PENTECOST READING IN BRIEF

To Keep the Light Burning: reflections in

times of loss by Anne Le Marquand Hartigan (Salmon Poetry, 96pp, £9). This peace-filled anthology of poems and prose on the subject of death and grieving faces the reality of death with courage and feel- ing. Anne Le Marquand Hartigan begins the book with her never-forgotten child- hood experience of the old Irish custom of “waking the dead”, to accompany them on the journey from this life and to initiate the process of healing in those left behind. She juxtaposes prose and poetry, each shed- ding light on the other. Tablet price £8.10.

The Three Faces of Christby Trevor Dennis

(SPCK, 96pp, £6.99). This reissue of a book first published in 1999 combines prose and poetry on God come near to us in Christ, a Christ as a baby, as a man and as suffering on the Cross. It brings out the God who is with us and who is beyond trad itional gender roles: “Let us find her up to her elbows in flour”, says Trevor Dennis, “ready nonetheless to embrace us.” The helpless baby who allows one to look straight into the face of God, the adult man with laughter lines on his face, give way to the anguish and loneliness of the Cross. Everyday images coalesce around the recurring, haunting image of Eden and its recovery. Tablet price £6.30.

You are Mine: reflections on who we are

by Alison Webster (SPCK, 144pp, £9.99). Webster has produced a hymn to who we are as gloriously unique individuals. It speaks loudly of God by speaking, with a sense of awe, of each person’s specialness. Webster examines the forces of society that influence how we perceive our identity and how, mistakenly, we tend to stress an illu- sory self-determination that tries to do without God. She explores the unconscious power structures that subtend the stories we tell about our lives. This is a book that is not afraid to ponder at length the com- plexities of interaction with ourselves, with each other and with God. Tablet price £9.

Charity by Virgil Elizondo (Orbis/Alban Books, 144pp, £5.99). This book seeks to deepen our understanding of spirituality by going beyond information to transform - ation. Virgil Elizondo begins with inspiring accounts of lives of loving service. At the book’s centre stands the unlimited love of God, which acts as a catalyst for a life that really fulfils its God-given purpose. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy arise spontaneously from a loving heart, so it is this that we should cultivate. In the words of Pedro Arrupe SJ, quoted by Elizondo: “Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything.” Tablet price £5.40.

Rima Devereaux

To order any of these books, call The Tablet Bookshop on 01420 592974.

26 | THE TABLET | 22 May 2010

Faith on the couch

Spirituality and Psychiatry

Chris Cook, Andrew Powell and Andrew Sims (eds)

THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PSYCHIATRISTS, 300PP, £25

Tablet Bookshop price £22.50 Tel 01420 592974

A

ll the papers in this collection are written by members of the Spirituality

and Psychiatry Special Interest Group at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. That such a group exists at all may come as a surprise, but it has in fact been in existence for over 10 years and its existence illustrates a growing interest in spirituality within, rather than alongside, psychiatry. The wider context for these essays is clearly outlined by Sarah Eagger and others in the chapter on spiritual care in the NHS. While citing Department of Health policy documents in which meeting the spiritual needs of patients is deemed fundamental, the authors summarise the current provision of spiritual care as “a hotchpotch of policies and influences”. The language here is significant. One might well be curious about what the notion of need means in this context. The fact that it is never really discussed represents a serious lacuna in these essays.

Alongside more technical topics, there is welcome discussion of more basic questions concerning the relationship between religion, religious experience and spirituality. Although there is a wide variety of views

expressed here, the basic thesis can be summarised under four headings. 1: In the past spirituality was thought to be synonymous with religious belief, and unless it was pathological, as in the case of religious delusions, considered outside the sphere of psychiatry. 2: But we now find that many patients have a spirituality that is not attached to any religious belief or affiliation to institutional religion. 3: Research shows that having a spirituality and practising spiritual techniques (like meditation) can be useful because it may reduce stress and give hope to sufferers. 4: Therefore, psychiatry should not only take account of spirituality but promote it. This fundamental thesis determines the way in which each of the topics is approached. The reasons adduced by the contributors

for affirming spiritual beliefs and practices are thus purely pragmatic: they can be helpful in the recovery of people with mental illness. But the book flounders when it attempts to define spirituality and its relationship to religion, which it does by means of only very superficial references to philosophical or theological discourse. This means that issues concerning context and historical perspective, familiar territory to both biblical scholars and theologians, are – apart from a few astonishingly inadequate examples such as an attempt to summarise the Christian attitude to suicide in less than

THE TABLET POEM

Cana

He did not want to use his father’s skills;

to show that he was (beyond expression)

differently abled: he was human, after all. Yet it was her cousin’s cousin’s son – a poor wedding – and the wine ran out.

She could not help but look at him; just a

quick glance, seeing that saving face matters,

illuminating in a tiny flash skeins of the complex webs which hold us up,

so that his gaze fell on the water jars with their dark liquid circles where he saw

her glance again. It was only a question

of moving a few electrons sideways – not a great task – and yet there was a great shift

of empathy and love.

Lynn Roberts

From the sequence “Rosa Mundi”

Please send poems of your own for consideration to our poetry editor, Michael Glover, on: michaeltglover@hotmail.com. We cannot enter into extended

correspondence, but all submissions will be acknowledged.

one page and a similar effort to deal with prayer and miracles – wholly absent. Nor is there any discussion of the philosophical foundations of scientific method in relation to the nature of knowledge and our understanding of truth, certainty, doubt and the social sciences. But these issues are crucial to the notion of spirituality, whether we are discussing it in terms of religious belief or the more general, postmodern conception in which it is not anchored in a traditional, culturally rooted, form of theism. This lack is most visible in the discussion of madness, as it confronts the question of where belief stands in relation to rationality, and thus in relation to sanity. The potentially significant chapter on psychosis fails to move beyond acknowledging that the notion of the spiritual may be hard to maintain within the medical paradigm. Most people, I suspect, will consider it a good thing that psychiatrists now wish to take account of their patients’ beliefs, whether religious or not. But for the authors of this book, their secularised notion of spirituality is highly subjective, equating to a faith in which reason plays no part and whose function is, in the end, assessed in purely utilitarian terms.

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