Last weekend the whole family volunteered at our neighborhood elementary day for a big city-wide school clean-up day. It was open to the public but was organized by a religious group.
We had a great time. It was fun being in an elementary school- for me and Michael out of nostalgia and interested in the ways things have changed and for the kids because they’d never been in big kid school before.
We were as helpful as we could be. Andrew and Michael sharpened pencils, Miranda and I wiped desks and fetched some supplies. Michael and I helped a bewildering collating project and the kids played in the gym/picked up trash.
I LOVE a volunteer group. People are generally in such good moods and willing to do things they aren’t great at or don’t take the most specialized skills. I get to see how different organizations run and how the slack is picked up by a helping hand. Everyone is usually really friendly and there are typically donuts.
I wish religion wasn’t so demonstrably terrible and based on worshipping an incredibly cruel or at least indifferent being who is all knowing enough not to care about miniscule things like you.
The opposite of the terrible things people do in the name of religion are the wonderful things people do in name of religion. Building orphanages, opening shelters, manning soup kitchens. I adore this about humanity. The snag is that I hate that people need God as the motivator and justification. Or worse, that recipients are pressured to believe to receive. That grosses me out in so many ways.
In my humble opinion, if there is a just and caring god then we should all be able to sit back and enjoy. It is because we are all humans and subject to the hardships and opportunities that come with this physical world that we should be helping one another out.
I know what I’ll do. I’ll start a secular organization dedicated to volunteerism alone. Since it’ll take a lot of my time I might ask people to give money to help. And to keep us on the same page, ideologically, I’ll probably give a talk once a month or once a week or so. And since it might be hard for people to keep that message in their heads I’ll write a pamphlet or book of some sort that can be used as reference.
PS we were ready to head after the break for a group picture. Miranda refused to be in the group shot and stood grumpily out of frame ššš I think she was hoping for a solo shoot.
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3 comments:
Have you looked into Kiwanis, Rotary or the Eagles? Might tick off some of those boxes for you.
My life list is to be a kiwanian. They were really important to my life in high school. Still a touch churchy and an annoyingly sexist history.
It's funny that you wrote a volunteer post today because I started thinking about volunteering today for the first time since working at the college. I used to volunteer all the time in Seattle (not with a group though) and loved it. It sounds like you enjoy the group aspect, but solo volunteering is pretty awesome too. My latest interests? The realistic one is an ESL program in Boulder for immigrant mothers who end the class by reading children's books to their infants! The unrealistic one is flying to Greece to work in the refugee camps as an English language child adjustment support person. Neither program is religious at all, which is always at the top of my volunteer checklist too! ;)
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