change therapy

my vancouver blogger friend jonathan narvey has a discussion about the current allegations that the canadian military looked the other way when people they had detained in afghanistan were transferred to afghani prisons where the canadian military knew, or should have known, that the detainees would be tortured. please see jonathan’s article and various comments, including two from myself, here.

among others, jonathan referred to the taliban as “our enemies.” to that i said:

they are not OUR enemies. they are the enemies of a country in dire need of peace and democracy. our enemies, as the enemies of the world all over, are despotism, poverty, fanaticism, lack of education, misogyny and war.

jonathan replied that

our enemies are more than conceptual

i’d like to use this space to think about this a bit.

“the problem is the problem. people are not the problem” is one tenet frequently cited in psychology, in various forms (e.g. “i like you but not your behaviour XYZ.”)

so i see three things right now:

1. if we want to move away from the conceptual then we have to admit that “enemies” refers to people. who are these people? THE taliban? (or in the past, THE russians, THE germans, etc.) “the” taliban is a movement – a vague word if there ever was one – comprised of people from afghanistan and pakistan as well as uzbekistan, chechnya, etc. what we know about movements, especially authoritarian ones, is that the vast majority of people involved in them became members not because of sober decisionmaking but because of necessity, sentimentality (e.g. misunderstood religiosity/fanaticism), coercion or other unsavoury reasons. is the 13-year-old hero-worshipping boy our enemy? the father of 9 children who doesn’t know how to feed them? the grandfather who was told in no uncertain ways that he needs to join or else?

no, “the” taliban are not my enemies.

2. in fact, the word “enemy” does not work for me. as soon as i have an enemy, i give myself permission to treat her or him as unworthy of living. “the enemy” is not my problem.

3. but i agree that abstract concepts are not useful either.

so why don’t we say it like that:

people who rape, maltreat, murder, beat, torture, subjugate and commit other crimes need to be stopped and measures need to be put in place to prevent them from committing more crimes – through rehabilitation, incarceration or a combination of them.  (not through torture)

some of these people are in afghanistan. not all of them.  some of them are taliban. not all of them.

i am grateful that our military is trying to deal with the people who literally commit crimes against humanity.  it’s a very difficult job.  in all difficult jobs, mistakes are made.  i think it’s possible that one of the mistakes was to hand over detainees to prisons where torture was commonplace.  we need to look at that because if we don’t we, too, commit an act of criminal negligence.

do you ever feel like you’re going through your days, and they have a theme? sometimes it feels like i’m being approached by a waiter: “and today’s special is …”

well, my special this week seems to be abilities, disabilities, different abilities – that whole box of themes.

it started with the ongoing story of paul boyd, who was shot and killed here in vancouver last week by police. he suffered from bipolar disorder. it appears that during a manic episode, as can sometimes be the case, he felt threatened, and when police approached him, he slung a bicycle chain at them. police shot him several times, including in the head.

then a friend told me of an incident at mcdonald’s where a person who was hearing impaired received poor service. here is a part of her open letter to them:

a gentleman who was hearing impaired came in … made a signal for a pen and paper so that he would be able to write down what he wanted to order … the employee proceeded to tell this gentleman in a very curt, raised voice that he needed to go to another lineup. the customer started signing emphatically that he needed a pen and paper to which the employee continuously told the customer to go to another line up in an escalating tone of voice.

at this point, i informed the employee that he wanted a pen and paper so that he could write down his order. she then, to no one in particular it seemed, said in a rude, irritated voice, “well, how was i supposed to know what he wanted? it’s not like i can speak sign or anything.” during all this, another employee was watching what took place, making no effort to help either her co-worker, or, more importantly, the customer.

in magnitude, the first event is tragic and horrifying, whereas the second could be called an unfortunate but not very important incident.

this was not the first time police had killed or seriously injured someone with a mental health condition. through education such as sensitivity training, one can learn to discern people with acute mental health issues such as paranoia or psychosis, and learn to adequately and relatively safely (definitely not lethally!) respond to them.

one can only surmise that either the officers in question hadn’t taken such a course (why not?) or that they had taken it and forgotten it (why?). exactly the same could be said of the incident at mcdonald’s, which has a staff much larger than the vancouver police department.

of course, we’ll never know exactly what happened in either occurrence, and i am not here to lay blame; it is only chance that has me talking about these two incidences; there are unaccountably more.

i suggest that they both have a similar cause. it is a combination of authority, ignorance and fear.

