Spirituality today: hiking the Appalachian trail, boosting physical recovery and banning smoking in Jakarta

Spirituality news and features from around the web

Couple strengthens spiritual path while walking Appalachian Trail (The Frederick News-Post Online): “The trail is like a path through your life," Harris said. The white paint blazes guide you and make sure you keep on the right path and don't get lost." In comparison, "we have a guidebook," she said. The Bible.  In their chapter "The Path," they told the story about a guy they met who wasted a lot of time by accidentally going off the trail. He found a well-worn path where several others had obviously traveled before him, but he eventually realized it was leading him away from the Appalachian Trail.”

Study shows treating spirit affects physical recovery (The Houston Chronicle): “Having unmet spiritual needs can physically affect recovery from surgery, response to antibiotics, even reaction to chemotherapy, said Dr. Harold Koenig, co-director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University Medical Center.  “Many don’t understand the amount of research that backs this suggestion or recommendations to address spiritual issues that come with aging,” Koenig said. “Patients recognize they have spiritual needs, and when health care professionals address those spiritual needs, the patients feel better and, in fact, get better, faster.”

Food fight: a Kol Nidre call for sustainable consumption (Huffington Post): “As we tread more lightly on the planet by consuming less, we get closer to the experience of the rest of the world's population. Our calls for greater justice for the impoverished people of the world ring hollow when we are part of an American society that is only 5 percent of the world's population but which consumes more than 20 percent of the world's food, water and energy. We learn that the key to following a more sacred and ethical life is the discipline that comes from accepting limits to indulging our voracious appetites for whatever we want, whenever we want it. World events like the Gulf oil spill, global warming and weather-related disasters -- all the result of human activity -- are teaching us that both human beings and the planet pay a steep price for a life without limits.”

Spirituality and the Type A Personality (Huffington Post): “The missing principle is called The Law of Action, and can be defined as the forward movement we put to our intentions. People have grown tired of waiting. We want to feel empowered to breathe life into our dreams. The Law of Action enables us to do just that. By giving us the momentum we have been looking for, it helps us to move beyond thinking in terms of what is possible into acting on those possibilities.”

Smoking and spirituality: an uneasy truce (Jakarta Times): “Yunahar said he realized it was not easy to tell smokers to quit or to prevent children from getting access to tobacco. However, he believed that through an intensive promotional campaign and counseling, people would understand the dangers of smoking.  “Today’s global trend is toward not smoking,” he said. “I am sure it is not so hard to tell our followers to get away from tobacco. We are one community that does not regard smoking as part of our culture. Probably only 30 percent of our followers are smokers.”

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