Florence Nightingale died 100 years ago yesterday.

Florence had an experience at the age of 17 when, “God spoke to me, and called me to his service.”

Back then, nursing wasn’t a very respectable profession. Hospitals were famous mainly for bad smells and frightening death rates.

Despite family protests, Florence became a nurse anyway. By 1853, she was superintendent of London’s “Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen”.

She and 38 of her trainees went to Turkey to nurse soldiers injured in the Crimean War.

At first, recovery rates didn’t improve much – but after the hospital’s sewers and ventilation were fixed they did.

* * *

Back in England, Florence published a book, “Notes on Nursing”, covering what professional nurses needed to learn, plus “everyday sanitary knowledge . . . which every one ought to have.”

She wrote, altogether, 17 books on medical topics.

Plus another, 829 pages long, entitled “Suggestions for Thought to Searchers after Religious Truth.”

Due to health problems, Florence spent much of the second half of her life bed-ridden.

But she remained a great organiser, intellectual and author.

She died at the age of 90.

* * *

Florence made her nurses recite a pledge:

I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practise my profession faithfully.

I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug.

I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession, and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping and all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling.

With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician, in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care.

When young, Florence worked in a Paris hospital staffed by nuns. She wore the postulant habit, but never became a nun herself.

She never became a Catholic. She told Cardinal Manning that she wished to, but he said no, as she didn’t accept some Catholic beliefs.

Florence Nightingale is venerated as a Saint in the Episcopal Church, but not in the Catholic Church.

* * *

A phonograph recording of Florence’s voice, made in 1890, has been preserved. She sounds a bit like Queen Elizabeth II:  www.archive.org/details/FlorenceNightingaleVoice

Professor Patrick McGorry, officially “Australian of the Year”, yesterday criticised Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s recent pledge to provide $277 million for suicide prevention.

He seemed to think it wasn’t enough.

He called the failure of Australian governments to put more money into mental health services for the depressed a “national obscenity”.

He told reporters: “We wrote to the previous Prime Minister in April, and we’re three months down the track, another 600 Australians are dead from suicide.”

* * *

So what is depression?

Depression is a sad/miserable/despondent emotional response to the experience of suffering.

Human suffering cannot be understood properly unless one has a proper understanding of what being human means.

Human suffering cannot be properly responded to without an awareness of the human capacity for relationship with God.

Believing in God, one sees depression and suffering from a different perspective — still a challenge, but less overwhelming.

Without that, no matter what pills, electric shocks, counselling sessions etc. are employed, the root causes of depression are not touched.

* * *

To quote Elder Zachariah, “Depression is a hangman which kills the energy essential for the receiving of the Holy Spirit in one’s heart. A depressed person loses the ability to pray . . . .

“We greatly offend the Lord when because of our afflictions and sorrows we fall into depression . . . misfortunes and sorrows are sent us by God’s providence to test us.”

S0, seeing somebody in the throes of major depression, should we say to them, “Pray more!”?

No, not in most cases.

Unless a person has prepared himself by a lifetime of disciplined prayer . . . you’ll be hard pressed to start teaching him a prayer-life when his spiritual energy is at its lowest ebb.

If one’s life doesn’t already have a supernatural foundation, it will collapse under pressure like a house with no proper foundation.

* * *

One person who coped with personal suffering, and helped hundreds of other sufferers by her words and example, especially by letters that she wrote, was . . . guess who?

Blessed Mary MacKillop.

Reading her published letters recounting her hardships – and her temptations to depression – is a real inspiration.

Especially in the second volume (entitled “Mary MacKillop in Challenging Times”).

It can be purchased online at www.marymackillopplace.org.au/store/view_category.asp?id=30

Australia’s political parties compete with each other in promising ever more money to the mental health industry.

What exactly are they funding that will allegedly solve mental health problems?

Isn’t it just more of the same – more counsellors, social workers, psychologists, coaches, therapists, caseworkers etc?

In the USA there are at least 600,000 paid social workers — plus 300,000 paid counsellors.

These numbers have increased 100-fold since World War II.

Is the same true in Australia?

Does a city the size of Melbourne really have 10,000-plus of these characters plying their trades?

These bozos produce nothing that you can eat or drink or live in or wear.

Can we afford them?

* * *

It seems we are dependent on them – addicted to them.

Most of the therapy provided by government funding takes the form of a series of either 6 or 12 sessions — after which you’re back on your own.

In such restricted situations over such restricted lengths of time, little progress can be made towards changing the person’s inner problems.

All that happens is a few coping tricks being passed on — a rather brittle foundation on which to build one’s future life.

What is wrong with people is that they are lonely and have nobody who wants to listen to them for their own sake.

They must settle for spilling it all to someone who will listen – even if only for money’s sake (coming to them next payday).

* * *

What lonely and dysfunctional moderns need is what the oldies needed and received.

That is the listening ear of the priest in the confessional, who did it un-paid and for the love of God.

He gave more than a listening ear.

He offered also the assurance of sins forgiven and a restored, never-ending relationship of love with one’s Creator.

If they do any good at all, modern-day “caring industry” operatives do good only insofar as they are fake priests.

Best to give them a miss, and go to the real thing – a real priest.

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The World Doping Agency removed caffeine from its list of substances banned in sport six years ago.

But the president of the agency, John Fahey, has been quoted as being still unhappy about caffeine overuse in some sports — AFL footballers in Australia being mentioned in this context.