the real or perceived authority of standing behind a counter, wearing a uniform, having a gun, standing behind the “right” side of the fence.

the ignorance of how “those other” people live – people whose bodies and minds may work a little differently, or, let’s not forget, people who wear saris instead of saks.

the fear of the unknown (and to ignore, by the way, literally means to not know) and the deep, deep, hardly ever conscious fear that when one interacts in any way with those who are different, one might become “infected.”

but we are all “other”. as richard nelson bolles put it so well, “we are all disabled”. and we are all able and differently able. the disability bot of the police officer and the employee at mcdonalds lay in not being able to assess the situation and react appropriately. however, other than being deaf and having a mood disorder, it’s a disability that can so much more easily be remedied.

tomorrow we’ll look at the other side of the coin and have some positive stories about dis/abilities.

image by matteo

middle of the month: it’s buddhist carnival time! being all busy with NaNoWriMo, this is a quickie version – a little taste from the blogosphere, a buddhist smorgasbrod:

a zen tale from secret forest

the disciple threw stones in the water all day long. the next day, the master told him:
—do throw a stone in the water.
—why, that’s absurd! i won’t do that.
the air stood still like the surface of the lake.
—what have you learned today? — asked the master.
—that i don’t have to do everything you tell me to do.
the neutral light unveiled a matte reflection of the leafs of the medlar tree.
—it’s a lot more than you learned yesterday.

***

we all tried so hard. and it didn’t seem we wound up any more loving or enlightened, just uptight. i remember how we disapproved of those who’d given up their vows, stopped being monks. “he disrobed!” people would say in a voice hushed and aghast, as if the guy had been waggling his private parts in a schoolyard.

that’s part of a very interesting entry by guttersnipe das about wrestling with spirituality.

***

dharmafied offers a video of the compassion mudra.

***

learning from a cat: from on the training floor

***

idra’s net = internet? need i say more?

***

zen and the art of playing pool from my twitter friend, barking unicorn

***

what happens when you get impacted by no impact man:

do you know this expression, “i’m teaching my grandmother to suck eggs?” it’s a british expression. you know like when you don’t have any teeth and you’re like that (mimics gumming food) it’s like sucking eggs. so if you teach your grandmother to suck eggs, you’re teaching your grandmother to do something she already knows how to do? so when i say this to you, you already know this…

there’s no antagonism between living happily and living environmentally.

***

and finally, a bit of blasphemy from mind on fire.

image by heiwa

here’s an excerpt from the novel i’m writing for national novel writing month (NaNoWriMo).  it’s raw and unedited, just the way i wrote it.  19,391 words and counting …

“next thing i can recall is a bed, the softest, most comfortable bed i’ve ever slept in. there were blankets all over, so soft and so colourful, there must have been at least 6. all very light and clean-smelling. and the pillows! big and poofy, a whole bunch, and the bed was big but not too big, and there were stuffies all over, my favourite ones, too! all cats and birds. that’s kinda strange, don’t you think, strange and amazing and i loved it. and the room, it was so cute! windows all over and the sun shining in and it was warm and so, so cozy. the person who had picked me up, he came in once in a while, and everytime he did, or she, really, i could never figure it out, this cat came in, too, big and gray and fluffy. always smelling of patchouli. the person, i mean.

there was – love. yes, it’s true, there was love. somewhere. in the house. in the food. i felt it. and the cat, she had love, too. then there was a big bird somewhere, a raven maybe? and a turtle. and love. i’ve often wondered since then, what kind of love was that? i mean, there was no sex. i couldn’t even figure out, ever, whether that person was a guy or a woman. but she kept bringing me food and put stuff on my leg and on my back, and it just didn’t hurt anymore, i have no idea how she did that. pills, too, some pretty potent sleeping pills but not the kind that makes you feel awful when you wake up the next day.

what kind of love was that? it felt big and real, like bread maybe.”

“love like bread?,” asked lu, incredulously. “what happened to the mansion?”

“what mansion?”

“weren’t you in a mansion?”

“when?”

“well, when you got picked up, weren’t you in a mansion?”

“who said that?”

“robin, i think.”

“robin? what does he know about this?”

“he said burke had told him.”

“burke? that’s not what i told him. he’s full of it. there was no mansion. just this nice person and the rook and the bed and the cat and stuff.”

“and love like bread,” snorted lu.

“you leave her alone!” all of a sudden mohan’s index finger was in lu’s face. “it was love, and it was like bread.”

