Ellen F. Davis

Perceived Impact of Cancer Treatment on Diabetes Self-Management:

Purpose The purpose of this study was to identify the impact that cancer and its treatment had on diabetes self-management and to identify common issues that individuals with diabetes encounter while undergoing chemotherapy. Methods This exploratory study utilized a baseline self-administered written survey and an 8-week telephone follow-up survey that included 2 open-ended questions. Forty-three adults aged 50 or older with diabetes and a solid tumor cancer receiving chemotherapy were recruited from 8 community outpatient cancer centers in Michigan and Ohio. Descriptives, t tests, and correlations were utilized to analyze the data. Content analysis was used to analyze the data from the open-ended questions. Results After a minimum of 8 weeks of chemotherapy, patients performed significantly fewer diabetes self-management behaviors. The majority of individuals experienced a moderate to high impact on their ability to perform diabetes self-management activities while receiving chemotherapy. Exercise, ability to eat and drink, and monitoring blood sugars were most affected. Three themes identifying patient issues were noted: self-management issues, health issues, and prioritization. Conclusions Cancer treatment and cancer-related symptoms can have a negative impact on diabetes self-management behaviors in adults with diabetes who are undergoing chemotherapy. Diabetes self-management education is targeted to improve health outcomes in patients with diabetes and cancer and addresses the “cause” not just the “source” of the problem needs to be developed. Further research needs to be done to address issues related to glycemic control and health-related outcomes in this population.

Surprised by Wisdom: Preaching Proverbs

Probing Proverbs with imagination and depth might be the best way for the preacher to counter our societys deadly propensity to reduce religion to “spirituality,” abstracted from concrete social and economic practices and our relationship with the material world. The contemporary crisis of wisdom—the proliferation of powerful knowledge divorced from godly wisdom—sets us fundamentally at odds with the structure of the universe: “yhwh by wisdom established the earth” (Prov 3:19).

Identity and Eating: A Christian Reading of Leviticus

Israelites lived intimately with their livestock, as members of a single household, and this had an effect on their understanding of human identity—as Leviticus expresses it, of God’s call to Israel to be holy. Leviticus treats eating and ritual sacrifice as practices of embodied holiness, elements of an enacted symbol system designed to enable Israelites to live with integrity before God and in relation to nonhuman animals. The understanding expressed through that system is genuinely agrarian: humans find their wellbeing and their identity in relation to the wellbeing of the land and its nonhuman inhabitants. Through the Eucharist, Christians identify with Christ the Lamb. Understood in light of Leviticus, that identification challenges us to see the connection between sacramental eating and our relation to other animals.

Witnessing to God in the Midst of Life: Old Testament Preaching

The Bible is rigorously realistic in its representations of human character, the conditions and contingencies of life in this world. Therefore the aim of Old Testament preaching is to invite Christians to grow toward spiritual maturity in circumstances that are always less than ideal. Preaching Old Testament characters and preaching psalms may enable both preacher and hearers to enter into the biblical story in ways that open up a complex and faithful moral vision.

Tikkun of the Fertile Soil

T he very first topic theBible addresses at any length is food sufficiency for all creatures. InGenesis 1, the only feature of “the dry land” that receives extended attention is the primordial food chains: the wealth and diversity of “seed” that God hasprovided. “Here, Ihavegivenyouall this for eating,”Godsays: grains and tree fruit for humans (meat-eating comes later, after the flood) and green plants for the other animals (Genesis 1:2930). Notably, this careful delineation of the food supply follows immediately after thedivinecharge thathumansshould “exercise skilled mastery among” the other creatures. (This is a better translation of Genesis 1:28 than the conventional rendering, “havedominionover.”)Soweshouldprobably infer that this is the primary and enduring form of skilledmastery that humans are meant to exercise: recognizing theGod-given sufficiency of food for all creatures, and thenworking toperpetuate this sufficiency. Tikkunof theFertileSoil

Book Review: Biblical Prophets and Contemporary Environmental EthicsBiblical Prophets and Contemporary Environmental Ethics by MarlowHilaryOxford University Press, New York, 2009. 338 pp.

IN THIS DENSE AND disjointed book, British biblical scholar Margaret Barker boldly reconstructs the biblical vision for creation held by the “first Christians.” The resulting study distinguishes itself from the many works that mine the Bible for its ecological value. While conversant with science and ecology, Barker sets her sights on retrieving the symbolladen “ethos” of creation as understood by early Christians. This takes her not only into the Scriptures, but also into various extra-biblical sources. Enoch, Philo, and Origen, for example, are heavily featured. The book, however, is not just a valiant attempt at reconstructing an ancient worldview. It is a passionate recovery of profoundly relevant reflections on humanity’s place and role in God’s “incredible creation.” In Barker’s unnuanced estimation, biblical scholarship has flatly ignored the pervasive theme of creation in the Bible in favor of history. But the time has come to correct this lopsided focus, especially now. Hermeneutically, Barker takes on both the literalists, who overlook the symbolic power of biblical language, and the “textual archaeologists,” who have nothing theological to say. Barker submerges the reader into the richly evocative world of early Jewish and Christian interpretation, which despite its variety offers, according to her, a coherent vision of creation, one that is temple-centered. According to biblical and later interpretive tradition, the temple represents Edenic creation in which Adam was once its high priest. Atonement, thus, becomes the central means for restoring creation. Wisdom, too, plays a prominent role. Barker’s study offers a richly theological resource for bringing ancient biblical interpretation into conversation with contemporary issues of ecology. It is also rough going. Her style of presentation is frequently midrashic: the discussion can swing wildly from one biblical text to another, to a passage from Philo to a comment made by a modern economist or ecologist, all on a single page! Barker’s study revels in making connections here, there, and everywhere, however slight they may seem. It is hard to tell where intertextuality ends and stream of consciousness begins. Nevertheless, readers are in store for a breathtaking ride. Warning: this book may induce mental whiplash! But in recovering, readers will be amazed all the more at how rich a resource the Bible is for inspiring greater love and care for God’s creation.

120.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-19-956905-2.

man already ’quite accurately informed concerning the Way’ (Acts 24:22). Felix wanted to learn more about this new faith in Christ Jesus, but as Paul ’argued concerning justice and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix became alarmed’ (v. 25), and he dismissed Paul. Paul gave Felix a lesson in ’the virtues’: justice, self-control. This in itself would be unsurprising to a well-educated Roman, for it was a tradition of learning established in the Mediterranean world ever