Patching up the bleeding heart

Continuing on my long road of a bleeding heart career path, I'm pleased to introduce you to my new employer as of Monday, Children & Families of Iowa. We have a deal: I write grants for them, they help me and my family be together, stay healthy, live in a house, and go on vacations. Plus, I get to sleep better at night because I have this thing about always worrying about the sorry state of the world and my place in it. For example, I can't get images of Syrian children being shot in the knees, intentionally, by the Syrian army, many who are defecting for reasons such as this, out of my mind. Yet what can I really do about that? The answer, I think, lies in a twist on that Crosby, Stills, and Nash song: If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.

Constant fretting about suffering children is pretty much a recipe for insanity. Maybe that's why I'm predisposed to searching the nonprofit sector for paying work. It seems like double dipping, possibly make a difference and pay your bills. (Although, trust me, I'm not at all suggesting that the nonprofit sector is any kind of utopia. I wish it didn't exist. I wish we lived in a way that bleeding heart organizations  were unnecessary and their accompanying egos and politics were moot.)

Yet, These days, simply being able to pay your bills is something for which to be enormously grateful. And that I am.

To get an idea of what CFI does, check out the cover article of a recent newsletter: "CFI Family Therapist Helps Mother Deal with Daughter's Rape."  I don't have any kind of profound comment for that except: more please.

Forever and always, my news of fresh employment comes with deepest gratitude to all of you who have helped me along the way, and there are many of you, including so many good folks at MovetheFood and the Des Moines Area Religious Council. What I really wish is that none of us had to work, and we could all simply live in creative community, making things such as sculptures and essays and children and cocktails. Until that happens, forever and always, I am committed to doing what I can to help others resolve issues of employment, unemployment, underemployment, and unhappy employment. A note for the arrogantly employed, you're not my audience.

I'd like to start right here by offering this resource of a life coach, from a wise and wonderful former colleague and friend. She does most of her coaching long distance, via phone or skype. If you are trying to find what makes your heart bleed, what makes you sleep at night, what kind of deal can you strike to pay your bills, maybe my friend can help you sort some things out.

With love, T