“yeah, like bread. now that i think of it, that’s what jesus talks about, isn’t it? in the bible? the bread is his body, and that means he loves people. maybe it was like that. i’m not sure what that means. i have to think about it. hey, tomas!”

she waved at a thin, tall man standing at the entrance to the room. “tomas, come over here!”

the man detached himself from the dirty wall – everything was dirty, or at least dirty looking because it was so old and used, the walls, the furniture, the door, the floor, the dishes, and often enough the people – and ambled over to the three of them, gangly, black-clad arms dangling, black hair falling into his hawk-nosed face. big brown eyes. big mouth, big teeth.

“what’s up, ella? hey lu, hey mohan.”

the two others nodded.

“tell me, when jesus broke bread, was that his body, and was that love?”

“absolutely! everything that jesus did was love.”

ella looked at lu with a look that was both confused and triumphant.

“jesus is the embodiment of love. therefore everything he does is love. jesus was born to embody love. love needed to be seen and felt, and jesus came to this earth. that’s why his parents sent him.”

“his parents?” now ella really was confused.

“see, when they say it was his father that sent him, that was because they did not want to tell the truth. but think about it – how can he have a father and not a mother? they made love, like, they MADE it, the way guy over there makes coffee and they gave it to people but often they didn’t understand it, so that’s why they sent jesus. he told me so.”

“right. right.” ella slurped some coffee and said nothing for a while. then, “well, thanks, tomas. you cleared that up for me.”

the four of them were quiet for a while. lu looked around a little lost, wondering what was going to happen next.

“love is patient, love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. it does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. love never ends.”

more coffee slurping.

“st. paul, first corinthians”, added tomas with a helpful smile.

“in that way, love is like the bread that jesus keeps breaking with us. it never ends. you don’t see bread being boastful or resentful.”

having given this proof, tomas smiled even more broadly.

mohan didn’t say much but he wasn’t stupid. he liked tomas, everyone did, but – “bread believes all things?” how was tomas going to explain that one?

“well, bread is a metaphor for love. of course, as a metaphor, it can’t cover everything. metaphors are good for illustrating concepts but a metaphor is not the same thing as the thing it illustrates. it is similar to a simile – i know, that sounds a little confusing – in that a simile performs mestoctomal economics that prefer silvicultural anomies. marx said that – “

that’s where the three saw themselves forced to stop listening. tomas was a wonderful guy, friendly, helpful, well educated, extremely intelligent. the illness had struck him as he was starting his PhD in theology at the tender age of 22. he went in and out of it, from moment to moment, he’d have a clear head for months on end and then one day it would strike him, sometimes in the middle of a sentence, then he might go back and forth a few times within an hour. it was completely unpredictable.

a minute or two into his incomprehensible monologue, tomas stopped talking. he just sat there, looking off into space, his mind occupied by the complicated tangles of his inner world.

“you know, in a way, tomas is right. what he said about love is perfect and kind and refreshing – “

“not resentful,” that was mohan, back to muttering but still paying attention.

“well, yeah, whatever, not resentful but refreshing, too. what happened there in that room, it refreshed me, that’s for sure. i can’t believe in god the way tomas did and i can’t believe that that guy or woman or whatever he or she was spent a lot of time in church – actually, i was always wondering whether she was some sort of good witch – but what happened there, that was love.

we didn’t talk much, we didn’t talk much at all. i didn’t feel like it at first and by the time i would have liked to we already had some sort of rhythm, the little guy coming in, dressing my back, checking my ankle, bringing me food and something to drink, the cat jumping on my bed, all that, and all we’d say would be how are you, how did you sleep, here, you have to finish this, it’ll help you get better, that’s it. for some reason i never asked for her name. she also put a CD player in my room that played all the music i liked, i don’t know how she, or he, figured that one out. maybe i said something about it at the beginning.”

“so what happened in the end? are you still in touch with, uh, whoever it was?”

“oh no. i have no idea where they live. i don’t think it’s here. for some reason i think it was out on the sunshine coast.”

“sunshine coast? so, how did you get back down here? did you take the ferry?”

“it gets a little fuzzy, i don’t know. remember i was still stoned most of the time back then, really until i met mohan, you know. no it’s just the occasional beer and joint but back then –“

“what? she’d give you stuff? crack?”

