Reporting spiritual needs of older adults living in Bavarian residential and nursing homes

We intended to study unaddressed psychosocial and spiritual needs among older people (of at least 65 years of age) living in nine residential/nursing homes in Bavaria in Southern Germany. We conducted an anonymous cross-sectional study with standardised questionnaires (i.e., Spiritual Needs Questionnaire, Brief Multidimensional Life Satisfaction Scale, Schedule for Meaning in Life Evaluation, etc.). Religious needs were predicted best by residents’ religious trust. Existential needs and inner peace needs correlated moderately with grief, and were predicted best by family/social support needs. All members of an interdisciplinary team should be trained in the specific competence of recognising older people's unmet spiritual needs. When these needs are recognised, caregivers and relatives have the chance to react.     

Synonymy and Intra-Theoretical Pluralism

The starting point of this paper is a version of intra-theoretical (logical) pluralism that was recently proposed by Hjortland [2013]. In a first move, I use synonymy-relations to formulate an intuitively compelling objection against Hjortland's claim that, if one uses a single calculus to characterise the consequence relations of the paraconsistent logic LP and the paracomplete logic K3, one immediately obtains multiple consequence relations for a single language and hence a reply to the Quinean charge of meaning variance. In a second move, I explain how a natural generalisation of the notion of synonymy (adapted to the 3-sided sequent-calculus used by Hjortland) can be used to counter this objection, but I also show how the solution can be turned into an equally devastating ‘one logic after all’ type of objection. Finally, I propose the general diagnosis that these problems could only arise in the presence of conceptual distinctions that are too coarse to accommodate coherent pluralist theses. The latter leads to the general methodological recommendation that the conceptual resources used to think and talk about logic should be kept in line with the formal resources that are used to define and describe a logical theory.     

Body–Mind Integrality: Remarks on the Nature and Origin of Universe and Life

This article summarizes scientific knowledge in the fields of quantum physics and medical science regarding the origin and the nature of the universe and life. The recent discoveries in the fields of biophysics, genetics, epigenetics, neuroscience, and psychosomatics describe the universe and life as highly coherent systems where information is a key factor. In this concept living systems are cognitive networks in a dynamic relationship with their environment. Health in this context is a dynamic balance in a subject in which the information flows functionally. Disease is identified as a pathology of information that can be classified in a new way, considering two different codes of meaning—the semiotic and the symbolic.     

SCIENCE,RELIGION, AND THE MEANING OF LIFE AND THE UNIVERSE: “AMALGAM” NARRATIVES OF POLISH NATURAL SCIENTISTS

This article deals with phenomena occurring at the interface of the existential, the religious, and scientific inquiry. On the basis of in‐depth interviews with Polish physicists and biologists, I examine the role that science and religion play in their narrative of the meaning of the Universe and human life. I show that the narratives about meaning have a system‐related (“amalgam") character that is associated with responses to adjacent metaphysical questions, including those based on scientific knowledge. I reconstruct the typical amalgam questions of Polish scientists and come to a conclusion about the stability of religious and nonreligious amalgams in this group. Critically referring to the thesis concerning the secularizing impact of science, I conclude that science by itself does not have a destructive effect on Polish scientists’ confidence that life and the Universe are meaningful, but is rather an exacerbating factor of the existing worldview system.     

Myth,Meaning and the Order of Words: Reading Hadith Collections with Northrop Frye and the Development of Compilation Criticism

The field of Hadith Studies has been grappling and engaging with Ignaz Goldziher's ideas about Hadith and, in particular, the isnād; but this focus on the isnād and the early Islamic period has meant that there has been relatively little reflection on how Hadiths actually work from a theoretical perspective, and even less study on Hadith compilation as a specific scholarly exercise. This article will argue that there is a need to think of Hadith collections not simply as legal works or repositories of information, but rather as literary works, which seek to say something that can only be understood through a process of compilation criticism. This article will use the work of the Canadian literary theorist and critic Northrop Frye to explore issues in the study of Hadiths and their compilation. Frye's approach to the Bible and English literature, particularly his ideas concerning the construction of meaning and discourse, adds a great deal to the understanding of the way Hadiths and Hadith collections work and how they can be read.     

Meaning in life and its relationships with intrinsic religiosity,deliberate rumination,and emotional regulation

Meaning in life is one of the core elements of well‐being. Although meaning in life has received considerable research interest over the years, much of this research did not differentiate between the two categories of meaning, that is, search for meaning and meaning in life. The present study first investigated collective explanatory powers that intrinsic religiosity, deliberate rumination, and emotional regulation – three predictors selected based on past literature – have on these two types of meaning. In addition, mediational effects of deliberate rumination and emotional regulation in the links between intrinsic religiosity and search for meaning and presence of meaning were investigated. The participants were 326 undergraduate students in Seoul, South Korea. The hierarchical regression analyses found that while intrinsic religiosity contributed significantly in explaining only presence of meaning, deliberate rumination and emotional regulation had significant contributions in explaining both search for meaning and presence of meaning. Also, double mediational analysis using structural equation modelling revealed that deliberate rumination, but not emotional regulation, mediated the relationship between intrinsic religiosity and meaning in life. The implications and directions for future studies are also discussed.     

The Parable of the Sower: a case study examining the use of the Godly Play® method as a spiritual intervention on a psychiatric unit of a major children’s hospital

This case study examines the use of Godly Play® as a pastoral intervention on a psychiatric unit at Children’s Health – Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. The chaplain adapts Godly Play®, more typically used as a programme of Christian formation in churches and schools, for this setting, leading a ‘Purpose and Meaning’ group weekly whose goal is to provide inpatients with a developmentally appropriate way of reflecting on and expressing their own sense of identity, purpose and meaning within the personal, social and spiritual milieu in which they identify themselves as members. The case study examines how the method is adapted as a spiritual intervention in a clinical setting, and analyses its effectiveness in meeting the stated goals of the group.     

A new discourse on spirituality in public education. Confronting the challenges in a post-secular society

Australia is facing a new frontier in the educational discourse of spirituality as we transition into a globalised and post-secular society. Teachers are now faced with the question of how to respond to the intrinsic spiritual awareness of secondary school students and the subsequent inquiry process into matters of personal spirituality, meaning and worldview. In Independent and Catholic schools across Australia, spirituality has a dimension to learning and has a significant place in the curriculum and in the classroom, inculcated through pastoral care programmes and the teaching of religious education. However, in public schools, there is a paucity of research investigating whether young people consider spirituality to be an important and worthwhile component of their educational experience. This article highlights the importance of inquiry into spirituality in public education, through political discourse, and the potential for resurgence in exploring spiritual lived experience from a phenomenological perspective.     

Escapism motive for sport consumption as a predictor of meaning in life

The objective of this study was to examine whether spectator escapism motive for sport consumption could predict meaning in life, and to explore the role of psychological ownership in this relationship. A sample of 806 football spectators (African = 85%, male = 67.4%, Sesotho = 26.2%) completed the Motivation Scale for Sport Consumption (MSSC), the South African Psychological Ownership Questionnaire (SAPOS) and the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ). Structural equation modelling was utilised to investigate the postulated paths of the structural model. Escapism motive for sport consumption predicted meaning in life among spectators through psychological ownership. The sports escapism motive can yield positive psychological outcomes for sports fans.