The Lifter

Nursing homes accommodate some very large and heavy residents who have mobility problems due to their size and various health complications. In some cases they have nothing much else to do besides eat so they can hardly be blamed for their obesity.

As well as being physically incapacitated, many residents of nursing homes also suffer varying degrees of mental impairment. The combined effects of old age on the mind and the body of these people means they require full time care. They need to be washed, changed, fed, given medication, and moved around. Only a few can successfully go to the toilet by themselves.

When a heavy resident has to be moved out of bed, the nurses are not allowed to do it alone. They must receive assistance from another nurse and together, use a piece of equipment called a lifter. It is designed to prevent injury to the backs of the nurses, and to remove the possibility of the resident being accidentally dropped.

Consider the situation these beautiful human beings, these children of God find themselves in, and realize that it could be you in the future. Think about the difficulty of caring for them. It is a tough job for nurses, requiring strength and stamina to do it well, and with compassion. And what of those people who care for elderly or infirm relatives in their own homes on a full, or even part time basis? Imagine the strain, the sacrifice. These carers carry an extraordinary weight of responsibility: a load which would crush most of us.

Who lifts the flagging spirits of these people? Who sustains and encourages them as they care for adults who have lived full lives only to return, in their twilight years, to a child like dependency on others?

People who give so much must also receive a lot. Otherwise how could they do it? They need a lifter too. In fact, they need, as we all do, The Lifter. His purpose is to make it possible for those who care to keep on caring, for those who love to keep on loving, and to remind all of us of our own frailty and dependence on Him.

Shout out to Nurses

Even though nurses are undervalued economically, I don't believe they are undervalued socially. I reckon most people know, either personally or courtesy of time spent as a patient, that nurses are terrific. I'm speaking generally here because I know that there are dodgey operators in all professions but nurses do work which makes non nurses say, 'I could never do that!' and they do it in a way that fills us with admiration.

Over the past three years, I have come to appreciate how hard it is, not only to practice nursing, but even to become qualified as a nurse. The Bachelor of Nursing strikes me as a very intense course which makes some other academic degrees look like puzzles from That's Life magazine.These men and women have to learn a lot in a very short space of time, and they have to begin to practice and, in the case of young nursing students fresh out of high school, be confronted with some very full on, challenging and at times disturbing facets of human nature. Emotionally, spiritually and physically, this is hard yakka we are talking about here.

Last night, nursing graduands from the University of Wollongong celebrated their wonderful achievement with a fancy ball at the Fraternity Club. I was there and what I saw was relief and satisfaction. There was loads of laughter, and beautifully clad, happy faced, if somewhat inebriated people, burned up the dance floor to booming pumping duff duff music. They were letting their hair down to rejoice in a hard fought achievement. Those crazy dance moves shouted victory.

I just want to congratulate them and their partners and families for making it to the end of what at times looked like a black hole of eternal stress and late night study sessions. Well done, girls and guys.

How to Seduce a Ghost by Hope McIntyre

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Surprising and entertaining, even if slightly annoying at times. I developed a love/hate attitude to the main character, Lee, and actually enjoyed the supporting cast more. The plotting was a bit scattered and there were sections I could easily have left out, in fact I did skip bits but the mystery angel remained a mystery until it was revealed and it was full of surprises, humour and charm. It's got nothing to do with ghosts though if you're looking for supernatural action, look elsewhere. Lee is a ghostwriter and a very reclusive person, who gets caught up in a series of murders. This is a good read.



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Shades of Green

In childish representations of outdoor scenes, the sky is blue and the grass is typically green. A child will colour the grass one shade of green, and the trees maybe another, (light and dark are the usual options). The detail is not so important to a child. Green is green. On the other hand, to a mature artist trying to authentically portray the scene they are painting, green is not just green.

There are, in fact, many shades of green: light and dark, lime, emerald, olive, khaki, asparagus, and myrtle and many more besides.

Next time you walk along your street, look closely at the greenery and you will be amazed at all the different hues. Even the grass is not just green. There are numerous shades.

A man was having a conversation with a Christian who brought up the subject of the Bible. The man replied, a little contemptuously, that the bible was just a history book with no relevance today. Merely a diary. Many others have dismissed Jesus Christ as simply a good man, a moral leader or even a great religious teacher, but just a man, nothing more. Surely, these people are the very same ones who only see green when they look at the trees and the grass. They don't care to delve into what lies beneath the superficial. They probably don't want to believe the reality of different shades of green because it makes things too complicated. Nor do they want to accept the reality of the Bible being a God breathed, powerful and relevant collection of books because that would upset the apple cart of their world view.

To accept these truths requires the humility to admit you have at best been ignorant about the shades of green, or at worst deliberately ignored them and denied their existence.