“no, no, but still, it’s all a bit fuzzy. really, i think it was on the sunshine coast because it all reminds me of that trip my aunt took me on when i was 9. that was the best trip i ever had, the best summer i ever had, and the place was like that.”

image by reds on tour

remembrance day has always been an ambiguous day for me. good memories : an hour in the rain under a gazillion umbrellas, proudly listening to my daughter singing a song with the girl guides at a remembrance day celebration; or a lovely morning 17 years ago when my then-boyfriend, now-husband were walking up and down the streets trying to find a place to have breakfast.

but mostly there is ambiguity. i watched the berlin wall come down on TV with my ex husband 20 years ago while on a let’s-make-it-up trip following a horrible fight. yes, the wall coming down was amazing, especially after having lived in berlin from 1980 to 1982 (and i’d like to propose pink floyd’s the wall as this year’s song in my annual tradition to suggest non-war remembrance day songs). that was only seven years before the destruction of the wall; it seemed nearly impossible then that it would ever happen. but seeing the wall fall felt as surreal as being on that trip with my ex husband. by that time, i had come to deeply distrust making up after a fight, knowing that the sweetness wouldn’t last long (three days in that case). i’m glad the end of the cold war lasted longer than my marriage, which was to end eight months later.

this surreal, ambiguous flavour has always seasoned my remembrance days. there are all these guys, and a few gals, walking around in their uniforms, wearing poppies. these poppies are pretty – really, they are – but it’s always felt like they were glorifying war. but wait, no, they aren’t. or are they? my head spins over that one every november 11.

questions that come up are: does being a soldier automatically make one complicit in the cruelties of war? if so, is that complicity the same as glorifying the killing, raping and maiming that happens in every war? what exactly are the sacrifices that a soldier makes? when someone celebrates soldiers and what they do, is it nationalism? glorification of war? gratitude? sentimentalism? hero worship? paying hommage to someone who truly deserves it? admiration?

lately, i have been thinking a bit about sacrifice, partly because of a book i am reading right now, the priority of love: christian charity and social justice, by timothy p. jackson. he proposes some instances of sacrifice as a truly sacred act, an act of love and surrender not in a masochistic sense or as something forced in oppression, but a giving of oneself in the deepest meaning of charity.

a soldier dying in the battle of metz 65 years ago – what sacrifice might that have been? what if we was protecting a fellow soldier, a brother-in-arms, a relationship that some say is as tight and binding as the one between mother and child?

i can’t get behind wars, never. maybe that’s because i was brought up in a fiercely pacifist household; even my grandfather refused to fight and opted to be a medic instead. but i can get behind one man giving his life, using his body as a shield so another may live.

thank you.

why not hold our blunders, failures and defects up to the light? yes! like they are gifts. god (the universe / allah / buddha nature) will take them as gifts and transform them. there is beauty in them, in strange ways, but there is beauty.

i am reminded that sometimes the word “fault” is used to describe the thicker strands in certain types of raw silk. the irregular thickness of the threads contribute to the beauty of the fabric.

god, please take my beautiful fear that i won’t have enough energy. take my glittering procrastination. take the jewel of my forgetfulness. i hold them up to your light and put them at your feet, a gift to you.

i want to thank janet riehl for passing on the superior scribbler award to me.  it had been given to her by matilda butler and kendra bonnett who have a blog that supports women writing their memoirs.

this is a great way to introduce you to some blogs that i haven’t mentioned much, or maybe not at all.  so these are the people i’m passing the award on to.

holly lisle sure needs no award; she’s one of the internet’s grande dames of the writing life, and it feels a little funny for a little blogger like me to be giving her an award.  but nevermind.  this novel writer (i think she mostly does science fiction) has a humungous blog.  over 40 entries about her plot clinic alone!  she is one superior scribbler.

“building Rapport: advocating plain language, clear design, sensitivity to audience concerns, and civility” – that’s the plain language blog.  in this post, the writer announces that they didn’t make the top 10 language blogs for 2009, so at least they get an award from me.  that post also leads to the winners of the 2009 language oscar: if you like words, go and have a look!

microwriting has always fascinated me.  six-word stories.  haiku.  haibun.  and why do you think i’m on twitter?  this blog takes people’s stories and turns them into 100-word tales.

then there is madeline, one of my oldest blogging friends.  nobody documents dialogue the way she does on her site, where she takes you on the daily travels and travails of the mother of two lovely autistic children.  viz:

i watch his performance, robotic dancing and in time until he collapses in a sweaty heap, “sighhhhhh!”
“you are such a fun guy.”
“wot did you be callin me?”
“fun guy?”
“ooo…..i thought you be said fungi, nevermind, i am liking fungi betterer.”

