Partners in Health & Wholeness

An initiative of the NC Council of Churches

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Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

Do This in Remembrance of Me

By Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

As Americans, our collective remembrance and solidarity have often centered around one key question: Where were you when — ?   For my (white) parents’ generation, the question was: Where were you when you heard that JFK had been assassinated? (My parents were shopping for a TV at Sears, as my father held my older sister […]

Do This in Remembrance of Me

· by Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

As Americans, our collective remembrance and solidarity have often centered around one key question: Where were you when — ?   For my (white) parents’ generation, the question was: Where were you when you heard that JFK had been assassinated? (My parents were shopping for a TV at Sears, as my father held my older sister […]

Blessed are those who continue to mourn

By Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

Several months ago, as summer was just beginning, I wrote on behalf of the Partners in Health and Wholeness team to mark the tragic milestone of 1,000 lives lost to Covid-19 in North Carolina. Today, that number stands at over 5,500.   As we enter into the season of Advent, waiting for the earth’s turning toward […]

Blessed are those who continue to mourn

· by Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

Several months ago, as summer was just beginning, I wrote on behalf of the Partners in Health and Wholeness team to mark the tragic milestone of 1,000 lives lost to Covid-19 in North Carolina. Today, that number stands at over 5,500.   As we enter into the season of Advent, waiting for the earth’s turning toward […]

The Spirituality of Loneliness in Life’s Second Chapter

By Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

“Quite simply, human relationship is as essential to our well-being as food and water.” –former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy  Within the global pandemic of Covid-19 lies another deadly yet often unrecognized epidemic: loneliness.  According to the American Society on Aging’s most recent journal, loneliness can be particularly hard-hitting among those in the second chapter of […]

The Spirituality of Loneliness in Life’s Second Chapter

· by Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

“Quite simply, human relationship is as essential to our well-being as food and water.” –former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy  Within the global pandemic of Covid-19 lies another deadly yet often unrecognized epidemic: loneliness.  According to the American Society on Aging’s most recent journal, loneliness can be particularly hard-hitting among those in the second chapter of […]

Caring for Elderly Loved Ones During COVID-19

By Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

As the daughter of parents who are deep into their eighties, these past four months have been particularly worrisome since Covid-19 reshaped all our lives into unknown territory. And, as of yesterday, my folks’ retirement facility has reported its first case of Covid, as cases in residential-care communities in North Carolina continue to climb. Further, at […]

Caring for Elderly Loved Ones During COVID-19

· by Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

As the daughter of parents who are deep into their eighties, these past four months have been particularly worrisome since Covid-19 reshaped all our lives into unknown territory. And, as of yesterday, my folks’ retirement facility has reported its first case of Covid, as cases in residential-care communities in North Carolina continue to climb. Further, at […]

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

By Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

As of this morning, Thursday, June 4, the Raleigh News & Observer reported that Covid-19 has claimed the lives of 999 North Carolinians.  We, the staff of Partners in Health and Wholeness, join with all those across our state in grieving not only this staggering, collective loss — but the loss of each, unique, individual […]

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

· by Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

As of this morning, Thursday, June 4, the Raleigh News & Observer reported that Covid-19 has claimed the lives of 999 North Carolinians.  We, the staff of Partners in Health and Wholeness, join with all those across our state in grieving not only this staggering, collective loss — but the loss of each, unique, individual […]

Cherishing the Elderly Among Us

By Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

May is Mother’s Day. It is high school and college graduations, Memorial Day weekend barbecues and beach trips , and the anticipation of summer’s more languid pace.  May is also Older Americans Month, a designation established in 1963 after a meeting between then President John F. Kennedy and the National Council of Senior Citizens, to […]

Cherishing the Elderly Among Us

· by Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

May is Mother’s Day. It is high school and college graduations, Memorial Day weekend barbecues and beach trips , and the anticipation of summer’s more languid pace.  May is also Older Americans Month, a designation established in 1963 after a meeting between then President John F. Kennedy and the National Council of Senior Citizens, to […]

Cherish Your Heart

By Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

When I was a kid my friends and I would sometimes, in the middle of a conversation, go very still and say, with great solemnity:  “I’m serious as a heart attack about that.” Whatever “that” was, the statement was highly ironic, given that we were all of nine years old and had no concept of […]

Cherish Your Heart

· by Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

When I was a kid my friends and I would sometimes, in the middle of a conversation, go very still and say, with great solemnity:  “I’m serious as a heart attack about that.” Whatever “that” was, the statement was highly ironic, given that we were all of nine years old and had no concept of […]

November is National Caregivers Month

By Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

According to the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, in 2015, approximately 43.5 million caregivers provided unpaid care to an adult or child in the last twelve months.  That’s a remarkable number. Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that the average family caregiver is a working mother of school-age children. Six out of 10 […]

November is National Caregivers Month

· by Rev. Karen Richardson Dunn, Associate Director, Partners in Health and Wholeness, Healthy Aging

According to the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, in 2015, approximately 43.5 million caregivers provided unpaid care to an adult or child in the last twelve months.  That’s a remarkable number. Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that the average family caregiver is a working mother of school-age children. Six out of 10 […]