Traditional Teachings Research Articles

A Vedic Approach to Environmental Injustice: An Exploration into the Nature of the Ganga and Interconnected Consciousness

Nature has traditionally been a vital complement of human life in Indian tradition. The sacred river Ganges holds deep spiritual and mythological symbolism and has earned the reverence and worship of Indians for centuries. Now there is a mentality developing in India in which new hierarchies of values are being created and traditional teachings and core ethics are compromised. The current scenario in India speaks of a disconnection from ancient intrinsic values of the interconnected roles of humans and nature. By using the Ganges as a case study this study will explore the shift and renewal of the spiritual essence of the interconnection. In an attempt to understand the shift of values, this study will examine the human-nature relationship given in Vedic philosophy and core values and ethics existing in this interconnectedness. The study will investigate how and why the relationship between human beings and nature has changed, what ethics and values have been undermined, and how the ethics necessary for coexistence can be rediscovered and renewed today.

Lessons Learned from the Yellowhead Tribal Services Agency Open Custom Adoption Program1

Following a historic meeting of staff with Alberta Children’s Services and the Yellowhead Tribal Services Agency (YTSA), a pilot program, the YTSA Open Custom Adoption, was developed. The agency initially researched existing adoption models in the Northwest Territories, British Columbia and in the Cheyenne Nation in the United States. An advisory committee, comprised of one Elder from each member First Nation community, was asked to provide guidance and direction throughout the project. From 2000 to 2010, YTSA placed over a hundred children in adoptive homes without any adoption breakdowns (Peacock & Morin, 2010). Although the agency has now closed its doors, there are lessons to be learned from the YTSA Open Custom Adoption program which is still viewed as an advanced model of adoption service inspired by traditional First Nation teachings and child caring. This article is a review of lessons learned from this agency and in particular, the importance of connectedness to family, community culture and nationhood for Indigenous children and adoption.

Tribal Perspectives on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and HIV and AIDS Risks among Married Women in Nigeria

This paper analyzed risk of contracting HIV that is associated with Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) due to the involvement of traditional circumcisers. The demographic and health survey for 2008 were used. The data were analyzed with Ordered Probit regression. The results indicated that majority of the circumcised women (89.18 percent) would not want their daughters to be circumcised. A Yoruba woman was 25.67 points more likely to be at high HIV risk from FGM than women from other tribes. Those that indicated cleanliness, social acceptance, better marriage prospects, sexual pleasure and religious approval as reasons for female circumcision were 8.85 percent, 3.53 percent, 7.51 percent, 23.45 percent and 6.68 percent points more likely to be at high HIV risk from FGM than other women. Those women that were resident in North-Central, North-East and North-West were 6.53 percent points, 15.06 percent points and 7.98 percent points respectively less likely to be at high HIV risk from female circumcision than those from South South zone, while those from South-East and South-West were 16.56 percent points and 8.51 percent points respectively more. There is need for efforts to provide proper education to dissuade traditional teachings on the benefits of FGM.

Transformative Inquiry While Learning∼Teaching

In Transformative Inquiry (TI), pre-service teachers explore issues about which they are personally passionate in order to enter into the delicate work of transformation. We examine how shared vulnerability within three mentor~mentee pairs leads to new pedagogical possibilities. Michele and Vanessa discuss poetry as a way of entering into TI and how Michele became decentered as mentor as she was carried along in Vanessa’s knowing around poetry. Maureen and Jenn describe how, when faced with pervasive class dynamics of apathetic resistance, they opened themselves more fully to vulnerability. Diana describes the tension of showing interest in Liz’s inquiry without providing Liz with a “direction,” and Liz describes how she resisted traditional academic teachings about how to be a “good” student. Themes of safe enough space, emotion as catalyst, shifting power between learner and teacher, humble engagement, and holistic growth are overlaid with similar themes found by other transformative educators.

