Magellan

I had my phone interview yesterday for the post-doc position in Seattle. The position sounds amazing. I'd be looking at treatment that is happening at various community mental health agencies in the greater Seattle area, and helping them evaluate what is working or not. The position would allow me to influence the community mental health system to make it better (e.g. the best treatments are being delivered, the people have been trained well who deliver those treatments). I'd also then, in light of this information, help to create policy for the agencies and recommendations to the state legislature about how the community mental health system should be run.

I'm really, really interested in the position, even though it seems like it may be completely beyond my abilities. The nice thing is that they don't require you to have background doing this stuff. Because most graduate programs don't focus specifically on community mental health policy creation, the post-doc is very open to just getting people who are interested in this stuff who might not have the background in it.

As I've been praying about this a slice of a poem by Mary Oliver has come to mind.
"Like Magellan, let us find our islands
To die in, far from anywhere
Familiar. Let us risk the wildest places,
Lest we go down in comfort, and despair."

On Monday the committee is meeting to discuss who they are going to offer second interviews to. (I'm assuming the next round of interviews take place in Seattle.) I'm praying that if the job is truly beyond my capabilities that I wouldn't be offered it, but that if this is just "an island far away from anywhere familiar" that I would have the opportunity to risk doing this.