Meandering through the cyberworld

If you watch a dog walking down the street, paying no mind to anything he finds at his feet, suddenly, the dog abruptly turns to the right. With his nose to the wind there is no telling what the dog will land on. The dog is just walking along when, oh new smell, and then continues walking, oh new smell, oh new smell. In fact he may take several more abrupt turns before he stops at a resting place.

My brain operates similarly. While I found it an intriguing way to procrastinate in college, and deepen my knowledge of archaic philosophy, now I find it works to my advantage in the search for jobs in the nonprofit field.

Take for example a recent walk that I took while perusing Idealist for their latest job posts. I saw an intriguing nonprofit name. I followed the link to their homepage, to meander through their work. I found a list of their partners on a PDF image of a recent benefit dinner. So I started to look at one partner's web page. On that web page I found a link stating that they were a member of the emergent village. After finding out what the Emergent Village was, a week later I ended up at an emergent village cohort meeting. At this meeting people discuss issues relating to faith, the church, and society at large. I had a really interesting discussion with the other members and look forward to future discussions. I didn't land a job, but I have found a fulfilling place to discuss topics of concern to me.

Lesson: let your nose guide you through the world, you never know where you will end up. However, if you have a paper due the next day only follow your nose around the block vs. around the world.

Revisiting Memories

Here is a poem I didn't even know existed till today. It mentions me and my changing names the week these high schoolers from Nashua, NH were building with us in Baton Rouge LA. Written by Michelle Cascio with assistance from her class mates I'm sure.

Baton rouge memory poem


Hammers banging, muscles tearing
PDQ and story sharing

Amid the toil, sweat and tears,
We over came our many fears

We made possible home ownerships,
While starting new friendships

Sable t-shirts, bright white sunlight,
Blood-red sunburns, purple bonds tight.

Up onto the house the tresses did go
With a few grunts and a bellowing “HO!”

We started out being quite scared
But all our work showed we really cared

Knowing us people so small can accomplish so much
We were rewarded with the family’s lives that we touched

Mystery lunches but expensive dinners
After just four days we are no longer beginners

Name tags mimicking almost nothing sensible,
All these new memories are indispensable.

The thoughts we thought, the stories we share,
Such good friendships are always rare.

Spilled soda, broken beds and no hot showers
Who would have known it would have been worth the hours

Bruises and burns and lots of sweat
That I’d enjoy it so much, I’d never have bet.

As the sunburns got worse, and all started peeling,
Jose taped a fudge round up on the ceiling.

As we swung the hammer high in the air
Every swing became precious and rare.

As we speak to the friends who sat at home, bored,
We are proud to say that we paid it forward.

The thought of Lockwood with a few fudge rounds
Is almost as funny as Lemay with so many throwdowns

Dormitory smells of moldy towels, stale fritos and sweaty feet
Dormitory shower stalls raining as cold as sleet

Out daily morning journey to Cypress Glen
Working hard with Sally, Cassandra, Kali and Texas men.

Tangela and Eunola we know for a fact
Will long remember this group of “Big Cats with Hard Hats.”

Walmart and catfish and getting lost
Turtles and gators and long plane rides
Raining and knockout and car rides galore
This has been fun and so much more.

I can’t believe the bonds we’ve made
And these memories will never fade.

These tears that run upon my face
Because we have to leave this place

The nights were never silent in the boy’s dorm
We were all so crazy, far from the norm

The mass and clutter was like no other
We did alright without having a mother

We became close and formed a bond so strong
This one will last oh so long.

update: Alex's Lemonade Stand Bake for a Cure

Thank you for your support of my fundraiser for Alex's Lemonade Stand. Through selling my baked goods we raised $240. I would like to continue this effort through the next several months, by offering a select few goods to be sold each month.

February will be Red velvet cake cupcakes or Sweetheart Cinnamon raisin bread.
March will feature Traditional Irish Breads, Soda bread or Honey-wheat oat Bread.

Donations will continue to be freewill. Orders for each month will be delivered the third Sunday of the month, unless requested otherwise. As always, Special orders for dietary requirements or special occasions will always be accepted. Please make your orders by the second Sunday of the month.

Finding energy

An important and often under noticed effect of Job hunting is the incredible amount of both emotional and physical energy it takes. I have found that in the last 2 months my energy has fluctuated an incredible amount from stupendous highs to valley's so low that even the dead sea (The lowest point on the earth) is not low enough.

In conversation with friends we have come up with four necessary practices to maintain a healthy energy level needed to continue your search with a clear mind.

1. Exercise your body. This doesn't mean you need to go out and run a few miles. I simply take a walk for about an hour every day or take some time to do yoga at home. When you are looking for a job funds are almost always tight so the emphasis is on activities that you can easily access at any time of day. If it's raining, grab a rain coat or umbrella and start splashing in the puddles. Or have a dance party in your living room to your favorite tunes.

2. Be Creative. I choose knitting and playing guitar. Some of my friends really enjoy beading, painting, singing, and cooking. The feelings of accomplishment, which wane the longer the job search goes, are necessary for exuding a positive and powerful self at interviews and on cover letters. The outputs coupled with creative activity is incredibly fulfilling, making a sense of accomplishment available every day. This creative activity can be anything from getting a block of clay and continually reshaping it or cooking up your Aunt's recipe for Vegetable soup.

