Rescue Journal

there was a time in my life...

Carol  ·  Dec. 16, 2011

when i had all of the answers...when i was always not only right but knew the right of everything.

but that was when i was a very young and innocent child.

then i grew up.

now i know the world has more colors and shades then just black and white, now i know how little i do know and how much i have yet to learn.

rescue is not for weinies...and it is not for the innocent either. weinies lack the strength and committment to soldier on and the innocent are simply too innocent to live with the resulting battle scars....innocence demands pure fairy tale perfection.

i find the hardest part of walking the rescue road is walking along with myself. sometimes i want to be different, i want to be better...yes..i want to be perfect...and given that it is me, i am realistic enough to know that it ain't ever going to happen.

it is fine i guess to be a soldier and carry on when wearing rose colored glasses and pretending god chose only him for a heavenly cause...but i think it is the soldier who hates the war, who feels doubt and guilt and fear to his very core and who still carries on to fulfill their duty..that is the real soldier of war because that soldier willingly shoulders the burden of personal responsibility.

there is a real danger in white washing rescue life...it encourages inside and outside folks to keep on the rose colored glasses.

i think it was a year ago when that guy came on the blog and flogged me because in his eyes...saints was far from perfect.
so what? his view without actually helping hundreds of animals was better? his view without a single actual animal saved made his way of winning the battle against senior animal homelessness less insane?

lets get back to reality here. rescue is about doing a job..in a perfect world it might be a perfect job..but in this world it is about doing the best that you can and sucking the tough stuff up. like... wishing you could walk the rescue line with someone a little more on the ball, someone a little bit smarter, a little bit braver, a little bit stronger, so the village's safety and wellbeing is not all depending on imperfect and flawed little you.

we are who we are..it is what it is..and we soldier on.

rescue is not about winning the war..it is about refusing to lose.

Comments

Caylee

We forgot to give you Bruiser's cyclosporin drops today. I can bring them with me Sunday morning.

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Brigid

Thank God for people like you who just get on with doing the best they can in an impossible situation. Doing anything is better than doing nothing, and you do it with love as the primary impulse - unlike critics, whose primary motivation is negative.

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Maggie

Rescue, like life in general, is about doing the best you can day in and day out. Saints rescue puts you closer to the line because of the type of animals in care, the old and infirm. Not all questions have black and white answers but at least you are there to ask the questions.
The very fact Saints is unique means there are very few people who are willing to literaly devote their lives to this cause.
Critics? To hell with them. There are people who are not happy unless they have a designated person to hate. I have always thought there is an element of jealousy at work. They deserve our pity.
Know you are not alone.

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