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J. K. Galbraith once said, "Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable." He could have been speaking of the decisions we keep putting off about how we pay for future care of the elderly. Yet the urgent need for decisions was underlined this week by the Office for National Statistics. It revealed that already one in six of us is over 65, with 430,000 over 90. That compares with just 13,000 nonagenarians in 1911. But finding resources is not the only thing we should think about. Every day now we seem to hear about instances of neglect or worse on the part of some carers.
J.k.加尔布雷斯曾说过：“政治不是有关可能性的艺术，它要么给人带来灾难，要么让人难以接受。”也许加尔布雷斯谈论的是我们迟迟不肯做出为年长者将来的护理进行开销的决定。不过，本周国家统计局强调了做出这一决定的紧迫性。因为该局发布的数据显示，有六分之一的人口年龄在65岁以上，其中90岁以上的有43万人。相比之下，1911年90岁以上的老人仅有1.3万。但找到更多护理人员资源并非我们唯一考虑的事情。现在我们似乎每天都能听到护理人员玩忽职守或比这更严重的事情。
What is going wrong? Last week in Newcastle someone told me about her elderly father. He's in his 80s and receives care at home. The care is good. However, the carer has the greatest difficulty completing her tasks because her elderly client wants her to stop and talk to him all the time. Could this be a clue to the one thing needful? Caring is more and more task-focused with little time for chatting. Yet the talking is valuable in itself, and in conversation, other things are learnt, which if not acted on lead to bigger problems. But job descriptions increasingly squeeze out the possibility of simply talking. It looks like dead or wasted time. Then disasters follow. Christians are reminded of the importance of making this sort of time for others in two ways.
到底哪儿出了问题？上周在纽卡斯特，一位女士把她年迈的父亲的情况告诉了我。老父亲已是80多岁高龄，在家接受护理。护理人员干得很出色，但她完成工作时遇到的最大难题便是老父亲一直希望她能放下手头的活儿，陪他说说话。这有可能为我们需要的答案提供一条线索吗？护理工作越来越讲求护理人员对工作的专注度，因此，护理人员几乎没有时间与客户聊天。但谈话本身是具有价值的，并且在交谈中，护理人员与客户能相互了解到其他东西，但如果不对其加以限制，这就会引发更大的问题。在有关护理工作的描述中，闲聊的可能性越来越小，因为这样的聊天看似无关紧要实则能发现致命的问题，抑或这看起来是在浪费时间。闲聊之后，也许客户会发现护理人员资质不够。有人提醒基督徒可以用两种方式腾出时间与他人交谈的重要性。
There is the example of Jesus. He engages in conversation with those he helps, because that is an important part of the care. As he talks he helps others understand why a need has to be met and he gives confidence to those who are helped. But there is a second way in which Christians are actively trained to make time for one another. It's incorporated into the principal act of worship, the communion service. Just before receiving the sacrament of bread and wine, the priest invites the congregation to share the peace of Christ with one another by shaking hands with those around them. It's a short, unscripted moment when the flow of the liturgy is put on hold and people take time out to notice and greet one another. And what is done in the context of the liturgy, breaks the ice for a conversation to be picked up over coffee afterwards. The exchange of peace and the after service gathering is a way the Church fashions its members in the importance of simply making time for somebody else, and to talk. There must surely be a way of enabling this to happen again in those institutions and at those points where the elderly are cared for and where time for conversation is not always valued. The danger is that in pursuit of what is most cost-effective, such time is more likely to be factored out than factored in.