Look out of your window now, and tell me what you see.

The cost of coal

Coal is a combustible black brown sedimentary rock composed mainly of carbon and hydrocarbons. It is a non renewable source of energy. In other words, the supply of coal will eventually run out.

The biggest use of coal today is to produce electricity.(94% in the United States for example.) Coal is burned to produce steam which is pressurized and then used to drive turbines which creates electricity. Coal is also used in iron, steel and cement production. It is used to make a multitude of everyday items like car brakes, pencils, washing machine powder, aspirin and other medicines, and fertilizer. Coal is used for road surfacing, waterproofing, the production of paint and, of oil which is then used to make petrol for cars. Is anyone sensing any addiction to coal? We need coal. Can't live without it in fact. This isn't, or shouldn't be news to anyone.

Some forecasts have world coal consumption nudging ten billion tons by 2030. I don't care if we, because of our insane lust for power and comfort, exhaust the earth's supply of coal. I don't. I don't lie in my bed at night fretting about the coal well running dry. People say we should switch to other, greener forms of energy production, in order to save the coal and save the environment. Sooner or later, one way or another, we will be using alternative methods of energy production. However, I have no anxiety related to this issue. That isn't the sound of my teeth grinding that you can hear.

What does trouble me though, is the fact the people die to get the coal. The only loss of life involved in the production of the food I eat is that of the plants and animals themselves. That's okay with me, that is their purpose: to feed me. But coal mining is dangerous. In the 21st century it has been less dangerous thanks to technological advances but men and women, and let's not forget that children worked and perished in coal mines during the glory days of the industrial revolution, die to extract the coal that society craves.

Last week 29 men died in a coal mine explosion in Greymouth, New Zealand. In the United States coal mining is listed as the second most dangerous occupation. Thankfully, multiple fatalities are rare in developed countries but in less developed countries like China, death rates are shocking. Think about 6 027 people dying in coal mines in 2004 alone.

What's my point? I am not an environmentalist but I do care about people, and I appreciate sacrifice so I simply want to say thank you to coal miners. Take care.

The Necessity of Lies

In the Ricky Gervais film, The Invention of Lying, nobody in the whole world tells lies. They don't even know what a lie is. There is no word for truth because truth can only be defined in relation to its opposite. There is no trickery, no deception, no falsehood, no pretense and no fiction.

Imagine such a world where advertising is factual and straightforward. The slogan for Pepsi is: when they don't have Coke. Visualize a world where there are no movies other than historical documentaries made by the Lecture film company, and read to camera by serious academic looking types. Think of a world where people are offended, wounded and humiliated on a daily basis because of the dearth of sensitivity and tact. Put yourself in a world where everybody says exactly what's on their mind whenever they want to. Where truth is the only option. Anybody want to live there?

Truth is upheld by most people, in most societies, as a quality of infinite worth. It is to be cherished and treasured, honored and protected. However, there is nowhere on earth like the fictional town in The Invention of Lying where there is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The people there are uncreative, motivated by pure selfishness, and are without hope because there is only absolute truth.

When Ricky Gervais' character lies to his mother about the after life in order to comfort her on her death bed, she dies in peace. Her fear disappears and she fades blissfully into eternity. When news of this lie spreads from the hospital to the whole town and then to the whole world, it's a mind blowing revelation which shows us how desperate people are for hope. They latch on to the lie about a wonderful afterlife and hold it tight because it's a beautiful lie. It gives them hope and makes them happy.

The Invention of Lying is a very funny film, but it is also very profound. A world without lies would be horrible but a world without truth would be equally bad. A can of worms has now been opened. When is a lie okay or even necessary? When is it vital? And if truth is absolute then how can we draw lines of relativity in the sand, and allow everyone to decide for themselves when truth should be used? How can we safely allow the selective application of such a powerful instrument? Is truth a healing balm or a hammer?

Does anyone see a problem here?

Here On Earth: An Argument For Hope by Tim Flannery

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is the first book of Flannery's I have read. There is something very appealing about his writing. Despite being an unrealistic optimist, a classic humanist, when it comes to the destiny of man, he comes across as being quite rational and reasonably passionate. I don't share his view that mankind's salvation is in mankind's hands nor do I understand fully, let alone totally accept, the climate change bogeyman. Overlooking his ill informed and cynical view of religion, I put forward a couple of noteworthy tidbits from the book.

The highest level of radioactivity ever recorded in a living thing was in a krill in the Mediterranean Sea after the Chernobyl disaster.

The disruption to trade that is an inevitable consequence of war is almost as great a deterrent as war itself.

Here on Earth: full of amazing and interesting facts and alleged facts with enough science and statistics to easily bamboozle feeble minds like mine.



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