Who Me?
There was once a college student who was struggling in many areas of her life. She spent a great deal of her time feeling angry and frustrated. When she could stand it no longer, she went to the dim and seldom-
used chapel on campus. She paced up and down the aisles, slapping the back of the empty pews. She yelled, she cried, and she raged at God.
“God you created the world ... what could you possibly have been thinking? Look at the problems people face. Look at the pain, suffering, and hunger. Look at the neglect, the waste, the abuse. Everywhere I look, I see messed-up people, hurting people, lonely people!"
The young woman ranted and raved on and on. Finally, exhausted, she sat in the front pew and looked hopelessly at the cross. Its tarnished surface reflected the dusty sunlight filtering in through the stained glass windows.
"It's all such a mess! This world you created is nothing but a terrible mess! Why even I could make a world better than this one!"
And then the young woman heard a voice in the silence of that dusty chapel that made her eyes open wide and her jaw drop.
“And that is exactly what I want you to do!” said God.
Volunteers Are Essential!
Erma Bombeck on Volunteers
I had a dream the other night that every volunteer in this land had set sail for another country. I stood smiling on the pier, shouting "Good-bye phone committees, Good-bye disease-of-the month. No more getting out the vote. No more playground duty, bake sales and three hour meetings."
As the boat got smaller, I reflected: "Serves them right, that bunch of yes people. All they had to do was put their tongues firmly against the roofs of their mouths and make an "o'~ sound-no. It would certainly have spared them a lot of grief. Oh well, who needs them?"
The hospital was quiet as I passed it. The reception desk was vacant. Rooms were devoid of books, flowers and voices. The children's wing held no clowns, no laughter.
The home for the aged was like a tomb. The blind listened for a voice that never came. The infirm were imprisoned in wheelchairs that never moved. Food grew cold on trays which would never reach the hungry.
The social agencies had closed their doors - unable to implement their programs of scouting, recreation, drug control; unable to help the retarded, crippled, lonely and abandoned. Health agencies had signs in their windows: “cures for cancer, birth defects, multiple sclerosis, heart diseases, etc., have been canceled because of lack of interest.”
Schools were strangely quiet, with no field trips and no volunteer classroom aids. The symphony halls and museums that had been built and staffed by volunteers were dark and would remain that way.
The flowers on church altars died. Children in day nurseries lifted their arms, but there was no one to hold them in love. Alcoholics cried out in despair, but no one answered. The poor had no recourse for health care or legal aid.
I fought in my sleep to regain a glimpse of the ship of volunteers just one more time. It was to be my last glimpse of a decent civilization.
Reprinted from the National Technical Assistance Center on Family Violence, Monthly Memo, Vol. II, No. 5, May 1980