Dinéjí Na `Nitin: Navajo Traditional Teachings and History. By Robert S. McPherson . ( Boulder : University Press of Colorado , 2012 . x + 287 pp. Illustrations, map, noes, bibliography, index. $24.95 , paper.)Navajo Tradition, Mormon Life: The Autobiography and Teachings of Jim Dandy. By Robert S. McPherson, Jim Dandy, and Sarah E. Burak . ( Salt Lake City

<b><i>Dinéjí Na `Nitin: Navajo Traditional Teachings and History</i></b>. By Robert S. McPherson . ( Boulder : University Press of Colorado , 2012 . x + 287 pp. Illustrations, map, noes, bibliography, index. $24.95 , paper.)<b><i>Navajo Tradition, Mormon Life: The Autobiography and Teachings of Jim Dandy</i></b>. By Robert S. McPherson, Jim Dandy, and Sarah E. Burak . ( Salt Lake City

Therapeutic, Prophylactic, Untoward, and Contraceptive Effects of Combined Oral Contraceptives: Catholic Teaching, Natural Law, and the Principle of Double Effect When Deciding to Prescribe and Use

Combined oral contraceptives (COC) have been demonstrated to have significant benefits for the treatment and prevention of disease. These medications also are associated with untoward health effects, and they may be directly contraceptive. Prescribers and users must compare and weigh the intended beneficial health effects against foreseeable but unintended possible adverse effects in their decisions to prescribe and use. Additionally, those who intend to abide by Catholic teachings must consider prohibitions against contraception. Ethical judgments concerning both health benefits and contraception are approached in this essay through an overview of the therapeutic, prophylactic, untoward, and contraceptive effects of COC and discussion of magisterial and traditional Catholic teachings from natural law. Discerning through the principle of double effect, proportionate reason, and evidence gathered from the sciences, medical and moral conclusions are drawn that we believe to be fully compliant with good medicine and Catholic teaching.

Evidence-based medicine: Dupuytren contracture.

After studying this article, the participant should be able to: (1) Describe features and clinical importance of Dupuytren diathesis. (2) Explain the difference between the new definition of recurrence used in collagenase studies compared with prior definitions of recurrence. (3) Compare and list the main advantage/main disadvantage of fasciectomy versus minimally invasive treatment (collagenase injection or needle aponeurotomy) of Dupuytren contracture. The large body of existing literature on Dupuytren disease is spread across many journals in many specialties. It is thus a daunting task for practitioners to follow trends and practice recommendations. It is also a testimony to the lack of an acceptable solution to this common problem. Recent publications provide evidence to highlight controversies and challenge some traditional teachings. Literature from 2010 to 2012 was reviewed with the intent of clarifying some of these issues.

Dinéj Na`nitin: Navajo Traditional Teachings and History by Robert S. McPherson (review)

