I love books.

Detail from "The Bookworm"

Detail from “The Bookworm”

Recently several friends either gave me a book or a reference to one, that has implications for health care from a humanistic or spiritual perspective. I even ran across one on my own. Today’s plan is not to offer reviews or clever insights into the authors but to toss out a question and a challenge. My question is: Who has read any of the books below or one’s with similar intent?

  • Aging as a Spiritual Practice: A Contemplative Guide to Growing Older and Wiser by Lewis Richmond.
  • Medicine As a Human Experience by David E. Reiser & David H. Rosen.
  • Medicine and Compassion: A Tibetan Lama’s Guidance for Caregivers by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche & David R. Shlim.
  • From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Profound New Vision of Growing Older by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi & Ronald S. Miller.

The challenge part is: Who would like to submit to me, a review or insight into the book that you have read?  If you submit something I’ll publish it here.

Why am I doing this?

Is it a cheap way to get out a blog when I have writer’s block?

Well, no to the latter. Actually, I want to stimulate into being a greater dialog here, and by getting more of you to participate in the process, it might actually happen. This blog connects to a Facebook page and to a weekly discussion, so there are several options and possibilities for discussion and as more of us become involved the dialog will become richer.

So, take a look at these books and consider how they relate to your profession or your life.

We’ll talk about it.

 Join us for a real-time discussion about questions raised by this essay on Wednesday from 12:00 p.m. to 12:45 p.m. Please note slight revision to starting time. See Discussion and SL tabs above for details. Link to the virtual meeting room: http://tinyurl.com/cjfx9ag.

The Facebook page is at http://www.facebook.com/ETGECC and the weekly discussion is at http://slurl.com/secondlife/UTMB%20Island%20Alpha/143/227/26.