Life is fragile. If this weekend can teach us anything, it can teach us that life is fragile.

For the past 12 days the nation has been on its toes, awaiting the fate of two men buried in a wire cage 1 kilometre underground.

On Friday, little Sophie Delezio was being pushed in her stroller across a pedestrian crossing when she was run down by a motorist—a heartbreaking sequel for a little girl who had already lost a hand, an ear, both feet, and suffered burns to 85 per cent of her body after a car crashed into her child-care centre back in 2003.

And then this afternoon, veteran Channel 9 reporter Richard Carleton collapsed at a Beaconsfield news conference. I was watching that live cross and heard Carleton ask what would be his final question. Just a minute later he apparently collapsed and was pronounced dead of a suspected heart-attack.

It’s been a weekend of irony: Richard Carleton rushes to Tasmania to report on a story, and ends up becoming a headline.

It’s been a weekend of drama: Todd Russell and Brant Webb remain just an arm-stretch away from freedom, separated by a mass of rock that’s proving almost impossible to move.

And it’s been a weekend of questions: Ron Delezio and Carolyn Martin wonder just what kind of world this is that hits their already damaged little girl with another bout of tragedy and pain. “I don’t know if it’s bad luck,” Ron said last night, “or [whether] I have done something really bad in the past and it’s catching up now… Why should my daughter go through such pain again? Hasn’t she gone through enough?”

Believer and skeptic alike could ask something similar.

But I wonder if this could also be a weekend of awakening: Over the last few days our hopes at Beaconsfield have been raised, lowered, raised again… and our fists have hit the table over Sophie’s tragedy. We’ve been shaken up. And for many, we’ve been moved to pray.

In fact (and I don’t want to over dramatise this), but the nation is praying more than ever.

This afternoon I heard a mainstream talkback host suggest it would be good to take stock of life, and even pray, following the passing of Richard Carleton. Tasmanian churches have been hubs of prayer for our two underground miners. And little Sophie has awakened the prayers of thousands around the nation and the world.

Listen to a few of the hundreds of responses posted for Sophie and her family on the Sydney Morning Herald website:

Dear Sophie & Family.
Our sincere thoughts and prayers are for you always. Some times we wonder why this is happening but at the end of the day there is someone above us always looking at us with care.

Dear Sophie,
My husband and I both prayed for you on Friday night when we heard the news. We are thinking of you constantly and send all of our love and best wishes.

Dear Sophie,
I pray for you little one. I can not even imagine the pain and sadness that overcomes your family once again. You have been a real fighter, and I pray for you and your family to overcome this. Trust in God, for he is an "everlasting help!"

Or what about this one. The writer says:

If I ever doubted God, I don’t now. Sophie, your strength and courage puts me to shame, and should put us all to shame, when we whinge over traffic jams, not having enough money, [or] the job we want… The next time I think life is tough, I will smile and think of a beautiful little girl called Sophie. God Bless.

Our sympathies are with the wife, son and extended family of Richard Carleton and the family of Larry Knight—the third Beaconsfield miner who never made it through. Our thoughts and prayers remain with Todd Russell and Brant Webb, and with a recovering Sophie Delezio.

And maybe this weekend we’ll remember life is fragile, and that God Himself awaits to be heard through our pain.

Happy Mothers Day to you—if that term fits your job description. Although, according to a recent poll, the status of being a mum is believed to have a negative affect on your job.

More Australian women believe motherhood is affecting their career. The Motherhood Today Poll has found that 61 per-cent of women believe motherhood has compromised their occupation. Five years ago, only 32 per-cent made that claim.

Two-thirds of Australian women feel their careers are jeopardised by motherhood. I’m sure very few of those polled would say their child is an unwanted intrusion into their lives and professions. That statistic is probably a statement of reality: a workplace career will be interrupted as a result of bearing a child. But when I first read these figures I couldn’t help wonder if something was missing from the equation.

That motherhood itself is a career.

The Macquarie Dictionary defines a career as, I quote, ‘a general course of action or progress of a person through life,’ or ‘an occupation, profession, etc, followed as one’s lifework.’

Motherhood fits both descriptions. And the demands of this career path rivals many a career:

Mum’s have to be strategic planners: they have a vision of the kind of people they’d like their children to become, set short, medium and long-range goals to help them get there, and make risky educational, recreational and social decisions along the way.

