind thoughts of others, and that on supernatural motives, he is not far from being a saint There is one class of kind thoughts which must be dwelt upon apart. I allude to kind interpretations. The habit of not judging others is one which it is very difficult to acquire, and which is generally not acquired till late on in the spiritual life.

The kindness Fr. Faber speaks of is not the empty variety, that only shows a false facade, but is more akin to a glacier, revealing only the tip of a much deeper spiritual state of life.

True Christian kindness reveals a love for your neighbor that goes beyond any selfish motive. It is a form of charity that imitates the love that Christ has for all of us, showing compassion for all people.

As Fr. Lasance says,

Kindwords are the music of the world.

7 Ways to show kindness in the age of social distancing

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The role of kindness in the spiritual life - Aleteia IT

Why Mennonites, Lutherans and other say farming has a spiritual side – Deseret News

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TREMONTON For the Nathan Hege family and many other farmers along the Wasatch Front, the harvest season spans from late July to late August.

Last week Hege, a farmer and bishop of the Northern Utah Mennonite Church, watched as his sons operated two red combines in a neighbors wheat field. Vernon Hege, accompanied by his 3-year-old son Leroy, drove one thrashing machine while 13-year-old Adrian Hege steered the other harvester. When each bin was full, the brothers took turns dumping grain into semitrailer parked nearby.

When asked what he enjoyed most about the annual harvest, Bishop Hege smiled and laughed.

Getting finished, he said.

While some of his crops have struggled this year, the bishop is grateful for the blessing of planting a seed, laboring with the earth and trusting in the Lord that the agricultural process will yield fruit.

You reap what you sow, said Bishop Hege, referencing the Bible. Were physically close to it. Many in the world get their harvest at the grocery store. I think there is a real blessing in seeing how God has made it all work. ... Its our reliance on God.

The Holy Bible and other sacred writings across many faiths are full of parables, metaphors and agricultural language that teach spiritual lessons and timeless truths about the law of the harvest. Whether its gardening, working with animals or harvesting crops, those who get their hands dirty in the earth not only find health benefits and satisfaction in producing quality food, but theres also a deep spiritual component that can strengthen ones faith, according to Wade Sperry, an agriculture specialist who supervises all the welfare farms for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

There is something about working in agriculture and in the land that is spiritual, Sperry said. When you get down to the basic things the Lord provided for us soil, water, air and sunshine theres something there that invigorates your spirit. ... It humbles people. It deepens their faith and makes them kinder, and gives them a different perspective on things.

Grid View

Patrick Mason, a professor of history and religion at Utah State University, will be the first to admit he has no special horticultural knowledge or skills. I struggle to keep a garden alive, he said. I get all my food from a store.

But even as a person removed from nature in terms of growing food, the professor can still relate to and understand the New Testament parables of the mustard seed, the sower and others. Mason said he drew upon principles of faith as taught in the Book of Mormons Alma Chapter 32 when writing his 2015 book, Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt.

They are so universally accessible, Mason said. Even if Im not a farmer, I can appreciate the basics of what it means to plant a seed in good soil, nurture and cultivate it. All of us can connect to it on some basic level. I think thats the brilliance of that language. ... I think all of that agricultural language is inviting us back into a time when humans were more connected to the land than most of us are now.

These universal principles extend beyond Christian scripture. Virtually every religion has sacred text with language about nature, trees, gardens, animals and vineyards, partly as a celebration of Gods creation of the world, the cosmos and humanitys place in that, Mason said.

Where did Buddha find enlightenment? Sitting under a tree. Similar things are found in Hinduism. ... Native American and indigenous spiritualities are deeply connected to the land and nature, he said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mason has observed people recognizing the importance of growing and preserving their own food. Not only is it wise to be prepared for hard times, but keeping a garden can be therapeutic.

To distance ourselves from nature and from natural processes, maybe when nature invites us back and maybe when we go back and get our hands dirty, and realize what it means to grow and harvest something, maybe we also relearn what it means to be human, too, Mason said.

