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All Shall Be Well: An Approach to Wellness

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In 1994 the Episcopal Church established the CREDO Institute in recognition of the fact that clergy often live a stressful existence in which they may take better care of their parishioners than they do of themselves.

"All Shall be Well, An Approach to Wellness" grows out of the CREDO experience, which empowers leaders of the Church to take charge of their own healing and wholeness. In this small but powerful volume, editor William Craddock, who was instrumental in founding CREDO, has compiled a diverse collection of thoughtful essays by Episcopal clergy and influential laypersons.

The contributors address four phases of self-awareness: Identity (Who am I?), Discernment (Who is God calling me to be?), Practice (How am I responding to God's call?), and Transformation (How am I changing?) While their voices are each unique, they share a refreshing, open-minded, non-judgmental perspective all too rare in organized religion.

With an appeal not limited to members of the clergy, these essays speak to all who are concerned with self-knowledge, and who are willing to engage in the ongoing process of becoming who we are.

After having read this book, one gains a greater perspective on the fundamentals of all aspects of wellness. During times in which fear is an underlying motivation for most things done day to day it is refreshing to step back and view things from the perspective and fervent hope that ,"All Shall be Well."

At a time of heightened anxiety in the Episcopal Church, whether from rumors of theological drift, real economic uncertainty, or general anxiety about plague-like pandemics of AIDS and H1N1, it is nice to have a book as grounded in common sense and purpose as All Shall Be Well: An Approach to Wellness.

The book borrows its title from Julian of Norwich's most recounted phrase--and her promise in the face of her own era's financial disaster, social unrest, theological chaos, and the Black Plague that, indeed, all shall be well.

Inspired by more than 200 eight-day CREDO conferences in the Episcopal Church--for bishops, priests, and now lay employees of the church--conference faculty members and researchers have contributed two-dozen reflections that are at the heart of the CREDO conference experience.

Through their essays and reflections that circle around the model of developmental self-awareness--Identity, Discernment, Practice, and Transformation--the authors draw road signs of wellness that they have discovered in the CREDO process and leave readers with a map for their own personal discernment and transformation.

This book and its many gifted contributing writers explore the multi- dimensional human existence in a comprehensive and approachable manner that allows the reader to pick a chapter and topic,such as "The Quest for Passion, Creativity, and Wholeness" or flow from chapter to chapter. In its approach to wellness and ultimately, transformation, it covers pervasive dilemmas such as how to balance the "me" and the "we", or how to "renew a vocational vision", or how to balance life with spiritual, emotional, vocational, and physical priorities in place. I found each chapter enlightening, refreshingly open-minded, and accommodating for everyday issues that resurface in the ongoing quest to be holistically healthy. I appreciate the cohesiveness of thought and unity of spirit apparent in this anthology of writers and ideas that speak solidly in favor of the possibility of wellness.