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Sarah Masters reviews the film series

The Long Search

The BBC/Time Life Film series The Long Search is a classic collection of documentaries on the endless variation in religious philosophies and practices throughout much of the world. The 13-volume series was recently sound and picture-enhanced and is now available in a 5-DVD set.

Narrator Ronald Eyre travels more than 150,000 miles through India, Japan, Israel, Rumania, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, the U.S., Egypt, and South Africa to shine a light on the striking contrasts in religious practices and beliefs from one country to another and within a religion as it is practiced in different regions of a single country.

The camera captures Hindu worship of many Gods as it follows Hindu practitioners through overpopulated Benares, a city where millions of worshippers come to bathe in the Ganges, and follows Hindu practitioners in a small, isolated Indian village. Muslims practice Islam in a radically different way in Cairo than in an Egyptian market town or in an Egyptian oasis village.

The tenets of the major world religions are covered in some detail, as are the tenets of little known religions such as the primal religion of the Torajas, who live in a mountain fortress on an Indonesian island, and the tenets of the Zulu Independent Churches in South Africa, with festivals, prophets and rituals that may or may not include worship of Christ.

Some of the footage is dated for viewers in a post-9/11 world, but there is much food for thought in The Long Search on the myriad ways religion is practiced and religious beliefs evolve.

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Running Time: 10 Hours 40 Minutes/series
Producer: BBC/Time Life Films
Narrator: Ronald Eyre

If you are interested in purchasing this film, you can do so at http://www.ambrosevideo.com/order.cfm. The cost of the 13-volume film series is $144.99 for a 5/DVD set.

Book Review

Rev. Dan Dixson reviews

What Do I Say? Talking with Patients about Spirituality

Dr. Johnston Taylor has produced a work on spiritual care giving that is succinct and to the point. She covers a wealth of information about spirituality and responses to persons who are ill or in crisis. That brevity is both the strength and the weakness of this book. Each topic is covered in a few paragraphs followed by exercises that would be helpful to those just learning the techniques that are described. Many of the topics, however, would seem to need more information that cannot be taught or caught in this space or setting.

The audience for the book is health care professionals, “nurses, physicians, and allied health professionals,” who know that curing and healing are not always the same thing and who wish to do more for the heart and spirit of their patients. In the opening chapter, Dr. Johnston Taylor states that the book is not intended for “social workers, chaplains, clergy, and others who may get some training in counseling”, although I found myself discovering helpful reminders of some of those basics that we often need reviewed.

The author’s primary goal is to teach health care professionals to provide opportunities and responses that enable their patients to become aware of their own spirituality. Another stated goal is that of self-discovery; the possibility that the reader of the book will uncover answers to some of the questions about their own spirituality. Many of the themes explored, such as listening techniques, how to ask questions that invite open ended answers, and empathetic listening and responding, will be helpful to the intended audience. There is much here, however, that tries to take the readers too far in too short a space. The book attempts to teach nearly everything about basic counseling and spiritual care-giving theory and practice. There are some ideas offered with reference to primary sources, which would be necessary in order to fully understand the context of what is being taught. Parts of the book seem to imply that in-depth spiritual assessment and diagnosis is a matter of a few simple steps. It might have been more helpful if the author had chosen fewer, but still central topics that could have been covered more in depth.

Included with the book is a DVD of the author sharing the basic information contained in the book, providing another teaching mode for health care educators.

Johnston Taylor, ELizabeth, What Do I Say? Talking with Patients about Spirituality, Templeton Foundation Press, 2007, 151.

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