NAIS 1:1 SPRING 2014 Reviews 119 RICHARD T. MACE Dinéjí Nànitin: Navajo Traditional Teachings and History by Robert S. McPherson University of Colorado Press, 2012 HISTORIAN ROBERT MCPHERSON created Dinéjí Nànitin to share the insight he had gathered from over thirty years of speaking and meeting with Navajo elders . He explains that the elders have a “growing concern that the younger generation was losing its understanding of what their grandmothers and grand­ fathers” experienced (7). McPherson notes the “extreme anguish” felt by Navajo elders of having their traditional teachings and history lost as the younger generation is “buried in a contemporary blizzard of activities sponsored by white culture that has made the old ways seem arcane, outdated, and impractical” (ibid). Dinéjí Nànitin is composed of nine independent chapters whose intent is to present and preserve the important lessons and stories that the Navajo tribal elders are afraid of losing to time and the distraction of younger members of the tribe. In his first chapter, McPherson examines divination, explaining the concepts by which the Navajo perform ceremonies and come to answers through their religious worldview. Each form of divination—wind listening, star gazing , and hand trebling—differ from each other. Listening is auditory, gazing involves sight, and trembling involves touch. The Navajo believe the world is filled with invisible holy people who understand what has and what will happen and that supernatural power plays an important role in finding tribal members who have the ability to use divination. McPherson notes that the Navajo believe the power of divination comes at a cost. If these powers are abused by their practitioners, they are cursed with disease. In his second chapter, McPherson examines why the Navajo were so devastated by the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918–19. McPherson articulately explains the Navajo custom of leaving home after someone dies, as it is believed that the lonely spirit stays in the vicinity. He contends that after the Navajo left their warm winter hogans because of this practice, they became more susceptible to the elements and the flu, and greater numbers got sick and died. Another Navajo custom that exacerbated the problem was sweat lodges. Since the influenza is a respiratory illness, sweat lodges served to both spread the disease, as well as provided for a faster incubation. McPherson notes that the nearby Ute tribe’s ceremonies are not as communal, so they did not spread the disease as rampantly as did the Navajo, and subsequently did not suffer the same level of mortality. Reviews NAIS 1:1 SPRING 2014 120 Moving from the devastation of the flu, an evil foretold by the bad omen of a solar eclipse, according to sun gazing divination, McPherson explains ideas of medicine men and witchery. He highlights Clyde Kluckhohn’s study Navajo Witchcraft, which identifies the four types of “black magic”: witchery, sorcery , wizardry, and frenzy witchcraft. He notes that the Navajo do not draw a particular distinction between good and evil magic; it only matters how the magic is used. He explains that it is important for medicine men to have an understanding of dark magic. Otherwise, they would be unprepared to create countermagic to negate its effects. Balance is central in Navajo religion, even excessive good can be a negative by becoming out of control, but rituals provide “the means by which things out of bounds can be brought back to safety and order” (78). The second half of Dinéjí Nànitin focuses on language and traditional­ stories. McPherson explains that the struggle in maintaining traditional Navajo storytelling is that the younger generation does not appreciate traditional language. He points to Charlie Blueyes as an example of a repository of Navajo wisdom, whose grandson was fluent in English but his Navajo was almost nonexistent, as school and the dominant society replaced traditional learning. The significance of the dwindling numbers of those who can speak Navajo is that “only pure Navajo words are used in ceremonies” and that these words serve as a “major underlying tenet of the Navajo belief system” (215). With the passing of elders like Charlie Blueyes, traditional stories, wisdom , and ceremonies pass out of existence...

BUDDHISM, NATURALISM, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

AbstractOwen Flanagan's important book The Bodhisattva's Brain presents a naturalized interpretation of Buddhist philosophy. Although the overall approach of the book is very promising, certain aspects of its presentation could benefit from further reflection. Traditional teachings about reincarnation do not contradict the doctrine of no self, as Flanagan seems to suggest; however, they are empirically rather implausible. Flanagan's proposed “tame” interpretation of karma is too thin; we can do better at fitting karma into a scientific worldview. The relationship between eudaimonist and utilitarian strands in Buddhist ethics is more complex than the book suggests. Flanagan is right to criticize incautious and imprecise claims that Buddhism will make practitioners happy. We can make progress by distinguishing between happiness in the sense of a Buddhist version of eudaimonia, and happiness in the sense of attitudinal pleasure. Doing so might result in an interpretation of Buddhist views about happiness that was simultaneously philosophically interesting, historically credible, and psychologically testable.

Qurʾānic Interpretative Latitude and Human Evolution: A Case Study

Muslims today employ various and often conflicting strategies to mitigate contradictions between traditional Islamic teachings and modern science, especially in matters related to the age of the universe and the origin of humans. On the one hand, any scientific theory deemed problematic might be rejected outright; on the other, Islamic texts may be reinterpreted to fully support a novel scientific theory. There is, however, an alternative hermeneutical approach that uses intra-textual analysis to acknowledge “interpretative latitude” in the Qurʾān and other Islamic texts – the possibility that these texts allow for ambiguity and multiple interpretations that may or may not agree with modern science. In this paper, human evolution will serve as a case study of the implementation of this approach via a structured discussion of common Muslim objections to the theory. The paper will conclude with a discussion of the implications of this approach on defining the role of the Qurʾān and on the boundaries of religion and science.

