Advocacy Check-List

My Handy-Dandy Client Advocacy Checklist:

I’ve been doing this work for over a decade, and I have come up with a fairly simple formula for client advocacy. It’s only got a few steps, and I have been undeniably good at this work, so if you’re in the same field, it might be worth taking note of. I usually envision each roadblock to providing individual clients with what they need in terms of a destination along a long, windy, mountain road I have to get to, obscured by an enormous boulder. I will get to the destination, it’s only a matter of how.

1. Will the boulder remove itself so I can pass?

2. Can I talk to or negotiate with the boulder in a certain way that would enable it to remove itself so I can pass?

3. Is there some larger boulder—preferably one my boulder is beholden to in some sense—who will remove the boulder from my path, or is there some other unrelated boulder that can help clear my path if I appeal to it in the right way?

4. Can I remove the boulder myself?

5. Can I go around the boulder?

That’s it. Any good advocate will understand that the path will be cleared, and they will utilize whatever tools are available to them to clear the path. You will reach your destination. The only question is how.

That is advocacy.

The Cold Water Fountain

I went to Brantner Elementary, and so did all of my sons. I just randomly said to my youngest, ‘don’t you love the water fountain in your school with super cold water?’ And he mentioned the one next to the library at Brantner, which is exactly the one I was thinking about when I made my comment. There is no better bonding than a shared experience.

Beyond Pizza

I just noticed that Cicis has the motto ‘beyond pizza’ next to the name of their restaurant on the marquee. Has this already been the case? Either way, my first thought when I saw It today was ‘I bet they also sell assault weapons now’. 

Hurt People

Another example of parental miscommunication: for years, I have told the boys that ‘hurt people hurt people’, whenever the subject of general cruelty or bullying or just basic nasty human behavior would come up. They have always understood my underlying message about how unaddressed trauma can lead a person to traumatize others, but today my 8 year old made it clear to me that—although he has understood and internalized that message (he feels bad for the president, that he’s lived so long and is still hurting people)—he has always understood ‘hurt people hurt people’ to be a kind of mantra that damaged people repeat in their minds as they go about their lives, as in, ‘I must hurt people!’, rather than what that saying actually means, which is that people who have hurts they won’t or can’t address will often hurt other people. I saw the lightbulb go off over his head when I explained it. We say things, and we assume those things are understood in the way we meant them, but it is critical to appreciate how different each person’s context is.

Smoke

I smoke my lungs

And I smoke my mind

I smoke my soul

And wonder what God will find

In the ashes of my body

Maybe just little bones

Will he find my spark

And the thing that called me home?

And I 

I smoke to you

I cloud my mind

Man is just an animal

A pain in my side

Why do I care for this beast

If it lives or if it dies?

Why does it torment me so

When in the night it cries?

I am smoke and you

Are a solid thing

Can I encompass you

Can you breathe me in?

Is love just a tumor?

A cancer that can hide

All of the emptiness

That God has left inside?

I smoke my body

Like a salmon on the grill

Will anyone mourn me?

Taste me, I know they will!

What is the flavor

I’m glad that God has died

I’m glad I twisted that knife

When I kissed him last night

I smoke my lungs

And I smoke my mind

I’m surprised he didn’t kill me

After what I said and I

But here I am alive

A living blasphemy

And your body tastes like honey

And I welcome the bees that sting

My lips

My tender parts

My imagination

My bleeding heart

My bleeding bowels

My swollen ass

I’ll sink down into hell

Where at least I know they dance!