Mum’s have to be resource managers: my time-management skills pail into insignificance compared to the mother of three who drops Johnny off to high school, Jimmy to primary school and takes Jenny to playgroup after packing three lunches, signing two forms and hanging out three loads of washing. Then there’s soccer practice, piano lessons and ballet classes on weekends. Financial budgets are usually tight yet the needs get met and a few of the wants are fulfilled too. Some Mums work a second job to supplement the family income so that the vision can be realised. Of course, Dad’s there to help as well. But somehow it’s normally Mum who possesses the near miraculous skill of making sure there’s always enough food in the pantry, even with unexpected guests, and enough energy left over to listen and offer advice to their direct reports at the end of the day. They are resource managers indeed.

And Mum’s have to be workplace counsellors: offering dispute resolution and negotiation services on a daily basis. And that’s just for their husbands!

Motherhood over the years requires professional development and skills acquisition. It’s one of the few careers with a vomit-stained T-shirt as part of its corporate uniform. And while so many professionals strain to find an ounce of meaning in their jobs, the career of motherhood can rightly claim to shape tomorrow’s generation and affect the social stability of a nation.

Yes, I believe motherhood is a career in itself. And to the thousands working as Directors of their own Department of Family Affairs, we honour you today.

Merryn and I joined the ranks of the wise, studious, lofty-minded and turtle-neck-sweatered folks at the Sydney Writers’ Festival yesterday. I got to one of Thomas Keneally’s sessions, and got to hear a bit of popular philosopher Alain deBotton. Fascinating stuff, even if both men left me feeling somewhat ignorant!

There was one address yesterday that I must particularly mention. I couldn’t help think that as this author spoke, God was nodding His head in agreement. The lecture was by Clive Hamilton, author of the book Affluenza. In 50-odd minutes, Hamilton summed up one of the great viruses of our culture—consumerism.

From the women’s magazine that describes its ideal reader as, I quote, ‘a 24 year old shopaholic’, to the fact that for some children the first word they utter is not ‘mum’ or ‘dad’ but a brand name, the consumer binge is infecting our society faster than an outbreak of rubella, rabies and bird flu combined.

The average person or household spends at least $1250 a year on stuff they know they will not use. It seems we’re medicating ourselves on spending sprees—bolstering self-esteem by buying luxuries—rewarding ourselves with new toys and trinkets—be they CDs, clothes, gadgets or cars. In fact, one university now even offers a Masters degree in ‘Luxury Goods Management’. A year of tuition will cost you $120,000!

Clive Hamilton went on to point out that this medication of buying things to make us feel good isn’t working. Western societies are seeing great surges in mental afflictions like depression. Hamilton quoted ABS figures that suggest 18% of Australians are now taking medication to help their wellbeing. And the self-help books may be doing more harm than good. With their emphasis on ‘trust yourself’ and ‘happiness is your choice’, they push us more and more into our individualistic cocoons. The answer to all our problems, such titles preach, is us.

The problem is, Affluenza is affecting our relationships, leaving us to be the island of which John Donne said no person can be. We’ve adopted a consumer approach to sexuality, as seen in our heightened accessibility to pornography and the rise of raunch culture. We’ve adopted a consumer approach to parenthood, with children often viewed as lifestyle choices and some couples even doing a cost/benefit analysis before deciding to have them. In fact, products can even dictate fertility decisions, as evidenced by the sports car advertisement whose headline read ‘Porches new baby—an excellent reason to delay yours’.

So, when an academic like Clive Hamilton says we’re becoming too self-focussed, individualistic and narcissistic, my ears prick up. When he suggests we should be teaching people humility rather than self-esteem, I’m with him. In fact, Hamilton concluded his address with this thought: humans have a desire, despite secularity, to search for meaning and purpose. ‘This is essentially a religious urge,’ Hamilton said, ‘one that will always be with us.’ And that urge can’t be satisfied by getting another manicure.

Hamilton spoke to a packed out audience yesterday. In fact, along with dozens of others, Merryn and I had to listen to him outside via a PA system. Why? Maybe its because more and more of us are realising fulfilment can’t be found in things, as much as the marketers want us to believe it. Of course, the Bible has said this for two millennia. But now we’re feeling it.

At one point Hamilton quoted the words of Jesus: ‘What good is it for a man to gain the whole world yet lose his soul?’ Perhaps the truest answer to the virus of Affluenza, and to the great religious search for purpose, is found just a sentence before this quote in the Gospel of Matthew. ‘[Whoever] wants to save his life will lose it,’ Jesus says there, ‘but whoever loses his life for me will find it.’

Something to ponder.