Hibernation

published on Tuesday, January 12, 2010 by admin

If you are foolish enough to have given major bookstore chains your e-mail address, you may have noticed that you're being bombarded this month with discount coupons for self-help and diet books, since January is the month when we're all supposed to "Do something!" about our lives. The Connection also has succumbed to this annual temptation (see our posts on eating plans, advanced directives). But here's some counter-cultural advice: it's winter - make like a bear, and rest.

Did you get a wonderful book as a Christmas present? Or a lap blanket, or some comfy slippers? It's time to take advantage of them. The infant Jesus has been safely born and baptized; the Wise Men have come and gone. The gift of winter for pastors and lay people alike is that it can be the season of quiet rest before the growth spurt of spring.

Our colleague, the Reverend Ed Moore, points out that even Christ had to go away from crowds and followers on a regular basis in order to carry out his ministry. Can you permit yourself to be lazy, contemplative, unplugged for a brief time?

And given the challenges you face during the week, might you prefer the fellowship of [sleeping] bears?

To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal ...
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to lose and a time to seek;
a time to rend and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

We're interested in your perspectives. How do you carve out time for yourself in the midst of a hectic week? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Yours in health,
Robin

Robin Y. Swift, MPH
Health Programs Director
Clergy Health Initiative

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Another 2010 Resolution: Advanced Directives

published on Friday, January 8, 2010 by admin

A close friend’s ailing 92-year-old mother moved into his house the week before Christmas, prompting conversations about emergency procedures and advanced directives. Advanced directives are the legal documents that make clear to your physician, family and caregivers your preferences for care in the event of a life-threatening accident or illness.

Flickr/Amelia PSWhile his mother had completed and filed advanced directives for her care in the hospital, she had never considered what might happen if she collapsed at home. My friend certainly wouldn’t want burly emergency medical technicians to start CPR on his 71-pound mother, but he’d never asked her how she felt about a "do not resuscitate" statement. Then he realized, as did I, along with the rest of our circle of friends, that none of us had gotten around to completing our own advanced directives.

There’s no time like the present to do it.

Thinking about these issues and having straight-forward conversations with those we love to make our wishes clear may be daunting at first. But the confusion, anxiety, conflict and heartache we can eliminate by making and communicating these decisions far outweighs the initial discomfort.

You don’t need a lawyer to develop or complete advanced directives. The National Institutes of Health has a wonderful website on advanced directives that walks you through the process, and the Veterans Administration has created a guidebook that is easily understood and does a great job of anticipating questions about particular issues. Finally, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization has helpfully catalogued every state’s legal forms and attached suggestions about how and where to file them; here are North Carolina’s.

Feel free to share these resources with congregants, family and friends, so that once we’ve checked this resolution off of our 2010 lists, we can all breathe a little easier. You can also link with a wonderful toolkit resource from Duke’s Institute on Care at the End of Life.

Yours in health,
Robin

Robin Y. Swift, MPH
Health Programs Director
Clergy Health Initiative

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Global Jihad and Cell Phones

published on Tuesday, January 5, 2010 by admin


What health risks are real? What are imagined?

alvimann/MorgueFileI don't know about you, but I think that my risk of experiencing sudden death in 2010 from sitting next to a terrorist in flaming underwear on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit is fairly low. But the risk of dying because someone used a cell phone while driving, or because I used one myself? That’s a lot higher:

  • A study conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Motorists found that motorists who use cell phones while driving are four times more likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves.
  • In 2002, the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis calculated that 2,600 people die each year as a result of using cell phones while driving. They estimated that another 330,000 are injured.
  • According to the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, drivers talking on cell phones are 18 percent slower to react to brake lights. They also take 17 percent longer to regain the speed they lost when they braked.

As a busy pastor commuting between your home, office, church, or the hospital, you may be even more tempted than other drivers to work on the phone while you're driving.

I invite you to weigh the costs and benefits.

Can learning in real time what your spouse hopes you'll bring home for dinner outweigh the risks of a crash? Will getting an update on the emergency you're reacting to change how you'll respond when you arrive at your destination? Do you really want to be available at any time or any place? Wouldn't you rather drive in companionable silence, or listen to music, than multi-task?

One approach to minimizing the temptation to answer the phone while driving is to turn it off before you get in the car, and keep it turned off until you are physically off the road or out of the car. Though a hands-free device might seem like an alternative, new data shows that they don't lessen risk appreciably - you're still distracted.

So maybe you use the few minutes to give yourself a break instead.

Just a thought...

Yours in health,
Robin

Robin Y. Swift, MPH
Health Programs Director
Clergy Health Initiative

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