College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University
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Converting Consumerism: A Liturgical-Ethical Application of Critical Realism
Get PDFCritical realism as a lens of thought is not new to theological inquiry, but recently a growing number of theologians have been using its conceptual frameworks to guide their thought on how social structures function theologically, and how ethics might function in light of its insights. This article pulls these developments into the nexus of liturgy and ethics, applying critical realist categories to contemporary understandings of how liturgical celebration (and the structures thereof) form, inform, and/or malform Christian ethical imaginations and practices. The article begins with a brief survey of the main tenets of critical realism and their histories in theological inquiry, and argues that a main gift critical realism can offer liturgical and sacramental theology is a structural understanding of liturgical narrative- and value-building. Having described this gift, the article moves to a concrete application of this method in liturgical theology and its implications for ethics: addressing consumerism as a culture that can be both validated and challenged by liturgical and sacramental structures. The article ends with some brief suggestions for using and shifting liturgical structures to better facilitate the Christian conversion of consumerism
The Kaleidoscopic Turn: Henry James and Edith Wharton on the Problem of Modernity
No full textHenry James and Edith Wharton comprise two of the most successful turn-of-the-century American writers. The two follow the progression of young men and women who attempt to navigate marital, social, and monetary concerns of high-society. This paper traces James and Wharton’s use of art, convention, and the kaleidoscope to highlight their respective attitudes toward modernity. Their language especially concerns females and their socially-assumed decorative qualities. By means of a cultural and theoretical analysis, followed by close readings of The Portrait of a Lady (James), The Age of Innocence (Wharton), The House of Mirth (Wharton), and The Custom of the Country (Wharton), this thesis seeks to prove the valuable insight readers can glean from reading James and Wharton through a kaleidoscopic lens
Climate Change as Religious, Ethical, and Political: Interfaith Reflections with Emphasis on U.S. Catholicism
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Non-Pharmacological Pain Management Interventions to Decrease Pharmacological Need in a Long-Term Care Facility: A Quality Improvement Study
Get PDFThe Implementation of Non-Pharmacological Pain Management Interventions to Decrease Pharmacological Need in a Long-Term Care Facility: a Quality Improvement Study
Effective pain management is a universal issue throughout the healthcare field, especially in long-term care. The increasing older adult population, coupled with chronic under-staffing, produces an environment that inhibits efforts to treat chronic pain and acute pain flares that are often present in this patient population. In response to an increasing demand for improved pain treatment, research has focused on locating and testing the efficacy of many non-pharmacological pain management techniques. These techniques include healing touch, music therapy, cold/heat application, re-positioning, Range Of Motions exercises, and environmental modification. The long-term care facility in this study, Good Shepherd Community, identified controlling chronic pain with acute flares as an area that would benefit from a quality improvement project. In response to this issue, we established a pain management chart with non-pharmacological interventions corresponding to the facility’s pain rating scale (1-10) for six to eight residents on three separate units. Our goal was to decrease the rating and occurrence of pain through the utilization of non-pharmacological treatment in conjunction with medications already prescribed to the resident
Dark Chocolate- Lowering Hypertension and Costs
Get PDFThe goal of this quality improvement project was to promote better blood pressure control for residents in a long-term care facility (LTC) who have primary hypertension and potentially reduce the costs associated with their care. Data has shown that nationally, persons with hypertension as a comorbidity pay nearly $2,000 more in healthcare costs compared to their non-hypertensive counterparts (Kirkland, 2018). Chart audits revealed that 63% of residents on a single wing had a diagnosis of primary hypertension and had incidences of high blood pressure recordings. A survey of staff at the LTC faculty showed that 13 out of 15 staff members claimed that residents with a diagnosis of hypertension require more care while one staff member disagreed, and one staff member said they did not know. Despite interventions such as antihypertensive medications, daily physical therapy and modified diets, uncontrolled hypertension was still prevalent with these LTC