and finally, there is isms and ologies, “a fiction blog attempting to personify as many beliefs and studies as are entertaining.” i’m looking forward to a post on trophyism (perhaps with this as a background?)

now apparently there are Rules for this trophy.  i’m not a big fan of Rules but since this thing was passed on to me it would be impolite not to post those Rules.  here they are.  hopefully you are of a more mature character than i and will treat all the “musts” with magnamity.

here are the rules for passing on the superior scribbler award.
1. each superior scribbler must in turn pass the award on to 5 most-deserving blogging friends.
2. each superior scribbler must link to the author and the name of the blog from whom he/she has received the award.
3. each superior scribbler must display the award on his/her blog, and link to this post, which explains the award.
4. each blogger who wins the superior scribbler award must visit this post and add his/her name to the mr. linky list. that way, we’ll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives this prestigious honor!
5. each superior scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

image by zenera

i’m doing NaNoWriMo again this year, this time determined to do all i can to make it to the 50,000 word count. so my blog posts may be sporadic, or short and sweet, or both. like this one. only it’s not sweet.

at a walmart in lethbridge, told by a friend:

a drunk native fellow ahead of me was buying 10 bottles of alcohol-containing hair treatment. i asked for the manager and asked him whether he was going to let that sale go through. he said there was nothing they could do. i checked the shelves and saw that this product was vastly overstocked compared to the non-ethanol products. i called the cops. they just took my name and address.

the week before a bunch of guys had been sitting on the bench in front of walmart drinking hair product. walmart restocks the shelves according to the rate of product sales.

they should be arrested.

not the native guys.

as you know, i am a proud member of the canadian mental health association. i am even prouder to announce that a participant advisory committee, that is, individuals who are using the services of the CMHA vancouver/burnaby branch, is hosting an event for people living with mental illness and those affected by it to talk about ways to fight the stigma and discrimination around mental illness. if you’re like me and get excited about grassroots initiatives, please come and visit! here is the full information

rising up to end stigma

please join us at our 2009 participants forum
tuesday november 3, 2009

this is an opportunity for individuals living with mental illness, family members and professionals
to engage in dialogue and share ideas about how we can each be involved in fighting the stigma and
discrimination associated with mental illness.

what:

a 2-hour forum with speakers and plenty of opportunity for participant feedback and idea sharing.

with complimentary snacks and beverages

when:
tuesday, november 3, 2009 – 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

where:
muti-media room
roundhouse community centre, vancouver bc
right off the new canada sky train line

featuring:
wayne cho who from may 2008 to june 2009 ran across canada to raise awareness of anxiety and depression.

andrew kellett fraser health peer mental health advocate

hosted by the CMHA VB participant’s advisory committee

please RSVP by november 2, 2009

pac.vb@cmha.bc.ca
or
604-682-3269 ext. 8479

a while ago we talked about the lack of scripts for talking about mental illness (at least in “polite society”), and before that we had a conversation about how uncomfortable it can be to engage in peaceful communication.  and now evan took up the topic the other day and asked how can we talk about our spiritual experience?

“i find it hard to talk about spirituality,” he says.  which is interesting: spirituality is a much talked-about topic, especially on the internet.  so what’s the problem?  let me attempt to summarize evan’s ideas:

we don’t share a widely understood language, notwithstanding the fact that many different religions are represented, from christian to buddhist to new age.  in the media, these languages appear side by side, almost as flavours to go shopping for.  this is very different from the experience of spirituality, which, to name but a few,  can go to the depths of who we are, can mean “waking up” or “dying and being re-born”, or can have a feeling of inevitability – very different from shopping.

the wide variety of languages that can be found can also be beneficial; we now have the opportunity to talk to people from many spiritual traditions, even those who have none.

we need to represent our spiritual experiences, with poetic and academic words, with images, with sound – and we will probably be telling our spiritual stories for a long while before we will start understanding the language.  we will need to become sympathetic and respectful listeners and viewers and doers. our language will need to stay close to our experience.

this is different from religion, which has often been presented in terms of intellectual belief. this leaves out much of our experience: the delights of the senses, the connecting with others through emotion, moments of transcendence and intimacy …

evan finishes the post with this:

this post i hope is just a preliminary. i would like to hear about your spiritual experiences and whether these experiences have led you to any particular tradition; have you drawn on various different traditions, or even formulated your own? what aspects of your life do you regard as spiritual? are there some parts of your life that you don’t see as spiritual?

i am curious about that, too.  before we go on to exploring this, i thought it would also be interesting to go back to the two posts i mentioned at the beginning and see whether some of the commenters have ideas that may apply to spirituality.

