CHAPTER 4
‘Leading causes of life’: Shifting the paradigm Life is what it is about, I want no truck with death. Pablo Neruda
I have set before you life and death, blessings and cursings; therefore, choose life, that both you and your descendants may live. – Deuteronomy 30:19
We have already introduced you to a new ‘language’ in other chapters (like ‘religious health assets). In this chapter we offer you more. New language helps us to think , act and lead in new ways. Public health science and practice tends to talk as if illness or, worse, death, is the main thing going on in human life – ‘mortality,’ ‘morbidity,’ ‘burden of disease,’ or ‘the leading causes of death.’ In reality, life is what is going on in life! How, and why, is what this chapter is about. In looking for the The language of life is the ‘causes of life,’ you won’t feel language of health. The naïve or delusional. You’ll more idea of ‘leading causes likely feel you have noticed something of life’ helps turn on vital, compelling, powerful, and begin to the lights about life’s sense the stirring of choices that matter. basic structure, about You’ll feel hope. That will inform how what keeps us alive. This and why to risk so your is not happy talk that ignores community can live. the many threats to life we must face. Rather, it pays balancing attention toward human health and how it spreads. Compare people to viruses: Viruses are opportunistic, unpredictable, persistent, and sometimes deadly to their human hosts – they seem to have all the high cards. Yet actually, a good part of our lives uses a natural set of life strategies for seeking health and wholeness. Can we think about life with the same precision and rigour we use to analyse, beat back or postpone death? Yes. And we should. Death – what breaks us – is simple compared to life. While that which ‘generates’ life is highly complex, its many facets exist in exquisitely rich relationship with each other – and life is what is already working! Let’s think about why that is so. CHAPTER 4: ‘Leading causes of life’: Shifting the paradigm
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