This is the most memorable line from the 1989 movie "Field of Dreams". In Dyersville, Iowa, Ray Kinsella is walking through his cornfield when he hears a voice "If you build it, he will come." Ray plows under half his corn crop, builds and lights a baseball stadium, shrugs off the bank's attempts to foreclose --- and waits. In Ray's words "I have built something completely irrational."
But make no mistake, this movie is not about baseball. Baseball is only the metaphor to tell a story about faith and belief, dreams and the courage to pursue them, and the triumph of the human spirit.
This movie could be about us. In fact, it could be the movie for the spay/neuter movement. It's about defying all that seems sane in order to follow something unexplained, yet undeniably real.
Unlike Ray, my guess is that most of us make a point not to listen to any voice coming from a cornstalk. More likely, the voice we listen to comes from within --- or from above. This voice calls to us and we are changed --- a "dream" inspires and motivates and turns passion into purpose, "belief" turns feelings into action and pumps courage through our veins. And so, without experience, without money, without knowing how, and perhaps without knowing exactly why, we decide to act. We take the first step and then the second and then we are in full pursuit. To wit:
Peter Marsh, a New Hampshire lawyer, convinced his state legislature to fund statewide spay/neuter. Barbara Greenstein, former off-Broadway performer and a comfortable retiree in Hilton Head, is starting a clinic. Ruth Steinberger, born and raised in the Bronx, is setting up spay/neuter programs across the poorest counties and Indian reservations in Oklahoma. Frank Hamilton, retired Army general and PhD, just opened the ACT clinic in Tampa with his wife Linda. And then there's Aimee St. Arnaud, Peggy Kaplan, Karla Kamstra and Dr. Nancy Ferguson, Dr. Leslie D. Appel, Betsy Boxer, the founders of Best Friends and No More Homeless Pets, and all the others who have answered the voice and are pursuing a dream.
Which brings us to Humane Alliance. Those of us who are looking to Humane Alliance as our sponsor, mentor, and coach will receive certain tangible things, e.g. a proven medical protocol, design/build assistance, vet recruitment assistance, staff recruitment advice, training, a 290-page training and operations manual, etc.
But underneath it all, we will receive something of far greater value --- the message (and the proof) that dreaming and believing are fundamental and vital --- and possible. Humane Alliance could have been quite comfortable operating a 22,000 surgery spay/neuter clinic in Asheville NC, going to conferences, and telling everyone how they did it. But that was not the choice they made.
They started a national effort that sponsored 8 clinics in 2005, has 22 scheduled for this year, and anticipates 50 next year. They have retrofitted a semi-truck to be a 120-bed spay/neuter clinic for cats that can be driven to troublesome areas like New Orleans and downtown Los Angeles. They have plans for a regional spay/neuter training center in Asheville. Perhaps Jonathan Livingston Seagull best expresses their spirit and their message to us:
When you come to the edge of all the light you have known
And are about to step out into darkness
Faith is knowing that one of two things will happen
There will be something firm to stand on
Or you will be taught to fly
In my own case, there had better be "something firm to stand on" because this body won't fly.
The final message from the movie might be this. People may think you're crazy if you plow up a field for a dream, but plow it up --- or you may spend the rest of your life wondering.
This movie speaks to me --- but then again, for me, suspending reality comes easily and "feel good" is a daily pursuit. And so I say to those "heroes" already in the movement and to those just now joining, "Watch this movie. I think it will speak to you, and in its images you may actually see your own reflection".
-steve-
"Spaying pets. Educating people. Saving lives."
Recent Comments