Author Talk: Beyond Wellness with Liz Bucar and Erick Olsen

Join us for a conversation between Liz Bucar and Rev. Erick Olsen as they discuss Bucar’s new book, Beyond Wellness: How Restoring the Religious Roots of Spiritual Practices Can Heal Us. 

Crafted as both a confession and a researched manifesto, Beyond Wellness draws on personal reporting, historical case studies, philosophy, and pop culture anecdotes to help you find ways to build more authenticity into your engagement with spirituality. Because the reality is when we approach practices like yoga and ayahuasca as fitness routines and life hacks (think Gwyneth Paltrow and the rise of wellness influencers), we miss out on the sacred wisdom they have to offer us— ethical frameworks, long term commitments to a community, systemic understanding of suffering and sickness, insights into human nature, and more.

Liz Bucar is a religious ethicist and professor of religion at Northeastern University, as well as a certified intenSati and Kripalu yoga instructor. Her popular writing has appeared in The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, Teen Vogue, and The Wall Street Journal, and she is the author of four books, including the award-winning Stealing My Religion and Pious Fashion. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. For more about how religion shapes us all, even if we don’t believe, subscribe to Liz’s newsletter at LizBucar.com.

Rev. Erick Olsen was called as Pastor of Church of Christ Congregational in 2003. He came to Norfolk after serving as Associate Pastor of First Church Congregational in Fairfield CT for five years. Pastor Olsen, a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, earned his M.Div. at Yale Divinity School. He and his wife Tina and their three children live here in Norfolk. In addition to his pastoral duties, Pastor Olsen serves as: Chaplain of the Norfolk Volunteer Fire Department, Vice President of the Board of Directors of Norfolk Senior Housing Corporation (Meadowbrook), a member of Norfolk’s Rail Trail committee, and more.