To Volunteer or Not to Volunteer?

Volunteering has been something I have wanted to do for some time now, but I didn't know where to start, and with 2 small children at home, I didn't really have any physical time to donate. But still, I felt it necessary to see if there was some way for me to help.

Through the excellent website, www.govolunteer.ca, I found several opportunities for a graphic designer such as myself to offer my design services as a way of volunteering. Because of today's technology through phone, email and PDF proofs it is possible for me to volunteer from the office and/or from home without actually having to GO anywhere. It works out well for me, for now anyway. When the kids are a little older I would like to get out on the front lines to help battle homelessness and hunger but I do what I can right now.

I am currently volunteering for St. Barnabas Anglican Church (an organic spiritually inclined parish with a great loving community, a female priest with an inexhaustable resevoir of energy who runs a thrift shop for the underpriviledged and regular Thursday meals for the homeless), Farm Folk/City Folk (an organization dedicated to bringing city consumers to local sustainable farming families who practice free range and humane farming techniques), and the Vancouver Cancer Society (self-explanatory, who hasn't been touched by cancer?).

I also found a couple of sites that accept clothing and houseware donations for distribution to the poor and needy. They are Homestart.ca and Gatherandgive.org. Way better than dropping our extra stuff at the local Value Village, though anything is better than the landfill!

So what's my point? Well as a priest-in-formation I feel that volunteering in your local community to be absolutely necessary and a fundamental building block of living what you preach, rather than just talking about it. These are the people who you will be helping, who willbe coming to you for ministry, for compassion and for assistance. Gnostics often spend too much time IMHO in their own heads when the real battle against the Archons occurs out "there".

I asked a few of my co-worker's hypothetically whether or not they would volunteer their time, provided that it was easy to find opportunities locally and that it was for an organization or cause they felt inclined towards. The answers, frankly, surprised me. These are caring, lovely people who I feel very at home with. Everyone one of them felt (I'm being general here) that their time was too precious to give it up regularly unless they were to get something in return. Their reasons differed and what they felt they would need in return to make it worth it differed, but in the end they "didn't have enough time" to even think about it. We're talking about mostly single people with no kids in their 30s. No time!?

Now, I'm not judging here but I was a bit surprised and even a little disappointed. Is this apathy to the suffering and needs of others cultural? Is it taught and/or learned? Is it simply that these people have no real understanding what it is to need? I grew up pretty poor and we had some pretty rough stretches their while my Dad was out of work sick, so I know what it is like to eat potatoes and PB&J for weeks at a time. I know what it is like to not know if you will eat tomorrow. I know what it is like to have one shirt and one pair of pants for most of a school year and I know what it is like to wear patches on your patches.

Where does this apathy and indifference come from? Is it just the way we are? Some of us care and some of us don't?

Volunteering is easy. It seems that the real challenge is finding time in your busy and dare I say it self-absorbed schedule to make room for the needs of others. It could be anything just as long as you do something that will positively impact your community and reduce the suffering of others even by an inch.

Or is it wrong to expect others to give a shit about the needs of others? Am I being naive here?