make it positive

alexander zoltai suggested framing things in positive terms.  so perhaps rather than saying “it’s difficult to talk about spirituality” we could say “discussing spirituality is new for me and i’m excited about experimenting with different ways of talking about it.”

avoid labels

evan himself had the idea of avoiding labels.  instead of mentioning the catch word spirituality or words like god, church, prayer, etc. one could describe the actual experience.  “the other day i went for this beautiful walk; the leaves were of all conceivable shades of red, gold and brown, the sky was blue, the air was fresh and clean; it just made me so happy and grateful to be there right at that moment!”

do we really need to talk?  how about listening?

listening is something that ian from quantum learning said is important: “listen for what sits under the words of others”.  talking is about communication.  communication is as much, or more, about listening as it is about speaking.  listening closely to what the other has to say, or wants to say, may give us clues about how to engage with them regarding spirituality.  or it may just end up being that listening to them will be our spiritual experience.

choose who you talk to

sandy said that in connection with talking about mental illness it “takes quite a bit of getting to know someone before they’ll own that their life has a problem.”  in my experience, they same holds true regarding spirituality.  maybe that takes us back to listening again.  through listening we form relationships, relationships that may then be ripe for a discussion of spiritual experiences.

yet another commenter wrote that it feels good to share such experiences with others who have been there themselves.

using the written word

marie said “having a blog that brazenly describes what is going on with me ‘in secret’ is helpful. i write under a pen name; but when i want to share that side of me with someone in my 3D world, i can simply point them to my blog.”  this reminds me of a minister i was once friends with.  we could talk about a gazillion things but not about spiritual matters – for that we needed the framework of the pulpit, from which he spoke most movingly.

just keep talking

another commenter recounted that the only way he achieved a well enough state to have nice conversation as well s complete wellness was by continuously talking.  so here the advice would be to just keep on talking, no matter what.  this goes with what another commenter mentioned, namely that it’s important to remember that when we are afraid of judgment by others for talking about “strange” subjects, it often comes from being afraid to be judged my ourselves.   not everyone will understand, and that’s ok.

what do you think?  how can we talk about spirituality?

image by bobster

last week, the british columbia government (the one that pumps millions and millions of dollars into the 2-week olympics next year) made cuts “changes” to the budgets of about 90 (ninety!) health agencies in the vancouver coastal health region alone. the changes cuts will mean no harm to services, says minister kevin falcon.

it’s hard not to think of the fox that walks into the chicken coop, smiling sweetly, “oh don’t worry, i mean you no harm.”

the cuts, falcon says, are only administrative. apart from the fact that i have it on good authority that they are not just administrative, the question remains how an organization is supposed to run without administration, especially since just about all health service agencies i know are already running on razor-thin administration, and since the government keeps asking for more and more paper (=administrative) work.

let’s look at this.

burnaby is canada’s best run city. can you imagine it without a receptionist?

4refuel in langley won a best small business award in 2006. how do you think they’d do without a bookkeeper?

the cactus club is one of the best companies to work for. are they doing that without administrative assistants?

as you know, my concern is mostly with agencies that provide services in the mental health sector, a sector that is already seriously underfunded.

let’s look at one example – suicide prevention. saving lives is not such a bad idea, is it? how much does it cost?

* $5,000 will make possible one 60 hour hotline training class for 25 volunteers.
* $1,850 will make possible one 24 hour period of crisis hotline service for the region.
* $1,000 will cover the cost of suicide prevention and intervention to save 20 lives.
* $500 will train 20 youth, parents, or teachers on suicide prevention.
* $250 will sponsor training for one hotline volunteer, who can answer 450 calls a year.
* $100 will cover 1 week of CareRing calls to a vulnerable senior.
* $75 will make possible 1 hour of crisis hotline service for the region.

now think about it. someone had to gather this information. someone had to type it up. someone had to get it on the web. someone had to put the web site together, someone needs to maintain it. who do you think is doing this? guess what, it’s someone in an administrative function.

ask any struggling social service agency what their major funding problems are, and they will invariably have “core funding” on the very top of their list – the money needed to pay for the invisible but highly necessary costs, without which the services have absolutely no infrastructure to rest on. if you’re a crisis line and don’t have a bookkeeper taking care of the payables, who will send that cheque to the telephone company, without which there won’t be any crisis line?

so how many suicides would you like to prevent, mr. falcon? 20, or, say, 10% less because the lives of those other two people aren’t that important?