Author: Jody Bennett

What price for a life?

Tips for Life

by Alan Bailey

Youth suicide appears to be dropping, but self-harm is taking over.

Most of us simply can’t keep abreast of all that is happening around the world. News spreads rapidly and much of it is hard to come to terms with, so we tend to give up. We just do our best to survive. That’s the formula these days.

But have you noted this? Trends show that world-wide, young people are losing their sense of the worth of life. Suicide is still chillingly common, but now self-harm is taking over. In numbers of countries, those in teen years in particular, are being driven to attack their own bodies. They deliberately harm themselves out of frustration, anger, sadness or just to get attention.

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Keeping love alive and well

Tips for Life

by Alan Bailey

As I stood admiring a lovely home the other day I was told that the previous owners, in their seventies, had split up and were going their separate ways. How often do we hear of it? Couples who have lived together for most of their lives, having brought up a family and been through thick and thin together, deciding that they can’t stand each other any more.

Not only is the change of heart hard to understand but the aftermath of the break-up must be so painful as to threaten any future happiness. Property splitting, new family relationships and other changes would hardly be all sweetness and light.

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Delivered from bondage

by Andrew Lansdown

ANZAC Day offers an opportunity to reflect on the wars that our nation has participated in. One war that deserves to be remembered is the first war that America and its allies (including Australia) fought against Saddam Hussein, the Butcher of Baghdad.

On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded the small Arab nation of Kuwait. The international community responded by placing a trade embargo on Iraq, and issued ultimatums through the United Nations for Iraq to withdraw. Iraq ignored all economic and diplomatic pressure, took hundreds of innocent Westerners hostage, and dug its troops in to the occupied territory.

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Amazing acts of courage

Tips for Life

by Alan Bailey

In a world where greed and selfishness seem so prevalent, it is heartening to hear of something very different. Now and again a courageous and unselfish act takes the headlines. In recent days we have heard of someone risking his life by running into a burning house to rescue a small child. Another case saw a man furiously working to save a person trapped in a burning vehicle, dragging him free and in the process taking the chance on being badly injured.

These brave people deserve a medal and will probably get one in due course.Continue reading

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Something for life’s headaches

Tips for Life

by Alan Bailey

Recently, my wife and I enjoyed a day walking around the Singapore Zoo. It’s an excellent setting for the animals; lush with tropical green and resplendent with brilliant flowers. Best of all, we enjoyed seeing the show on stage where various clever creatures performed. Everyone was fascinated with those animals and their antics, but I wonder what the beasts would think of us if they had the chance to look at some of our ways? Especially if they had intelligence like ours and could come and look us over.

My imagination reels at the thought of a family of monkeys looking in through my dining room window or a giraffe and an elephant pressing their noses against the glass outside the bedroom. What chatter there would be as they went their way wondering what on earth these humans get up to!Continue reading

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That magnificent obsession: sport

Tips for Life

by Alan Bailey

In a world where empires collapse, earthquakes devastate, assassins slay and armies crush, no news is as important to many people as who won the last sporting world cup. Sport for many is a craze. At least, it could easily look that way to an outside observer.

Think of the hours of coverage on television or the procession of parents following their children to the local playing field each weekend. Witness the people who run, climb, bat, kick, throw, swing, dive, drive, pedal, dance, skate, ski, wrestle, box — and add what you want.

For some it’s an interest, a pastime. For others it’s an essential ingredient of life — life being rendered meaningless without it. For yet others it is a passion, a driving force, a religion calling for supreme dedication. Those who view sport but don’t play it, fall into exactly the same categories.

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What it takes to be a man

Tips for Life

by Alan Bailey

As I grew up I learned that to be a man meant to take all of life’s hard knocks without looking for sympathy and certainly to never cry.

Manhood seems to be associated with courage, strength and endurance, as womanhood is with things more tender and more sensitive. But what really is the main distinctive?

True manhood involves shouldering responsibility. Physical toughness is not the measure, nor whether he abstains from activities thought to be feminine. A man is truly a man when he squarely faces his responsibilities and makes a real effort to handle them.Continue reading

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Sons laid down their lives

by Andrew Lansdown

Something heartbreaking happened to a family at Black Point one Easter.

Black Point is an isolated place, accessible only by four-wheel-drive, on the south coast of Western Australia, and the Stallard family travelled there to fish.

The parents, Ron and Debbie, lived in the south-west of the state, but their two sons, 25-year-old Paul and 19-year-old Andrew, lived in Perth. So the fishing trip was something of a family reunion, too.

But it all went terribly wrong that Easter Saturday while the family was fishing from the rocks.

Debbie slipped and fell into the sea, and a wave swept her out.

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Getting to the heart of the matter

Tips for Life

by Alan Bailey

When life seems a bit mundane, a bit ordinary, think about what is going on inside your body. One of the many things we take for granted is that wonderful pump, the heart. We don’t even feel its action most of the time but it is working away day and night keeping us alive.

It is amazingly efficient. Its job is to keep a river of life flowing through our blood vessels. There is no provision for a shut-down for repairs, or for a monthly service, it must just keep pumping, hour by hour, day by day and year by year. Muscles expand and contract, valves open and shut, all prompted by nerve impulses.

Sure, many folks have problems with diseases and disorders. This doesn’t reflect on the design and efficiency of the healthy organ. Very often it reflects on the way we treat our bodies and the things we ask them to do.

The other heart
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