the thinking heart.

I say over and over that rescue is not personal. and it's not.
but it is.

there are two things that scare the absolute crap out of me about rescue and they both involve people.
rescuing without heart.
and rescuing without thought.

rescue by its very nature requires people who are personally wounded by the suffering that they see. if it doesn't hurt, we won't fix it. we will find some way to just turn away. the human mind is an incredible machine that we learn to manipulate to live with, make sense of, the world around us. the real danger in rescue is intellectualizing the process.

however, rescue will never be effective if it is done just with bleeding hearts. knee jerk reactions without future thoughts. there is no point in "saving" them if you refuse to follow thru with an actual plan to ensure that their rescue is really rescue.

in so many ways, I am like lance. but instead of fearing confinement and chains, I fear spreadsheets and research papers. it is not that I don't value them as tools to improve rescue care. it is that I fear the power they have to take over, mow over, the true heart of rescue.

I believe the biggest obstacle we have in health care to the delivery of responsible, compassionate, universal health care to our patients is the business model we currently use. it is not your hands on health care providers making the decisions for you...it is the ivory tower business executives who are far, far removed from a personal investment in you.

rescue/animal welfare is the new frontier. it is changing, it is rearranging our perceptions of animal rights and compassionate animal care. we are at the cusp of finally making the giant leap from the age old crazy cat lady to respected animal advocacy.

but there is something we absolutely cannot lose as we make this giant stride. we cannot lose that personal connection that we made with individual animal's lives. the day that we say that rescue is ONLY acceptable, achievable, possible, ethical if it follows certain man made, ivory tower rules, is the day that rescue ceases to be rescue and becomes board room bullshit fueled by the egos of individual humans.

when I first started nursing, I saw things I did not like. and I vowed I would care for every single patient, like their family was standing right at my side.

none of these animals have families to stand by their sides so I envision god right there beside them. watching them, watching me and caring that I honestly try not to fuck up and further wreck their thoughtlessly discarded lives.

there has to be a personal, heart felt investment in every suffering animal that we say we are here to save. and yes there has to be the brain power there to be able to navigate the problems, to find and provide the solutions so they actually feel like they have been saved.

many years ago when health care still made sense, on the day of my very first orientation as a brand new nurse, the VP of operations said the biggest and best resource that the health care system had, was it's front line staff.
it's not like that anymore, the value is now in the thinkers and not the actual do'ers. the value system has shifted.

I don't want to see that happen to rescue, the animals will be lost.

rescue (and human health care) require the best that we have..the delicate balance of thinking hearts and feeling brains.