appreciation & gratitude
 

Some of you answer the calls of people reaching out for help for the first time. Others handle whatever walks in the door of the Family Court office. You get up in the middle of the night and go the hospital. You care for children who are sad or frightened and often very challenging. At Vera House North you meet with residents, clean the house, shop - essentially ensuring the program's success. You cover the front desk at the Thompson Road office in the evening. You offer your help wherever it is needed most.

Lives are changed by you . . .
Your presence and compassion may provide the first experience
or a key reminder of how valuable human life is.

the nature of service
 

Rabbi David Levy recently wrote on the nature of service in the Post-Standard, and it made me think of all of you. After working in Mississippi to repair damage from hurricane Katrina and recognizing how good it felt to help, he found himself thinking about the spiritual side of service. As he says, “What is the effect of giving on our souls?” He struggled with the question of whether or not service can be selfless when it feels so good. His answer came to him from a reading in Exodus. Moses is instructed by God to take a census of the Israelites by collecting a half shekel from each person. Rabbi Dave explains, “Why a half shekel? None of us is complete on our own. We are each sort of a half shekel. We only become complete when we bring our half shekels into community. We think that when we go to help others that we are working to complete their lives….However, at the same time we are working to fill a void in ourselves. After all, how can any of us be complete when there are suffering people? When we perform acts of tzedek (Justice), we unite our half shekels with the half shekels of those in need, and we complete each other. I think that is one of the greatest beauties in the universe; that which is most needed from us by the world is also the very thing that makes us feel the best about ourselves. So to the question is service selfless? Perhaps it was never meant to be because when we work on improving other people’s lives, we are in turn completing our own…”

the opportunity of 9/11:
to see the world differently

Yesterday’s paper mentioned an organization founded by a surviving family member of a 9/11 victim, dedicated to having people do good deeds on 9/11 as a way of honoring and remembering those who perished. What could be more right then, than bringing together people who give so much of themselves and recognizing them in community with one another? When I reflect on this 5^th anniversary of tragic loss of life, I am reminded that crisis is danger and opportunity. Experience of fear, lack of trust is at the center of the work we do, but instead of fearing the stranger, the people we serve have to fear those they thought they loved and trusted. All of us faced a truth that day that others face every day – the world is not a safe place. Choices we make in response to the fear are so important they will affect the future in ways we can not even imagine. If we meet the violence of the world, or the violence in the lives of those we serve, with more violence, can we even conceive of an end to violence? What if, instead, we strive to meet the violence of our world, with non-violence – with love and respect, with care and tenderness, with appreciation, with a focus on human dignity? Often people believe we have to give up accountability if we are to honor and respect human life. But true accountability can only happen in a context that affirms dignity. Can we take the pain and suffering of 9/11 and of every victim of domestic and sexual violence, and can we commit ourselves to create a different world, one person and one act at a time?

reflections on an enduring
faith in humanity

Cleaning through some papers yesterday, I was struck by an old Parade magazine article I found on Bishop Desmond Tutu’s work with the truth and reconciliation commission after the fall of apartheid in South Africa…

“I am stunned over and over that we humans are capable of sinking so low. I still ask myself, ‘Are we really capable of sinking so low?’ Yes, we are. I’ve heard of the most awful things happening - things that were beyond my most pessimistic imagination…In the stories we’ve heard, I’ve been inspired that there also is the other side, the side of the magnanimity of people. So I have two lasting impressions: the horror of what we are able to do to each other and almost exhilaration at the nobility of the human spirit that so many victims demonstrate." How does Bishop Tutu still have faith in humanity? “First, it is clear that there are moral people among us, and – perhaps more important – it’s clear that moral people inspire us. That is reassuring. Eventually, that inspiration leads more of us into action… Somehow the world is hungry for goodness and recognizes it when it sees it – and has an incredible response to the good. There is something in all of us that hungers after the good and true, and when we glimpse it in people, we applaud them for it. We long to be just a little like them. Through them we let the world’s pain into our hearts, and we find compassion. When things go wrong or have been terribly wrong for some time, their inspiration reminds us of the tenderness for life that we can all feel…”

To recognize you as volunteers on this 5th anniversary of 9/11 seems so fitting. You have inspired us, touched our hearts and brought hope to so many. On behalf of all of us at Vera House and all of those we serve, I want to formally thank you. Let my humble words of appreciation represent the unspoken gratitude of all of the spirits that have been brightened by your compassion.

You are changing the world . . . one person and one act at a time.