L’Église catholique et l’enseignement de l’estime. Discours sur le judaïsme et relations avec les Juifs en Belgique et en France de 1965 à 2000

Over the last few decades, the official teaching of the Catholic Church with respect to Judaism has evolved from a “teaching of contempt” towards what the French historian Jules Isaac termed as “enseignement de l’estime”. The point of departure for such a change came from the part of Rome, where the declaration Nostra Aetate 4 (1964) marked a turning point in the relationship between the Church and the Jewish world. Presenting Judaism in a new light, the Council officially opened up the ways for an exchange of perspectives in the new relationship between the members of the two religions. But a new relationship cannot be based on either forgetting or evading the past. It would after all take many decades for the Church to see face to face its past relationship with the Jews, to question its traditional teachings developed within the theology of the Substitution, and to ask for forgiveness. The presence of Pope John Paul II at the Western Wall in Jerusalem in March 2000 was a gesture of this request for forgiveness. The years 1965-2000 were an important turning point for the dialogue between the Church and the Jewish world. They were characterized by great progress, by highly symbolic gestures but also by difficult moments of which the Auschwitz case could be described as the most serious crisis since the Holocaust. In the present thesis, we have studied the key stages in the relationship between the Jews and the Catholics both within the French and the Belgian contexts. We tried to observe if the ecclesiastical discourse against the Jews evolved into a “teaching of esteem” in these two countries. We focused particularly on the works done by the specialized ecclesiastical committees created for the Judeo-Christian dialogue following the Council, namely the National Commission for Relations with Judaism in Belgium and the Episcopal Committee for Relations with Jews in France. We studied their publications and their initiatives to educate Christians towards a better appreciation of the Jews. Moreover, our study did not detach itself from the Roman reflections and the social evolution. The conclusion of our research has well highlighted the reality of the existence of a “teaching of esteem” within the Church with respect to the Jews in Belgium and in France. But it has also showed the difficulties for such discourses in penetrating the Christian mind in general.

Einen Zedel fechter ich mich ruem/Im Schwerd vnd Messer vngestuem. Fechtmeister als Protagonisten und als (fach-)literarisches Motiv in den deutschsprachigen Fechtlehren des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit

AbstractThe group of fencing masters of the 14th to 16th century is investigated according to their function as a literary motif in fencing treatises written in German. One example is the attribution of a particular set of instructions to ‘mystical’ founding figures like Johannes Liechtenauer‚ who serves as an authentication strategy and proof of authority of the particular record. The texts themselves claim to record mnemonics of traditional teachings that were originally only passed down orally in an encrypted language. Here the mnemonics attributed to the original master remain unchanged and are merely interpreted and commented on. Analogies to bible exegesis that support the creation myth surrounding Johannes Liechtenauer become apparent. This phenomenon exists side by side with a synchronic polemic against false masters (

Trent: What Happened at the Council by John W. O’Malley (review)