Grid View

For many years, Pastor Michael Galica said Brigham Citys Holy Cross Lutheran Church was identified by its architectural design, which wasnt flattering.

For a long time we were known as the toaster church because the building vaguely resembles a toaster, Pastor Galica said. Now when you talk to people its the church with the garden.

The transformation started more than six years ago when Jenny Hill, a lifelong member of the congregation, lost her father. Hill explained that when a person dies, its customary for the family to give a memorial gift to the church. Her initial idea was to clean up a part of the churchs property covered in weeds.

Then an ambitious friend suggested a bigger idea the development of a community garden. She accepted the challenge and became a volunteer administrator. Looking back, Hill said the project was inspired.

I didnt plan my retirement to do this. I had no visions of doing anything like this in my life, said Hill, a retired registered nurse. This was a God thing ... and the response was dramatic.

With the churchs permission, Hill and others began cleaning up weeds in the space next to the building in 2014. Six years later, visitors can walk through a gate into a green and fertile maze of organized garden boxes alive with all kinds of vegetables and plants, along with a pavilion, picnic tables and a greenhouse. A long list of community partners, sponsors, organizations and volunteers have contributed to the gardens success.

For a fee of $15, individuals and families can take stewardship of a plot in the Box Elder Community Garden and grow fresh produce. Last year more than 3,600 pounds of fresh produce from the community garden was donated to local food pantries, Hill said.

Hill talked about the joy and benefits of gardening that came to a disabled Vietnam veteran and a 91-year-old woman who delighted in working the soil. Now there is a waiting list to get a plot, along with plans to expand the garden in the coming years.

To see how far the project has progressed over the last six years the fruits of their labor has been gratifying for both Hill and Pastor Galica.

For us, the fruit of this garden is an obvious representation of the fruit that we have from our faith. We believe that a big component of our faith is loving our neighbor, the pastor said. And it sure makes me feel better when I write my sermon to look out on the garden from my office window. ... Now were known for the garden and growing food for the needy.

The harvest is just one step in the process, but what a feeling, Hill said.

The whole gardening experience teaches you responsibility, respect for others and the earth, she said. Its a great way to grow.

As a seasoned agricultural specialist, Sperry has worked on Latter-day Saint projects all over the world. In managing all of the churchs welfare farms and ranches, which produce large amounts of vegetables, crops, fruit and livestock, everything he does revolves around lessons from the law of the harvest. His parents taught him to appreciate those scriptural lessons as a young man.

When you are an agricultural specialist, a farmer or rancher, you put so much trust in the Lord that hes going to help you take care of your family and your neighbors with crops. Most of the time he blesses quite abundantly, Sperry said. To me that is heavily intertwined with not only taking care of oneself, but also watching out for and caring for your neighbor and those in need.

In recent months, with a pandemic and millions of American out of work, the church has given aid to the needy through more than 630 projects in over 130 countries. President Russell M. Nelson called the effort the largest-ever humanitarian project of the church.

For that reason, its essential that agriculture carry on, he said.

Over years of travel, Sperry has observed that people who get outside and work in the earth are naturally happier. He recalled working in Ethiopia during a couple of different famines when conditions were dire. While some died, others who worked found physical, mental and spiritual endurance.

While developing garden projects in places like Mexico City and So Paulo, and even in Cape Verde, off the coast of West Africa, where soil had to be imported, Sperry said people who were willing to go out and put a little bit of soil into a little container on their balcony saw the world in a different light.

Youre out, youre working in the soil, youre getting sunshine, and youre doing something that I think encourages faith, Sperry said. And anytime you exercise faith, I think health follows that directly every single time. The exercise of faith, which is what agriculture is, and health care, are intertwined.

