The Journal of the American Medical Association (April, 2006) reported that seriously restricting your calorie intake is the best way to live a long, disease-free life. This latest study says 890 calories a day should get you to live to 100.


I swallowed hard when I read this because, unless I move someplace where I am forced to live off the land or get gastric bypass surgery, I eat that much after dinner. 890 calories is ludicrously unattainable for anybody other than an anorectic model. And, what’s the point of it? I mean if living to 100 means no more steak, martinis, or Ben & Jerry’s, how many more years do I want to live eating prunes and vegetables, followed by vigorous flossing and a brisk 40 minute walk?

I do not want to eat an organic nine-grain bagel without a shmear of cream cheese; just thinking about a German Chocolate Cake Blizzard makes me smile; hot chocolate topped with a marshmallow by a winter fireplace makes my fingertips tingle; and imagining a Caesar salad with extra fresh-grated Romano cheese, adds pleasure to my day.



If I have to choose between making ice cream the enemy, or living into my tenth decade, I say be merry, not ancient. Don’t rob your days to add extra nights.

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This year, Passover and Easter are celebrated together, which focuses attention on this extraordinary season of rebirth and redemption. For Jews, the story of the Exodus, repeated yearly at the Seder meal, represents the core of our understanding of redemption, what it means to be saved.



Having just left Egypt, the Jewish people find themselves surrounded, by an army of Egyptians behind them, and the Red Sea in front of them. The people are frightened, and complain to Moses, “Are there no graves in Egypt, that you’ve taken us to die in the desert?” Moses reassured them, saying, “The Lord will do battle for you.” But in the next sentence in the Torah, God tells Moses, “Speak to the children of Israel and tell them to take a step forward.” The Red Sea does not part for Moses until the Jewish people take the first step toward it.

This is a metaphor for how people get themselves out of tight spots. The Hebrew word for Egypt is “Mitzrayim,” which comes from the root word “Tzar” which means a narrow place. Sooner or later, we will all come to a narrow place in our lives, a time and place when we find ourselves facing potential life-threatening situations. When you come to such a place, it’s good to know that your faith will encourage you, but this story tells us you can’t just sit in prayer, you have to do something. God does what God does, and you do whatever you can. The good news is you only have to take one step; you don’t have to know what’s going to happen 40 minutes from now, 40 miles down the road, or the next 40 years. You just have to take one step on your own, and see what happens.

In this season of rebirth and redemption, it’s comforting to think there could be an end to wars, terror and absence of leadership — that we could dare imagine taking one step beyond the impasses. The story of the Exodus is not only about the redemption from Egypt, it is a story about a promise of the world to come.



As part of the service, Jews take a cup of wine to the front door, and open it to welcome the prophet Elijah. When Elijah comes, it will signal the coming of the Messianic age. My nine-year-old granddaughter accompanied the chalice to the front door and opened it. When she came back to the table she leaned over and whispered in my ear, “How is Elijah going to drink from the cup without us seeing him? Is he a ghost?” “No, he isn’t a ghost,” I reassured her. “You mean he’ll just walk in?” she asked incredulously. I said, “Yes, he will come, but first we have to open the doors to our minds and imagine it’s possible, and then we have to take one step toward making it happen.”

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I’ve talked before about the effectiveness of prayer in promoting healing. There have been many studies on the efficacy of “intercessory prayer” in patients with heart disease who have had heart attacks and/or coronary artery bypass surgery. These studies, however, didn’t have large enough numbers to make their results statistically reliable.


Now we have a new study, which is the largest ever done on the healing power of prayer for patients with coronary bypass surgery. The mammoth study cost $2.4 million and enrolled 1802 patients. Scientists from six major U.S. medical centers divided the patients into three groups. Two groups were told they may or may not receive prayers. Unbeknownst to them, one of those groups was prayed for, and the other wasn’t. The third group was patients who knew from the outset that they were being prayed for. The prayers were all non-denominational Christian (only because the researchers could not find non-Christian groups that could work with the study’s scheduling demands).

The study’s results appeared in the April issue of The American Heart Journal, and the surprising result showed that of the three groups, the group with the patients who knew they were being prayed for did the worst. 59% of the group that knew they were being prayed for had problems, the most common of which was heart flutter or atrial fibrillation. There was virtually no difference in complication rates in the first two groups at 52%.

The researchers were quite surprised: they thought having someone praying for them might help patients relax and bring about a state of well-being, since feeling at ease, knowing there are people out there who are pulling for you, can reduce strain on the heart. Instead, those patients who knew they were being prayed for had the most problems. What can one conclude from this?

1. Prayer doesn’t work.
2. Christian prayer doesn’t work.
3. Prayer is actually harmful to patients recovering from coronary artery bypass surgery.
4. Patients who knew they were being prayed for were suffering from performance anxiety which stressed them out.
5. Patients who knew they were being prayed for thought they were chosen because they needed it the most and, therefore, expected the worst, which really stressed them out.

Or maybe science and spirituality don’t play by the same rules. Doing research on the efficacy of prayer is different from other kinds of scientific inquiry, because you can’t control all the variables. Who is doing the prayer, do they do it differently, how are they feeling while doing it, etc?

I think science should get out of the way and let patients engage in spiritual practices that comfort them. For myself, I don’t doubt the healing power of prayer, whether by Christians, Wiccans, Peyotists, drummers, or wellness communities. Prayer is good; it connects you to your truth inside, and it connects you to people and/or things outside of yourself that remind you’re not facing your struggles alone.