Reviewed by: Trent: What Happened at the Council by John W. O’Malley Nelson H. Minnich, Francesco Cesareo, Franco Buzzi, Wim François, Violet Soen, Kenneth G. Appold, and John W. O’Malley S.J. Trent: What Happened at the Council. By John W. O’Malley (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013. Pp. xii, 335. $27.95. ISBN 978-0-674-06697-7.) Introduction by Nelson H. Minnich (The Catholic University of America) John W. O’Malley, who has distinguished himself as the preeminent historian of Catholicism in the early-modern period, has turned his attention to the most important event of that period, the Council of Trent (1545–63). Far from being a boring assembly of like-minded prelates and theologians who confidently reaffirmed traditional teachings and put order into a Church shaken by the challenge of Protestantism, The council, extraordinarily difficult to convoke, was even more difficult to hold on course. During it, animosities and substantive differences surfaced that brought the council again and again to the brink of disaster. At the end the council was able to arrive at a considerable measure of resolution, but only after navigating hazardous waters and surviving hurricane-strength storms. (p. 22) O’Malley has striven to produce an accessible introduction to the council for the general reader, making “no big claims” (p. 11); to dispel the myths surrounding it; and to distinguish the Council of Trent from postconciliar phenomena that were closely related to it but not grounded in the council itself and tagged as components of “Tridentinism” (pp. 11, 275). His account is a delight to read—full of drama, analyses of the hopes and fears of leading protagonists and of the limiting political context in which they moved, insightful character sketches, pithy quotes from participants, balanced but sympathetic presentations of Protestant positions, contemporary Catholic teachings and practice and their antecedents, identification of the key issues at stake, the use of silence as a typical method of compromise, the content of the decrees and the material not included, the decrees’ claims to apostolic origins, the interpretation of the council’s chapters and canons, and the implementation of Trent. His study is based primarily on the documents of the council with reference to relevant secondary literature. It is a remarkable synthesis of the best of previous historians of the council: the drama and wit of Paolo Sarpi’s Istoria del Concilio Tridentino (1619), the meticulous documentation of Pietro Sforza Pallavicino’s three-volume Istoria del Concilio di Trento (1656–64), and the prodigious scholarship of Hubert Jedin’s four-volume Geschichte des [End Page 749] Konzil von Trient (1949–75)—and all this in less than 300 very readable pages, enriched by appendices that provide a chronology of the council’s twenty-five sessions and a translation of the Tridentine Profession of Faith, plus thirty-four pages of notes. O’Malley is the masterful storyteller. What follows is a summary of his historical narrative and of the major themes of each chapter. He begins his account with a description of the city of Trent (technically located in the German Nation, but on the Italian side of the Alps, under the jurisdiction of a prince-bishop and with a majority Italian-speaking population) and the three periods of the council in Trent (1545–47, 1551–52, 1562–63—it relocated to Bologna during 1547–49). He provides an overview of those who came to the council such as their numbers (varying from fifteen to 280 prelates per session) and their nationalities (mostly Italian, but with a sizable Spanish contingent, a small but significant German presence during the second period, a notable French presence during the third period, and a few representatives from other nations who were living in exile). He describes how the council was financed (at times claiming 18 percent of the papal budget) and how it was meant to address problems (clarifying Catholic doctrine and practice, and eliminating abuses). Its doctrinal decrees were often divided into chapters that provided a positive statement of church teachings and into canons (concise statements ending with an anathema) that condemned the saying and doing of things considered inconsistent with the Church...

“Fear, Shame and Embarrassment”: The Stigma Factor in Post Abortion Care at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Kumasi, Ghana

Using qualitative data on post abortion care services at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana, the paper explored evidence of social stigma as a factor in post abortion care. Results from 6 focus group discussions, 10 narratives and observations identified three areas of stigma. The Patients (perspective and experience), the Providers (the medical environment and setting) and the Community (family, relations and peers). Evidence from the focus group discussions, narratives and observations suggested social stigma as a significant factor in the process of pre-marital sex, abortion and post abortion care. At the individual level there was fear, shame and embarrassment. The medical setting was judgmental, indifferent and/or showed disdain while there was moral consensus, the morality of abortion by family, peers and community. In recognition of the dangers inherent in unsafe abortion outside the medical setting and in view of the fact that death from complications of unsafe abortion is preventable, these findings have implications for intervention and policy. The paper recommended collective effort to addressing all three areas of stigma and post abortion care. Sustained education, sensitization and dissemination using all available channels including traditional teachings and practices to reduce stigma and provide safer alternatives were suggested.

