Compassion + Action
Photo credit Bigstockphoto/enterlinedesign
by Tammy Smith, MSW, LCSW
This is for all the social workers:
from the seasoned old-timers ready to retire,
to the grad student slash intern with
their stash of process recordings,
to the LSW, about to crash under pressure
of accumulating 3,000 plus clinical hours
this is for you.
And to everyone else in between,
all of us mid-careerish feeling squeamish
by the frenzy of recent events, I see you.
I really do.
Because I won’t shut my eyes in response
to this demise. I can’t compromise the size
of my heart; it won’t recognize this amount of pain.
And who can blame it? A social worker’s heart beats
for a higher purpose. From the start, we search
for meaning beyond the surface. Our code of ethics
ensures we will endure nothing less.
It’s a stressful time to be a warrior.
But like a good soldier, we need courage,
collaboration and conviction.
Consider this as our global treatment plan.
How many ways have we learned to
chart our challenges as successes?
Social work is not for the weak or faint of heart.
Because this field won’t let us yield to tyranny.
It demands we level up. Develop
a more detailed game plan
so we don’t get derailed from our mission.
This year our professional theme,
Compassion plus action doesn’t come cheap.
But it’s a fraction of the astronomical cost of silence.
Or apathy. And even as many of us will joke
we’re not good at math, we can still count
all the times we’ve put someone else’s needs first,
sometimes to our detriment,
the best measurement of our commitment.
This isn’t the time to sit on the sidelines,
I mean, can you really bench a social worker?
So lift your heart the length of your arms,
let your hips swing with the fullness of this cause,
and let passion linger on your lips like a deep pause.
Let action plus compassion unfold
like a prayer is a poem inside a promise
we preach from a place of empowerment and praise.
Action plus compassion multiplied by advocacy
strengthens us; it’s our common denominator,
the language we’re most fluent in, that mother tongue
that makes us lash out at oppressors who try to divide us,
diminish our vision and deny us access to our calling.
Because we’re social workers, we already understand
compassion as the chemistry of caring.
Attachment theory demonstrates that we all need
one nurturing individual to believe we are worthy.
This becomes the frame we hold for our clients.
For each other. For ourselves. And for the world.
How many social workers will it take to change the light bulb?
Dumb joke or a dark truth? Now, more than ever,
we need a strong vision and the clarity of wisdom.
Like the poet Emily Dickinson said, hope is the thing
with feathers that perches in the soul.
We, the social workers, are out with lanterns, looking for ourselves.
Truth seekers radiating light.
Tammy Smith, MSW, LCSW, is employed as a psychotherapist at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. She holds a Master of Social Work from New York University and earned her Bachelor of Social Work from Ramapo College of New Jersey. Her poetry has been published in Eunoia Review, New Verse News, Grand Little Things, Verse-Virtual, and numerous other literary magazines and journals.