residents. Research has shown that dark chocolate is a non-pharmacological intervention that could augment medications to help control high blood pressure. Average blood pressures were determined for residents who consented to participate in this project. Dark chocolate was administered once daily to 9 participants over the course of 3 weeks. After implementing the daily chocolate intake, another audit was completed to compare the average blood pressures and evaluate whether any blood pressure changes occurred. Hypertension is very costly for long-term care facilities due to frequent hospitalizations and complication-related readmission, which are paid for by the facility (Kirkland, 2018). Thus, engaging in non-pharmacological interventions such as dark chocolate may potentially reduce costs to the LTC facility if shown to be effective
The Conflicts that Pave the Way for Peace: Lebanese Poet and Philosopher Mikhail Naimy
Get PDFMikhail Naimy is a twentieth century Lebanese author and philosopher whose writings verge towards the mystical and the metaphysical. Naimy’s philosophy is a synthesis of his own life conflicts and his built premises and drawn conclusions that trivialize materialism, following the steps of Christ. Among Naimy’s first conflicts was leaving of his hometown Baskinta and its highland Shakhroub for Nazareth to continue his education, and the estrangement he felt that was alleviated by a touch of God. Some of the other conflicts in Naimy’s life were the love affairs that yielded to the understanding that true love should be beyond change, and therefore, beyond the sensual enchainment that confines the metaphysical meaning of love. An added conflict that paved the way for peace was Naimy’s conscription as an American soldier in World War I, at the Normandy front. He witnessed the ugliness and absurdity of war, and this experience led him to believe God lives within humans, never without. As Naimy returned to New York, after World War I, he realized he was held captive against his will in the buck race, a race where humans run after the dollar to make a living, so they end up being enslaved to a currency they deem essential for their survival while they as humans are the primary elements of their own being. As a result, transcendence was the only remedy; this transcendence was through finding the higher cause of existence, embodied in loving and expressed in writing. Finally, Naimy perceives that conflicts are blessings and pave the way for peace through love, faith, and transcendence
Review of The Practice of Islam in America: An Introduction
Get PDFThe demand, indeed urgency, within the American Academy for courses on Islam has perhaps never been greater than at current. Yet, the very conditions that create this urgency also produce anxieties for those fulfilling this pedagogical role. The challenge confronting many of us - knowing that our students will enter the classroom with ideas/questions about Islam stemming, in large part, from what they’ve encountered through popular media and the news – is how to carry out this work in a way that both acknowledges this abiding, even if delimiting, contemporary context without allowing our teaching to be subsumed by it. How to engage with students’ a priori ideas and questions without assuming a pedagogical posture that offers ‘correctives’ rather than a different point of entry into conversations about Islam. How to provide students with knowledge about Islam that they can “hold onto” without fixing Islam in ways that reproduce totalizing or singular conceptions of this, or any, religious tradition.
Edward Curtis’ edited volume, The Practice of Islam in America, provides both the methodological tools and content to resolve a number of these conundrums. It is a valuable and effective resource for all those invested in the academic study and teaching of Islam broadly, as well as the more particular context of the United States. The strength of this four-part text, comprised of twelve individually authored essays, can be enumerated in a variety of ways. For the purpose of this review, my comments will focus on its pedagogical breadth and utility; the capacity of this volume of essays to (individually and collectively) provide teachers and students with an array of ethnographic evidence to assist students in gaining a fuller understanding of Islam as a textual, historical and lived tradition
“Where Is Everybody?” Fermi’s Paradox, Evolution, and Sin
Get PDFThe Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project has been scanning the heavens for signs of intelligent life for almost half a century. So far, nothing. This raises the question physicist Enrico Fermi asked, Where is everybody? The probability of intelligent life on another planet is high so why the silence? Technological civilizations may be short-lived. The mechanisms of evolution that lead to intelligent life and technological development also lead to propensities traditionally labeled as sin. These propensities make it difficult for technological civilizations to survive long enough to escape their home planet