TOWARD AUTOMATED GENERATION OF CHINESE CLASSIC POETRY

The forms of Chinese classic poetry have been developed through thousands of years of history and are still current in today's poetry society. A re-classification of the rhyming words, however, is necessary to keep the classic poetry up to date in the new settings of modern Chinese language. To ease the transition process, computing technology is used to help the readers as well as poetry writers to check the compliance of poems in accordance with the forms and to compose poems without the effort to learn the old grouping of rhyming words. A piece of software has been developed in a faculty/student research project at the University of Houston-Downtown to verify this idea. This software, called Chinese classic poetry wizard, provides the functionality of checking metrical forms and rhyming schemes. It also allows users to edit rhyme dictionaries and metrical forms. The new rhyming scheme proposed in this paper should rationalize the composition rules of classic Chinese poetry in the modern society; and the poem composition wizard will provide a handy tool for poem composition. This work will help revive Chinese classic poetry in modern society and, in a sequel, contribute to the current campaign of advocating Chinese traditional teachings.

The logic of the Trinity: Augustine to Ockham

This book recounts the remarkable history of efforts by significant medieval thinkers to accommodate the ontology of the Trinity within the framework of Aristotelian logic and ontology. These efforts were remarkable because they pushed creatively beyond the boundaries of existing thought while trying to strike a balance between the Church's traditional teachings and theoretical rigor in a context of institutional politics. In some cases, good theology, good philosophy, and good politics turned out to be three different things.The principal thinkers discussed are Augustine, Boethius, Ablard, Gilbert of Poitiers, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham. The aspects of Trinitarian doctrine dealt with are primarily internal ontological questions about the Trinity. The approach draws on history of theology and philosophy, as well as on the modern formal disciplines of set-theoretic semantics and formal ontology.Augustine inaugurated the project of constructing models of the Trinity in language drawn from Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, especially the conceptual framework of Aristotle's Categories. He used the Aristotelian notions of substance and relation to set up a model whose aim was not so much to demystify the Trinity as to demonstrate the logical consistency of maintaining that there is one and only one God at the same time as maintaining that there are three distinct persons, each of whom is God. Standing against this tradition are various heretical accounts of the Trinity. The book also analyzes these traditions, using the same techniques.All these accounts of the Trinity are evaluated relative to the three constraints under which they were formed, bearing in mind that the constraints on philosophical theorizing are not limited to internal consistency but also take note of explanatory power. Besides analyzing and evaluating individual accounts of the Trinity, the book provides a novel framework within which different theories can be compared.

Historical consciousness and traditional Buddhist narratives

In this paper, I intend to explore some of the issues that come up when I tried to teach academically grounded, accurate, non-sectarian history of Buddhism at Buddhist dharma centers. First among these issues is that Western Buddhists can be quite fundamentalist in their approach to Buddhism and take many narratives literally. Chief among these, especially for Mahāyāna Buddhists, is the Heart Sūtra, which they believe was actually given by the historical Buddha during his lifetime because of the setting in which this narrative is placed. To explain why Mahāyāna teachings did not take hold for about four hundred years, they add the belief that the historical Buddha realized that people were not ready for those teachings, so he had them concealed among the nāgas, from where Nāgārjuna retrieved them. Historians obviously do not take this story seriously as history and seek for historical causes and conditions that led to the development of Mahāyāna ideas some four hundred years after the death of the Buddha. I will argue, first, that key Buddhist teachings, especially teachings on all-pervasive impermanence and on interdependent origination, can be used to verify historical accounts of the origins of Mahāyāna Buddhism. In other words, to accept the more sensible and reasonable account given by modern historians is not to abandon traditional Buddhist beliefs and teachings. It is rather to appeal to traditional Buddhist teachings that provide more adequate explanations of the origins of Mahāyāna Buddhism that the traditional mythic narrative. Second, I will discuss how the mythic account can be interpreted symbolically and will argue that symbols should not be considered as less important or real than facts. Only those who buy completely into the model of scientific materialism provided by the European enlightenment would not understand that in religions, symbols are as meaningful as facts.

