This exploration into spirituality and climate change employs the “four paths” of the creation spirituality tradition. The author recognizes those paths in the rich teachings of Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si' and applies them in considering the nobility of the scientist's vocation. Premodern thinkers often resisted any split between science and religion. The author then lays out the basic archetypes for recognizing the sacredness of creation, namely, the Cosmic Christ (Christianity); the Buddha Nature (Buddhism); the Image of God (Judaism); the “Primordial Man” (Hinduism), as well as the premodern universal teaching of “God as Beauty.” He addresses the subject of evil which deserves serious attention in the face of the realities posed by climate change and the resistance to addressing them. In the concluding section, the author speaks of a new Order of the Sacred Earth that was launched in fall 2017 to gather persons of whatever spiritual tradition or none to devote themselves to preserving Mother Earth.
Using astronomy software, this article provides a
systematic re-examination of the astronomical references in Ovid's
Fasti and reviews the previous authority on the question, Ideler
(1825). The review finds that most (three out of four) of the more than
fifty astronomical references in the poem are accurate and reflects
on the negative reception of Ovid's handling of astronomy in light of
these findings.
Background Worldwide, countries are striving to achieve universal antiretroviral treatment (ART) coverage. In South Africa, given the shortage of specialist health care professionals in the public sector, lay HIV counsellors are at the forefront of many HIV related behavioural interventions. They have limited formal counselling training and little ongoing in-service support, leading to considerable variability in skills, knowledge, and approaches to counselling. We aimed to use the Intervention Mapping approach to develop a motivational interviewing counselling training and support program for lay HIV counsellors practising in primary health care (PHC) clinics in Gauteng, South Africa. Methods We applied the steps of Intervention Mapping. This included the analysis of key informant data collected among clinic managers and counsellors (target group), in-depth literature reviews on determinants of critical elements of target behaviours and approaches for influencing these. Extensive consultations with an expert team led to two program objectives: 1) improved general HIV counselling skills among lay HIV counsellors; and 2) sustained motivational interviewing skills for ART and HIV care demand creation. Matrices of change objectives were produced specifying performance and change objectives as well as evidence and theory-based training methods to achieve these. Result We developed a motivational interviewing counselling training and support program titled “Thusa-Thuso - helping you help”. For objective one, we partnered with a seasoned psychologist and counselling trainers to recap and strengthen essential counselling skills and resilience. For objective two, we adapted the Boston University Brief Negotiated Interviewing motivational interviewing counselling training. Adaptations include adjusting the English readability level of training materials; translating materials to spoken Zulu and Sotho; anchoring the training around interactive sessions; producing contextually-relevant modelling videos, in-training role plays and on-site (clinic) mentoring using the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity coding system (MITI) as a training and self-correction tool. The planned support component comprises of quarterly support and mentoring sessions over 12-months. Conclusion The “Thusa-Thuso” motivational interviewing counselling training and support program is a contextually relevant, locally-produced, scalable training and support program designed to impart sustained motivational interviewing counselling skills in lay HIV counsellors for improved ART uptake in the UTT era.
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