Insight to Heal

Mark Graves' new book is a marvel of creative synthesis. He brings together the latest scientific research on suffering and combines it with a deeply sensitive understanding of Christian theology to produce a powerful guide to healing at all levels-physical, mental, spiritual, and cultural. The emphasis on beauty is especially valuable as a reminder that true healing involves a transformative reorientation of the person toward life, nature, and experience. This book offers wonderful resources for therapists, ministers, chaplains, doctors, nurses, and anyone involved in health care. Beyond those practical benefits, Graves has given us a thought-provoking meditation on the twenty-first-century relationship between science and theology. -- Kelly Bulkely, Visiting Scholar, Graduate Theological Union
This book reads like a contemporary version of Augustine's Confessions. It is grounded in a religious conversion that resulted over time in a remarkable change of life for the individual. Likewise, it incorporates a surprising amount of contemporary philosophy, theology, and natural science (in this case, neuroscience) into a hierarchical system based on the notion of creativity and emergence of new forms. Finally, like the Confessions it takes time to think through and digest. -- Joseph Bracke, SJ. Professor Emeritus of Theology, Xavier University