I was recently asked by a very good friend, “why do we volunteer?”; I have asked myself this same question about 100 different ways at more than 100 different times. Most of the time, it is difficult for me to come up with what I think is an adequate response. Then, as I sat, once again, ruminating on this question of ‘why’ I came to the following conclusion:
First, because I think language is powerful, I want to scrap the word ‘volunteer’. When I read the word ‘volunteer’ I get a sense of obligation, duty – and I don’t do what I do out of a sense of duty. I’m also a little uncomfortable using the word ‘service’. Again, in my mind, this connotes a sense of duty; it strips the experience of the personal – which is the heart of the ‘why’.
Humans are relational beings; whether we recognize it or not, our existence is in absolute dependence on our relationship to our surroundings, whatever they may be (animate or inanimate). Life consists of enacting these various relationships – it’s not always fair or healthy, it can be violent and ugly, but it can also be astonishingly beautiful. I want to live my life striving to enact what is beautiful – and that is why I do what I do.
I grew up as an American Christian, and so the words I am most comfortable using for describing my spirituality and my faith are ‘Christian’ words – I am saying this because the language I use has great meaning for me, but I want to respect and acknowledge that other people might find the same meaning in different words.
Jesus lived his life building a community that was radically different from the status quo of the world into which he was born. In my mind it is quite fitting that he was a carpenter – his medium was not wood, but the intangible. He began building a community based on relationships of faith, trust, respect and, most importantly, love; and I believe there are billions of people on this earth continuing to construct the same community.
Jesus lay the ‘foundation’, if you will, and, as the arms, legs, fingers, toes, eyes, ears, etc. of the body of the church we need each other, we complete each other. Ironically, we all spend our lives in flux between building up and tearing down this unified body that God, in his infinite being, created. But, as Paul reminds us in 1 Cor 12:25-26, we are all arranged to work together and to “have the same care for one another,” for “if one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”
In a world where there is so much destruction, where we build walls that separate instead of walls that shelter and include, where we increasingly try to sever what connects us to each other and to our surroundings for a sense of false individualism and independence, I strive for the opposite – as do many of my sisters and brothers all over the world.
If we are all created in God’s image, if God lives within all of us, if God’s hand created everything, then rejecting anyone or any part of God’s creation is to separate ourselves from God. For me, this separation is painful; I want to be connected – I want to live out the role I was designed for, not from a sense of duty but because it is who I am and I can’t fathom denying that.
Pallisa is part of me now. It is a place where the love the world so desperately needs has an opportunity to flourish because it is reinforced by relationships based on mutual need, compassion and respect. This project offers a chance to continue building, and the love that can be found there is a love over which the whole world can rejoice.