Pray for yourself, and pray for others. Prayer is a song of the heart that provides lift to the wings of hope.

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Last week was a joyous, weeklong celebration, with my expanding family. It began with a wedding sweat lodge ceremony for my daughter Tara, and her fiancé, Philly. It was here, that we met my in-laws and Philly’s 17-year-old daughter for the first time. As we entered the lodge, each of us was “smudged” or purified with fragrant cedar smoke, waved over us with an eagle feather.


Inside the lodge, 20 of us squeezed in, from age 9 to 69, we represented three generations of immediate family. We brought with us blessings and prayers of those who couldn’t come, and many who came before. Sitting together in the sacred space, with the people you love, and speaking from the heart, is an astounding way to connect with family. Such ceremonies provide the structure that breaks down the boundaries between individuals, and brings them together in community. Sweating, drumming, blessing, using sacraments, eating soul food, singing in many languages, are how we transmit our soul and values.

From the sacred grounds one night, to the stomping grounds the next, when we saw the Rap – Hip-Hop band the Black Eyed Peas. They performed in the newly renovated downtown Dodge Theater, where the sound level was several decibels above a Cape Canaveral rocket launching. It was the first time I ever attended a concert where I didn’t understand a single word (the single exception being a song entitled Bullshit, whose only lyric was repeated endlessly).
On the other hand my nine-year-old granddaughter knew the words to every song and dance during the entire concert. Fortunately somebody had the foresight to bring along ear plugs, so I spent my time on the couch in the skybox and watched my grandchildren dance while I drank Heineken’s and ate carrot cake. When the lights went down, I noticed that the kids don’t hold up lighters anymore, or those flexible fluorescent tubes, now audiences hold up their cell phones to provide the light. I’m thinking, I don’t care how we illuminate the darkness only that we celebrate and dance together.

The next night was an adults only, 40th birthday party for my son Max. It was held at our favorite family party place, called the Alwun House. It is the original alternative arts venue in Phoenix, located in the heart of the inner-city ( HYPERLINK "http://www.alwunhouse.org" www.alwunhouse.org). 100 beautiful people, resplendently costumed in the party’s gold and silver theme. They came dressed as Sultans, pimps, Chippendale dancers, Elvis Presley, Drag Queens, and an assortment of princesses wearing see-through costumes. The three-piece band alternated with a DJ, there was an open bar, gourmet sushi, shrimp cerviche, oozing chocolate desserts; it was an epicurean and visual extravaganza.

Midway into the evening, my daughters stood up and said, “we told you all no gifts, but I want to encourage you to make a contribution in Max’s honor to Rosie’s House. It’s a tuition-free music academy for children ages 5 to 18, and is the only organization in the United States that offers a full range of music lessons (including instruments) at no cost to underserved youth. Many public schools are no longer offering music programs, Rosie’s house believes in the power of music to build self-esteem, self-discipline and creative thinking (www.rosieshouse.org). It warmed my heart to see so many Boomers and Generation X’ers, share their privileged lifestyle.

The next morning at our goodbye brunch we ate all the ritual soul foods, New York bagels, Pacific Northwest alder-smoked salmon, chocolate covered halvah and rugelah. It was an unconscionable cholesterol overload, but I thought it worth it, carry me out this way and I’d say, this is how I want to go.

Expand your family, party in the good times, and when you’re in doubt, party somemore. Welcome others into your family, celebrate coming together, and feel the world get lighter.

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Health leaders from across the country gathered at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix last week to discuss technology’s role in improving care. Entitled “Transforming American Healthcare over the Next Decade,” it brought together experts from the federal government, industry and academics. All of them pressed for improvements in medical record-keeping, diagnostic testing, and the creation of new drugs.


The experts said that health care is still in its infancy when it comes to information and technology development. Information technology is used in every other industry to streamline processes (financial to mechanical), which allows things to get done more efficiently.

I listened to a professor from Johns Hopkins suggest that to meet today’s needs and quality assurance requirements, doctors need to “improve our black bag technology.” He said most of the instruments in a doctor’s traditional black bag (stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, opthalmoscope, reflex hammer) have been there for a 100 years. The professor said we could improve our diagnostic efficiency by putting handheld computers and ultrasound devices into our black bags. He said it would take half a year to master the instruments, but it would increase our therapeutic impact.

I have no quarrel with using new technology to improve efficiency and quality of care, as long as we also spend time talking to patients. We will magnify our impact just by talking to patients and making a real connection with them. Sadly, I see the movement toward technology and efficiency in healthcare being used as a justification to spend less time with patients. We need to balance the progress in our technology with similar progress in the humanity with which it is delivered. We do not need more hand-held devices in our black bags . . . we need to be holding more hands. We need to be talking to patients, not just probing and manipulating them.

To “transform American healthcare” is to take time to connect with patients at a soulful level. Most of the chronic diseases (also the costliest, like heart disease, lung disease, diabetes), will improve if we can get people to change their behaviors. If a doctor can inspire patients to believe they can become the principal agents in maintaining their health, they will change their unhealthy behaviors and eat better, exercise more, stress less, smoke and drink less. To inspire requires more than a new device; patients must trust your heart. If patients trust not only the way you practice, but also your heart, you can help them become the principal agents on their healing journey.


To “transform American healthcare” is to focus on prevention not intervention. If we build trusting, healing relationships, we will improve quality care and clinical outcomes. Let’s improve black bag technology by holding more hands than devices.

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