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Why Mennonites, Lutherans and other say farming has a spiritual side - Deseret News

SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING: A trip to the movies – Milford Daily News

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He wondered if normalcy was something, like vision or silence, you didnt realize was precious until you lost it. -- Cassandra Clare, author

It was a risk. I know. Maybe even kind of a little dangerous. Taking this one chance, after 136 days of being locked up and locked in and prevented from enjoying one cherished past time in my life, thats been with me since I first saw the flicker of shadow and light projected onto a screen, as a little boy at the Wollaston Theater, my childhood palace of dreams.

This past Saturday, I went to the movies again.

It was an impulse decision. Reading the paper, I noticed a story about one of my favorite movie theaters here in eastern Massachusetts, the West Newton Cinema, reopening, after being shuttered since last March. Ive seen upwards of 100 movies there, probably more, in my adult life, so many Saturday nights with pasta at Comellas next door and then a film. Its not a cookie-cutter venue, a cinema one to infinity kind of place, a suburban movie factory located next to the mall, that shows mostly superhero flicks and other blockbusters.

No. West Newton Cinema is as local as local gets. As theater as theater gets.

Opened in 1937, the movie palace has been welcoming viewers into its quaint and cozy building for 83 years, showed its first film in the midst of the Great Depression, and has been entertaining movie buffs like me ever since. Stroll through the heavy wooden front doors as you pass under a marquee filled with titles of current attractions, and then get your ticket from a live person in a booth and enter a spacious lobby, the smell of real homemade popcorn and melted butter making your mouth water. Once a true movie palace, the Cinema boasted of being able to seat more than 1,000 patrons for a single screening, but now it has six screens, showing both art house and popular fare. Its been owned and operated by the same pair of brothers David and Jimmy Bramante (and now their families) for the past 42 years.

I had to go to the movies. I had to somehow get an experience of normalcy and comfort in the middle of the craziness we now call 2020 in this world.

I had to go.

And so, my friend Kacey and I did go, as we have so many times before, making our way up the lobby stairs to theater five, where we found our seats in the third row and also found ourselves the only patrons in the room. The theater has strict COVID guidelines, requires a mask and social distancing and limits capacity to only 25 folks per viewing, but in the end, we had nothing to worry or fret about.

Then the lights dimmed and the projector kicked on and there up on the screen of dreams was Casablanca, the classic 1942 film about life in wartime Morocco and lost love and broken hearts and fighting Nazis and a world all caught up in tumult and fear. It felt like watching a story from a million years ago and a story from right now. At least thats how I romantically imagined it, as I watched tuxedo-clad Humphrey Bogart and the elegant Ingrid Bergman exchange snappy dialogue and stolen kisses and drink champagne at Ricks Caf Americain.

Heres looking at you kid.

Its hard to put into words how deeply grateful and blessed I felt to be doing something so normal as going to the movies and munching on my popcorn, and arranging my long legs over the seats and staring up at the screen, where at 24 frames per second, I was reminded of how much I love films. And art. And a shared creative experience, not just a solo viewing of another movie on Netflix, as I push back in my La-Z-Boy, day 137 of COVID-19.

I know with more than 149,000 already dead in the U.S. from the virus, and millions more infected and the disease now reigniting across the country, my joy at returning to the movies may seem kind of trivial or even insensitive, considering how many folks are struggling right now. And yet, ask anyone who is sick and tired, just exhausted from the COVID marathon that is not near over yet, and I know theyd tell you that they, all of us, we just need a little taste of normalcy right now. Something to soothe our souls and lift our spirits. Something as simple as going to the movies.

As Rick says to Ilsa in the dramatic final scene of Casablanca, Im no good at being noble, but it doesnt take much to see that the problems of three little people dont amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.

Someday we may look back on these intense times of COVID and understand, maybe even see how we grew and stretched as humans and children of God, and were each called to be our best selves in these days, courageous, even noble. But for now?

Im going to the movies.

The Rev. John F. Hudson is senior pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn (pilgrimsherborn.org). If you have a word or idea youd like defined in a future column or have comments, please send them to pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

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SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING: A trip to the movies - Milford Daily News