Some experts would like caffeine re-listed as a banned substance above certain levels.

* * *

How much caffeine is too much?

People consuming 300mg of caffeine per day get withdrawal effects if they stop using it – so perhaps that’s too much.

300mg is what you get from 4 cups of medium-strength coffee or 6 cans of Coca Cola or about 3 cans of “energy-drinks” like Red Bull.

Coca Cola Company is now trialling a more worrying product, called “Mother”, containing over 100mg in the small 250ml can.

Caffeine-containing drinks are misused by juveniles who mix it with alcohol.

This is dangerous. Some of the effects of alcohol are masked.

People consuming the mixture are reported to be 3 times more likely to indulge in anti-social acts – in particular, driving with above-limit blood alcohol levels.

* * *

Coca Cola is also bad for teeth, partly due to the heavy load of sugar, but exaggerated by its content of phosphoric acid.

Coca Cola is the world’s largest single corporate buyer of sugar.

Tooth decay is now the commonest disease in the world.

Before 1886 it is said to have been rare – that being the year John Pemberton invented and started selling Coca Cola.

If you are ever put in a situation where you cannot avoid drinking Coca Cola, rinse your mouth with water as soon afterwards as possible.

Preferably never drink it – or its clones (Pepsi etc.)

* * *

Last year, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ordered Coca-Cola to run “corrective advertisements” in Australian newspapers.

One of their celebrity-featuring magazine advertisements had claimed that the ideas that Coca-Cola could make children fat or harm their teeth were “myths”.

Using so-called celebrities is a dirty trick if you are flogging a health-endangering product to gullible youth.

Falsely disputing links between a product and ill health is something we might expect of the vermin who manufacture and sell cigarettes.

If Coca Cola Company behaves that way, people should avoid their products.

The owners of the Phillip Island Adventure Resort have refused to hire their camping facilities to a group called WayOut, which plans a get-together for homosexually-inclined youth.

They refused because promoting homosexual relationships goes against their religion.

Now they must defend their action before a Tribunal.

The WayOut group is seeking a ruling that business-people may not so  discriminate – even if their religious faith condemns promoting homosexuality amongst the young.

WayOut told the media their aim was to allow young rural “gays” a chance to “find support and overcome a sense of isolation” — in other words, to recruit confused young persons into the homosexual subculture and further entrench that mentality in their minds.

* * *

The resort owners, who belong to a non-Catholic Christian denomination, are finding, just as the Catholic Church does, how hard it is to get the message across that opposing homosexual behaviour  isn’t necessarily a sign of hatred, but of love and a desire to reveal truth.

More prudent, sometimes, to change jobs rather than waste the rest of one’s life in kangaroo courts being earbashed about so-called tolerance.

In one case in Canada, a religious couple closed down their bed and breakfast business rather than obey a legal requirement to offer equal accommodation to homosexuals as to traditional couples.

* * *

While visiting the divided island of Cyprus, Pope Benedict recently urged Cypriots to “strive for peace and reconciliation and to build for future generations a society distinguished by respect for the rights of all — including the inalienable rights to freedom of conscience and freedom of worship.”

Notice that he didn’t advocate “freedom of worship” only — few object to groups of believers meeting together for private devotions.

No, he also advocated “freedom of conscience”. That’s what our media and politicians hate. “Freedom of conscience” means practising what you preach.

No matter what tribunals etc. may say, nobody can make a person of well-formed Christian conscience do things that he doesn’t want to do.

With one exception. They can make us dead — something we don’t particularly want – but it would be better than cooperating in public sin.

Two days ago, Prime Minister Julia Gillard attempted a warm and fuzzy speech in Adelaide.

She talked about her parents who “thrived in this egalitarian country with its larrikin embrace of informality because they are egalitarian by instinct . . . .”

It is wrong, said JG, to “defer to anyone simply by dint of them having a title, occupation or background different from your own”.

Basically she was boosting disrespect as a way of life.

She doesn’t believe it herself, of course. Let any back-bencher vote against Gillard’s advice and see how they enjoy the resulting quick rabbit-killer.

Those not respecting her title, background or whatever will find it advisable to respect her naked brutality.

Moving forward, Gillard-style, means moving into a jungle, a chaos, where back-stabbing is normal behaviour.

* * *

A bit west of Adelaide is the town of Norseman, WA, where a different approach has been tried.

Unlike Gillard’s face-stomping methods, the Aboriginal elders, the liquor outlet and the police reached an agreement, based on mutual respect, regarding limits on sales of takeaway wine.

12 months later, what is the result?

A 60 percent fall in alcohol-related hospital admissions and less crime – local police report fewer traffic offences and less anti-social behaviour and domestic violence.

Respect for a community’s elders, because of who and what they are, has generated increased respect for road rules, other people’s rights and family loyalties – with lives saved and injuries prevented.

* * *

Respect for authority is indispensable for a society to hold together.

That is why the Church is governed by a hierarchy.

That hierarchy has failed in many ways, but the Church survives and remains the principal force for good in our society.

The Church should have done better in the past. It will do in the future.

How do we know that?

Because it is a hierarchy, with God himself at the top.

As the Church improves its act (slowly, it must be confessed) what is the rest of society up to?

It gets worse every day.

Children’s innocence is destroyed more ruthlessly, and at ever younger ages,. by our society’s ever-increasing media porn, advertisements porn, and government school “sex-education” which is basically porn.