This article explores the relationship of spirituality to health care and bioethics in terms of the need and efforts of people to make sense of their lives in the face of illness, injury, or impending death. Moving beyond earlier associations with specific religious traditions, spirituality has come to designate the way in which people can integrate their experiences with their sense of ultimate meaning and related values. The holistic model of health care also affirms that one should not simply treat a body in pain, but respond to the suffering of the whole person within his or her full life. A narrative emphasis in ethics also maintains that ethical decisions occur within the framework of interacting life-stories, each of which embodies a certain core vision and set of values. In each instance it is the life stories of people, their lived narratives, that provide a common thread. The telling of these stories and the discernment of the lived spirituality they contain may assist persons in the process of achieving understanding, making decisions, and finding purpose in the experience of illness, injury, or disability.

On Feminist Spirituality

Spirituality, health care, and bioethics.

Since spirituality separated from religion it appeared as an unclear concept regarding its identity as a new secular domain. Responding to this condition and to the need of identifying spirituality, the aim of this research is to develop the concept of spirituality according to the current European population. The study applies mixed methodology and finds current spirituality functioning as a three-dimensional model composed of Transcendence, Immanence and Purpose. This concept is predicted by thirteen independent variables. The findings suggest that current pirituality is a person’s individual existential dimension being subject to change through the influence of various psychological, religious and social factors. The discoveries of the study find its practical implication within formational social fields such as education, counselling and psychotherapy.

background

Towards a Postmodern Concept of Spirituality Within European Population

Care matters: spiritual care by nurses from feminist perspectives

ideas, ideologies, and theories, to involve people, as image bearers of the triune God, “in naming problems and in finding solutions”. “This implies going to the people and their problems, listening to them, living with them, finding oneself in a position where one can really covenant with others and speak from among them”. In the discussion on Theological Action Research101 it has been argued that practical theologians should become emerged in the praxis of people and community development by implementing the ‘instruments’ of these participative methodologies. To truly make a difference in the world of the poor, the marginalized and the disregarded, practitioners have to work alongside them, respect and love them, thus fulfilling the requirements of both the ‘great commission’ and the ‘great mission'.102 This calls for transformative thinking and actions and the adherence to a Christian perspective on the praxis of people and community development. Such a perspective – drawing on the understanding of the ‘spirituality of embrace’ and the normative guidelines for the praxis of transformation (cf. Chapter 4) – is outlined next. 5.4.2 A Christian perspective: Transformational Development St Irenaeus’s words,103 “The glory of God is man fully alive,”104 offers in itself a concise motivation for Christian practitioners to become involved in community 101 Cf. Chapter 2, section 2.5. 102 Cf. Wright (2010:23–24), referring to the Biblical grounds for mission as narrated in the Old Testament, lists a broad range of activities – e.g. famine relief, action for justice, healing, administration – comparable to current of community development practices. 103 Quoted by John Eldredge in his book Waking the Dead. 104 Cf. Myers (1999:86–87) on poverty as the result of relationships that work against well-being, are unjust, anti-life, disharmonious and unenjoyable; and his significant remark that “poverty is the absence of shalom” and the opposite of life abundant. Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za

Spirituality as dimension of integrated community development

This thesis explores the significance of Brigid as Irish Saint and pagan Goddess, examining the influence on comtemporary Australian women's spiriuality. In this context, a number of metaphors are explored, the most generative of these revealing Brigid as both a threshold figure and catalyst for liberation. The threshold analogy is further develoged, positioning Brigid as a nexus of potential dialogue between contemporary Chrisianity and neo-paganism. Using a feminist methodology, what emerges is an understanding of the depth and diversity of Brigid veneration and its role in the spiritualities of Australian women today.

https://repository.divinity.edu.au/14/1/ThesisFinished12Feb2009.pdf

Brigid: Bridge between Worlds. A Feminist Examination of the Significance of Brigid (an Irish Saint and Goddess) in Comtemporary Australian Women's Spiriuality.

On Feminist Spirituality

Citations

Spirituality, health care, and bioethics.

Towards a Postmodern Concept of Spirituality Within European Population

Care matters: spiritual care by nurses from feminist perspectives

Spirituality as dimension of integrated community development

Brigid: Bridge between Worlds. A Feminist Examination of the Significance of Brigid (an Irish Saint and Goddess) in Comtemporary Australian Women's Spiriuality.

References

Why Not a Category of Friend/Friendship?

Related Papers (5)

Feminist spirituality within the framework of feminist consciousness

Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality

Goddess Spirituality: The Feminist Alternative?

Feminism and Spirituality

The Feminist mystic : and other essays on women and spirituality