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Hymns for the Feast of Pentecost today, including contemporary hymns by NZ hymn writer Bill Wallace (Wild wind of the Holy Spirit) and the UK's Bernadette Farrell (Spirit of God, rest on your people).

Hymns on Sunday, 19 May 2024

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At just fifteen years old Joy Womack left her family home in Texas and travelled to Moscow to follow her dream of becoming a Prima Ballerina at the world-renowned Bolshoi Ballet Company. In the face of incredible challenges, she became the first American to graduate from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy's punishing training program with a red diploma, and the second American woman to sign a contract with the Bolshoi Ballet. Womack's captivating story has been made into a movie by the New Zealand filmmaking team of James Napier Robertson and Tom Hern. The biopic Joika, which is currently screening in NZ cinemas, stars actress and classically trained dancer Talia Ryder, and the real Womack served as choreographer and consultant.

Joy Womack: the American ballerina who danced for Russia

The incremental stresses of modern life can easily build, to kill joy, and tip us towards physical and psychological burnout. It's tempting to "push on" but Prof Vincent Deary argues we need to accept our capacity to carry stress is finite and work harder at resting - a skill most of us need to consciously practice. The professor of psychology at the UK's Northumbria University and clinical fatigue specialist's new book is How We Break: Navigating the Wear and Tear of Living. It's an exploration of our varying responses to the corrosive pressures of daily life, especially work, and an ode to the necessity of rest, recovery and the lost art of convalescence.

Vincent Deary: Why rest is vital to beat burnout

Award-winning Canadian investigative journalist Connie Walker had been telling stories about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls for years, and wondering why they received so little attention. All this changed with her true-crime podcasts. Missing & Murdered and Stolen have been wildly popular, the latter winning a Pulitzer Prize and a Peabody Award. But despite the prizes and the millions of followers, in a climate where profitability is prioritised over important journalism Stolen is being axed by Spotify beyond the current third series.

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