The Cultic World of the Blind Monks: Benzaiten, Jūzenji, and Shukujin

AbstractThis paper examines the complex institutional and symbolic network that developed during the medieval period, bringing together people, places, institutions, myths, legends, rituals, and deities. It focuses on the relationships between the goddess of musical arts and eloquence Benzaiten, the Hie Shrine deity Jūzenji, and itinerant performers such as the blind monks (mōsō) and thebiwa hōshi, who were instrumental in bringing together traditional Buddhist teachings and the performing arts (geinō). The paper argues that these relationships formed part of a broader semantic and symbolic field, at the center of which was the Protean figure of theshukujin(whose name can mean “astral god” and “god of destiny,” but also “god of theshuku”—outcasts groups and settlements). It shows how the latter was eventually identified by the Nō playwright Konparu Zenchiku (1405-1468), in his seminal workMeishukushū, with the figure of Okina, the divine old man that is widely regarded as the symbol of Nō theater. With the slow decline of the blind monks and the growing aestheticism of Nō, however, the vital connection between esoteric Buddhism, local religious traditions, and the performing arts eventually unraveled.

A viagem de Ercole Luigi Morselli (1904) à América Latina. Do mito de Ulissea à reescrita do mito: Orion (1910) e Glauco (1919)

O jovem Ercole Luigi Morselli (1882-1921), futuro autor promissor e dramaturgo de sucesso, realiza uma viagem transoceânica rocambolesca por mar, que dura um ano, do verão de 1903 ao outono de 1904. A viagem surge de várias exigências, entre as quais uma manifesta intolerância diante das regras e ensinamentos tradicionais, por parte de um espírito livre e rebelde, animado por grandes veleidades artísticas. O desejo de um “outro lugar” surge da necessidade de distanciar-se provisoriamente da “Madre”, termo para entender-se no duplo sentido: pátria – terra das letras e da cultura na qual sonha de afirmar-se com seu futuro ofício de escritor – e de geratriz, isto é, sua mãe, Anna Celli, para poder enfim emancipar-se e “crescer” como homem e como artista, ainda que mantendo, através da correspondência, uma forte ligação com ambos. Entre raríssimos artistas da sua geração, Morselli é um dos que realizou viagem semelhante. Desta experiência fundamental, pode-se traçar uma espécie de itinerário artístico e pessoal do artista, através da correspondência enviada à mãe, na qual aparecem os primeiros claros sinais da sua ambição de artista e dos seus futuros trabalhos.

Initiating Palliative Care Conversations: Lessons from Jewish Bioethics

What are the ethical responsibilities of the medical staff (doctors, nurses, social workers, and chaplains) regarding the preservation of meaningful life for their patients who are approaching the end of life (EOL)? In particular, what is the staff's ethical responsibility to initiate a conversation with their patient regarding palliative care? By subjecting traditional Jewish teachings to an ethical analysis and then exploring the underlying universal principles, we will suggest a general ethical duty to inform patients of the different care options, especially in a manner that preserves hope. The principle that we can derive from Jewish bioethics teaches that the medical staff has a responsibility to help our patients live in a way that is consistent with how they understand their task or responsibility in life. For some patients, the best way to preserve a meaningful life in which they can fulfill their sense of purpose in the time that remains is to focus on palliation. For this reason, although palliative and supportive care are provided from the time of diagnosis, it is critical we make sure our patients realize that they have the opportunity to make a decision between either pursuing additional active treatments or choosing to focus primarily on palliative therapies to maximize quality of life. The Jewish tradition and our experience in spiritual care suggest the importance of helping patients preserve hope while, simultaneously, honestly acknowledging their situation. Staff members can play a vital role in helping patients make the most of this new period of their lives.