All the great religious creeds, said writer Reynolds Price, "have known forever that if we're ever to arrive at the state of anything called wisdom, pain seems to be the way we get there."

"Patients require that one-on-one encounter, the Samaritan function of being a physician," says writer and Stanford Medical School professor Abraham Verghese. "When the physician examines the patient, this is an incredibly important ritual."

"You cannot understand caregiving unless you do it," says Arthur Kleinman. "Acts of caregiving come as close to what I think religion is as I could name."

"Patients require that one-on-one encounter, the Samaritan function of being a physician," says writer and Stanford Medical School professor Abraham Verghese. "I'm convinced that when the physician examines the patient, this is an incredibly important ritual."

More than 30 states have laws that protect parents who believe in spiritual healing from criminal prosecution when their children die as a result of not receiving medical care for treatable illnesses.

In most of the world, the poor and sick are ignored. In Lourdes, they are number one, and people say they are drawn there because they believe it is a place of great faith.

"My lifelong belief is that love and death interwoven are the heartstrings of religion. The greatest of all truths is that love never dies. The opposite of love is not death. It is fear."

One of the beautiful things about a terminal illness is you are invited into the present, and your friendships become stronger. Your loved ones become more vital and more present. Each day becomes more beautiful. You walk through the valley of the shadow, and it’s riddled with light.

If you’re homeless in Washington, D.C. and sick, perhaps close to dying, and you end up in a city shelter, the people who work there might telephone a place called Joseph’s House and ask if they can take you in.

Have you ever had the feeling that your doctor doesn't have enough time for you, or, if you're a doctor, that you are under so much pressure it's hard to be compassionate with your patients? There is a physician in Northern California who thinks medicine is losing its soul, and she's trying to rescue it.