Anybody Out There?

I don't think I'm alone in this, but I don't know where my comrades are.

Who else out there wants to do this and can't:

A lot of nurses (and doctors too, I imagine) are idealists when they start school (perhaps some are like me and go to school because they're idealists), idealists when they graduate, idealists when they interview and take their first job...

And jaded after two weeks in the field.

They want to be really good nurses, to really take care of their patients, but get swamped by the system, which makes them spend ninety-five percent of their shift passing meds, being behind, and sitting at the nurses station an hour after that shift is over (not having had a lunch break), hitting keys so that something acceptable is in the patient chart, just good enough so they can log off and go home. Ask me how I know. 

All we want to do is take care of sick people, not fulfil Medicare requirements. We're exhausted and frustrated over mandates that come from people who work in offices and aren't affected by them. We start to wonder if our ideals are only that. 

I went to Africa looking for my ideal, and even there, I was frustrated. If 5,000 francs ($10) matters so much to you, I'll give you 5,000 francs if it means this woman can get her prescription. I never said that, but it was my cri du cœur.

Am I alone? I don't think so. I don't know anyone else quite like that, but I'm sure you're out there.

And you know what I think? I think the saints were saints because they were idealists. Sanctity is made of sacrifice, not the sacrifice of the ideal, but the sacrifice for the ideal. 

Look up the man in that picture. His name was Aloysius Schwartz. In his life, he was known as Father Al. He wanted to serve the poor while living in poverty himself. He left the Maryknoll seminary because the order didn't embrace his ideal of poverty.

Fr. Al spent his life serving the destitute in Korea, the Philippines and Central America. He lived in a shack, he embraced his ideal. His cause for canonization is being investigated, and he has been declared Venerable. He didn't get that by saying, "The system makes it too hard to live my ideal, so I'll throw that to the wind and be more conventional to get along." He got it by saying, "I have found the One whom my soul loves, and nothing will keep me from embracing His Will for me, embracing His ideal."

It seems we only hear about these types after their death, but they were alive once. Where are they now? I want to come help you! 

If this resonates with you, get in touch with me. Leave a comment. Do something. I'm serious. I want to find people like you. Please. None of us can do this alone. We have to work together to find a way to live this call. 

Who will come with me to embrace the ideal? Who will come with me to chase after heaven? Who wants to become a saint?