Before You Burn Out, Chill at the Stadium

March 21, 2008

In the summer I go to a lot of baseball games.  Baseball is not life for me, but it is one of the ways I am able to work the hours I do and under pressure of knowing that my advice may well result in making the difference between someone going to jail or to Iraq. 

Previously, my advice as an attorney only made a difference in my client’s pocketbook.  While that can have a terrible result for my client, it is nevertheless not life or death.  Now, my advice can be for all intents and purposes, life and death.  Certainly, life and death of soul.

For people who do this kind and similar work, it is essential that we find a safe place for ourselves lest we crumble from the hours and intensity of work.  At the Center, Bill and I try to model finding that safe place for the often young (youngest so far was 16) staff as well as intermingling play with work.  If you can do this, you can spend your life working for peace and justice.  If you don’t, burn out is probably in your future.

Baseball is that for me.   For Bill, who works alongside me, it is roller coasters—his cell phone voice message is “Bill Galvin, peace activist and roller coaster connoisseur.”  I am not a connoisseur of baseball as much as a basic fan who sings sincerely at each game “I don’t care if I never get back.”

Because of this I do go back every day and continue to provide accurate and helpful information to the men and women who are facing crisis of conscience so that some time they may be able to sing at a baseball game with no more worry than who will win.