Newspaper Columns by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Volunteers celebrate life as gift
By Bishop Paul V. Marshall
August, 2005
It was billed as a Hip-Hop Mass: rap, dork dancing, busy lighting, and unimaginably loud music. Contrary to the expectations of some of my fellow geezers, it was also thoroughly orthodox in religious content.
It was refreshing and hopeful to encounter 1300 young people putting so much energy into expressing their faith in the sounds and sights of their generation. We had Superstar, they have rap. Many young people there had a kind of Pentecost experience, hearing good news in their own language for the first time. I was overcome.
Then the realization came. For the young people gathered at the Episcopal Youth Event in Berea, Kentucky, the awesome moment was possible in part because over a hundred adult volunteers were putting in eight consecutive sixteen-hour days. Most gave up vacations and paid their own expenses.
Then came the thought that beyond that gathering, throughout the summer, other young people have also been having life-changing experiences because volunteers are invested in the future of our youth.
Despite our reputation for living in selfish times, IndependentSector.org, tells us that 109 million American adults volunteer 19.9 billion hours a year without compensation. The website estimates the dollar value at $225.9 billion.
Much of the quality of American life depends on people who volunteer. Cultural, charitable and religious institutions rely heavily on individuals who extend themselves for others. Think of the people in your block and the activities and causes to which they give themselves. It’s a good corrective for cynicism.
Part of the irreducible minimum of healthy spirituality is connectedness with the world and commitment to its wellness. For those who think in other terms, natural selection seems to favor such a sense of connectedness and altruism because it helps insure the survival and progress of our species. Both points of view seem correct. Either way, however, the results are good for the individual and the community.
Quietly knitting for the indigent, putting together a flyer for scouts, working in volunteer construction crews are activities that vary in noise and camaraderie, but they share a commitment to our common life, expressing human solidarity on the most basic level. It suggests the “muscle memory” athletes and musicians depend upon: what you do becomes part of you.
It may be interesting to speculate on what spiritual wounds would keep a person from investing energy in others. The cure, however, may be of more interest than the diagnosis. Web-surfing reveals studies that highlight the mental and physical benefits of giving time and self for others.
There may also be something redemptive in taking time and giving it away, a kind of a defiant thrust against a culture of endless busy-ness. It saves money, too: those who shop out of boredom or addiction discover that you can’t shop and deliver meals at the same time.
Readers of this column know that one of my concerns is reaching for the highest rather than the lowest common denominator among the spiritualities present in our community. Low-key summer reflection on the phenomenon of the volunteer allows us to affirm together how working for the good of others reflects a sense of life’s basic characteristic as a gift.
It is a gift with challenges. In helping each other meet them we discover ourselves. In responding to each other by expending time and energy, by showing up for each other, we offer something back to the source of our life and we are enriched.
When the ancient writer James told his readers that “true religion” meant visiting the sick and caring for the widow and orphan, he was telling us that the core of all faith is connectedness with others, a connectedness learned by doing and only feebly celebrated in words such as these.
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