3. Find peace. I chose spiritual practices of writing poetry, songs and singing. I also love meditating, or simply resting in silence(good to combine with my knitting). I like the smile meditation which is to envision your whole body smiling, even your liver. (Mentioned in "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert) You could also find a good book of poetry, or simply a great story, like that of inspirational leaders. (check out your local library, it's free.) My friend is reading about Shamanism, and another about Buddhist practices of prayer. I like the prayers of Thich Nhat Hahn.

4. Friends. Rest in the comfort of friends or family. You don't need to spend money to hang out with your friends. I like watching our favorite T.V. show together, or meandering through the farmers market. Sometimes just a lazy afternoon at the park reading our favorite books, is a great restful day.

Hope still reigns as yet another night comes.

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don't give up.
~Anne Lamott

I often look at my life like a beautiful novel or movie in progression. At this moment in my journey the pages are heavy with hope, that each day something beautiful is a step closer. However each day the simple beauty of just being in the waiting place must be recorded.

There are those that continue to meet in basements and living rooms to work towards the hopeful future. These people are the ones who will always see your smile even as you cannot see it. The people who continue to encourage you to keep marching even though others in the waiting place are erecting new barriers of doubt and remorse.

May we each have a dutiful team that erects images of our victories just as we fall into their arms from yet another doubt filled day.

Can there be such a thing as hopeful doubt? I think that hope would not be as tough if there was not doubt. It is like that moment in Beautiful Mind, where Russell Crowe is being aked if he still sees the phantoms. He says yes, but I simply ignore them. I think that like his phantoms, yes I still see doubt, but I try desperatly to ignore it. Some moments are harder than others, but in the end, Hope will always win.

A New Direction

I think that perhaps I have going about this search in the wrong order. I have been trying to find a job that fulfills my life. I recounted the other day to a friend that I have stopped trying to find a partner who can fulfill my happiness. This concept that one person can make us eternally happy, seemed absurd to me years ago. I found that if I am going to be happy I had to find a source which did not rest in this elusive other being. I needed to find my spirit and the source of my spirit. In writing this I can conclude that I have replaced my job for that romantic partner.

I shake my head because at this moment my own voice is echoing in my mind, that often we learn the same lesson over and over again. Why I don't know, but it seems that I have just learned it.

A transcript of a radio show, helped me find this new lesson again. Here is a moment It is from a Meaningful life Center.

Try this exercise. Take out a piece of paper and try to draw a circle and tell me how perfect that circle is. No matter how talented you are, even if you’re an artist, you’re not going to draw a perfect circle.

Now, to get a perfect circle you need a compass. A compass has a needle and you stick it in the paper, hold it firmly, and then you draw a circle with a pencil around that center. What’s the difference between that circle and the one you drew without a compass? The difference is that one has a center and one does not.

No circle can be complete if you do not have a center. Even with a center, you have to have it firmly established so it doesn’t become jagged and incomplete. If your compass is continually shifting, you will not be able to create that perfect circle.

The center of our lives is not our work. Our work is the circle. The center is your spirit, your purpose, and your vision. The work that you do should extend from your center, not the other way around.

If you don’t have a spiritual center and the center you create around your work shifts—you lose your job or you get older, or you get bored with your work—then your circle can never really be complete because it is being driven by the means rather than by the ends.

So I guess I need to find my compass again.

link to the quote is
http://www.meaningfullife.com/personal/business/Is_there_More_to_Life_than_Your_JobQUESTION.php

Mastering our Passions

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
~Alfred Lord Tennyson

A 2002 article on the ISOPH Institute website highlighted the growing trend that nonprofit professionals are returning to school to get an MBA. The necessity for such business, "for-profit" skills is increasing in demand, especially given the increasing scrutiny over spending and the decreasing sources of funding. I recently attended an American Humanics Management Institute, where several keynote speakers alluded to, even promoted the idea, that the old idea of nonprofits needing only people of passion was outdated. That passion should be pushed aside for candidates with the business acumen needed to drive the nonprofit world.

My recent experience at an interview highlighted this need for greater business acumen, when a question was asked about my ability to obtain funding. The question startled me, especially since nowhere on the job description was this skill mentioned. Perhaps it really startled me since I do not posses that skill. Since that meeting, I have noted that many job advertisements, regardless of the postions' title, request experience in development.

This experience combined with the idea that my passion, which has provided me energy and drive for further understanding of social injustice, is outdated frightens me.

The idea that nonprofits need to compete in a growing nonprofit market, where the number of nonprofits is increasing faster than the funding sources, is not in question. The questions are whether nonprofits should become more business like in order to compete and what for profits models will ask us to sacrifice? In the conclusion of the article on ISOPH the question is asked of whether nonprofits are better off becoming more like "for-profits" or whether they should look more deeply into the concept of what a nonprofit is. By looking more deeply and reevaluating what their mission truly is, a nonprofit may find that the creation of new paradigms for business can be created. They will find that their passion for service can be mastered.

My fear is that if passion is replaced by the perceived necessity to mimic the "for-profit" model, what will the new bottom line for nonprofits be if not to create a better world?


Link to ISOPH article
http://www.isophinstitute.com/sophist_no2_mbas.aspx

A Day On: Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase.
~Martin Luther King Jr.

Today I worked with other Hands On volunteers in Sacramento to celebrate and honor the life of Martin Luther King Jr. What did you do to honor his life?

The above quote will start a new chapter in the life of this search for a meaningful job. Seeing possibilities and the everyday struggle to keep yourself on the path.