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Sarah Masters reviews the new Hartley Classics DVD collection

World Religions: Volumes 1-4

World Religions is a historical film collection in four volumes that captures the unique tenets of world religions and spiritual practice.

During the 1970s and 80s, Elda Hartley, founder of the Hartley Film Foundation, created documentaries on a number of the world’s great religions that explored the extraordinary differences and the striking similarities among individuals of different faiths. In Volume 1, entitled "Many Paths," this award-winning filmmaker invites you to travel the globe and view through her camera lens the endlessly varied and vibrant pastiche of religious rituals practiced throughout the world.

In Volume 2, Hartley journeys to the subcontinent in search of the "Wisdoms of India" and explores their impact on Western spirituality and science. In Volume 3, "Meditation, Prayer and Trance," she vividly depicts the powers of Hindu mantras, Christian meditations, Buddhist stillness, Sufi dances and Indonesian trance rites.

Alan Watts (1915-1973), the foremost Western teacher of Zen Buddhism, collaborates with Hartley in Volume 4, "Meditations with Alan Watts," to create this elegant anthology of lyrical guided meditations into inner realities.

Watts on the practice of Zen: “If you think the world is going somewhere, that there are certain things that are supposed to happen, and there are certain things that are supposed not to happen, you never see the way that it is like music. Music has no destination. We don’t play it in order to get somewhere. Music is a pattern that we enjoy as it unfolds.”

If you are interested in purchasing this DVD series, you can do so at www.hartleyfoundation.org. Just click on “Hartley Classics” on the homepage for more information. The volumes can be purchased individually for $24.95. The cost of the 4-DVD set is $99.95.

Sarah Masters is the Managing Director of the Hartley Film Foundation, a non-profit foundation dedicated to cultivation, support, production and distribution of the best documentaries and audio meditations on world religions, spirituality, ethics and well-being.

Book Review

Rev. Dr. Joan L. Murray reviews

The Essential Parish Nurse

In The Essential Parish Nurse, Deborah Patterson has provided an easy to read and thorough guide for establishing this important ministry/service in a local congregation. The book is adaptable to various religious congregations or spiritual groups. From the Christian perspective, she connects the health ministry of the church with the “calling from Jesus Christ…Parish nursing is one vital way to have an effective health ministry in a faith community.” (Pg. 22)

She is clear that a health ministry (service) be for all. She traces the history of the development of parish nursing from its very beginnings to the work of Dr. Granger Westberg. The parish-nursing program is now grounded in the Scope and Practice of the American Nurses Association and other professional groups. Provided in the book are all of the “essentials” to developing and maintaining parish nursing as part of the ministry/service within a local congregation. Guidance is given for preparing the congregation, recruiting the nurse, roles and functions, clarity of authority and guidance from a health council, and even forms for use within the parish nurse program. A course outline is available for a parish nurse program.

Helpful guidance is given for conceptual as well as practical matters for establishing this ministry/ service. Methods of payment, record keeping, and work with volunteers is also provided. In addition to structure, she also addresses relationships within the leadership of the congregation. This is an important matter for clarity of boundaries of responsibilities and confidentiality.

Connections are made between the content of the program, Scripture, organization theory and theology. There is an integration of healing, health and holiness understood within the life of the congregation and based upon spiritual truths.

The book is a helpful resource for a congregation planning on making a health ministry/service available to those within and outside their congregation. The listing of national related organizations, a well-rounded bibliography, and models of surveys, etc., make this a valuable resource for conceptual and practical guidance.

The helpful addition to the book would have been addressing the parish nurse’s requirement to nourish their own spiritual life so that their relationship with the Divine One remains the vital source of life, compassion and strength for their ministry/service. Forming a parish nurse support group would be an effective way of nurturing their relationships without being competitive with relationships in the local congregation.

The Essential Parish Nurse will make the ministry/service to others truly a gift from God.

Patterson, Deborah L. The Essential Parish Nurse (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2003) pp.160.

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