Volunteer Suspicion

 

Volunteer Suspicion

As a lifelong Catholic, and an ordained deacon of 17 years, I can say that volunteers are the backbone of any thriving church community.  And yet, I’ve seen enough volunteers in action to have just a little, just a little, way back in the darker recesses of my mind, just a little question of the true motivation of some of those volunteers.  Maybe, as I think about it, it may be just the volunteers in a certain area that I am most suspicious about.  And, to be perfectly frank, it is typically some of the female volunteers that I have the biggest concerns about.  While that may sound provocative, I don’t mean it to be; it is just an objective observation.

I was perfectly content for the first twenty years or so of our marriage to attend church on a regular Sunday basis.  It was a nice, neat, and compartmentalized faith.  It didn’t require much in-depth thought or stress on my part, and that appealed to me.  It was my wife, Michelle, who messed with the settings on my comfort zone.  She began volunteering. 

Now the thing about volunteering at church is that it has kind of a whirlpool effect.  I recall one spring when I was with a good friend of mine, K.C.  There had been a heavy snow accumulation that winter, and it had been very cold right through most of March.  Then suddenly, the daytime temperature shot up into the 60’s and it did not dip back below freezing at night.  Then, in the same week we got some heavy spring rains several days in a row.  K.C. and I rode our bikes out of town and we found the roadside ditches brimming over.  In one particular area where the ditch was full of at least five or six feet of water, we discovered a whirlpool.  The mouth of the whirlpool was at least two feet across.  We spent an hour or so throwing various sized sticks into the whirlpool to watch them inch closer and closer, then finally get pulled in, spinning faster and faster into the center of the whirlpool and finally disappearing from sight.

As a teacher, my wife was first drawn to the adult formation committee.  Then it was teaching religious education to children.  All that was good and fairly innocent.  It was the year that she decided to make a couple of pies for the annual church summer picnic that I got my first glimpse into the possibility of other forces at work.  The parish we belonged to at the time held a summer picnic on the Sunday of the third weekend of June.  That just happened to coordinate nicely with the time that the strawberries are about ready for picking around these parts.  And so it was that year.  I helped Michelle pick strawberries on Saturday and she turned some of them into two pies that we brought to church with us on Sunday.

Now, in full disclosure my wife is a terrific cook and an even better dessert maker.  She is always the one who is asked to bring dessert for all of our family get-togethers.  I watched her assemble these pies.  She baked a golden, perfectly-flaky crust.  Painted the crusts with melted chocolate so they wouldn’t get soggy.  Then there was a layer of crème cheese and whipping cream.  On top of that layer, she placed a dozen or more strawberries that she hand-selected for their uniform size and red ripeness, pointy end up.  Then she melted some more chocolate and drizzled it all over the top.  I’ll admit, I thought about “forgetting” to put them in the car.  Then I had the idea that we could donate them, but after Mass I would search them out and buy at least one of them back again.

There was a lady waiting at a table for baked goods donations when we entered church.  “Oh my!”  She quickly cleared a place on the table so we could set them down.  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!  These look delicious.”  We went into church and sat down in our usual pew.  It was Michelle who poked me just as I was getting settled.  She pointed out the window.  We both watched the lady from the baked goods table heading across the parking lot, a strawberry pie balanced on each hand like a professional waitress.  She went into the back door of a house right across the parking lot, and emerged a minute or so later empty-handed but smiling. 

I think we were members at that parish for about five more years.  Every church picnic my wife brought two strawberry pies.  Every year after that first one, the same lady was waiting behind the baked goods table.  “Oh, there you are,” she would say.  And then we chuckled as we watched her cross the back parking lot to her house, balancing those two pies.  I’m sure that she was the most disappointed person in the parish when I finished my diaconate formation and was ordained, because I was assigned to serve elsewhere.  Her strawberry pie source was cut off.

Now I serve as deacon at three linked parishes.  Two of them have a tradition of holding a number of bake sales.  Michelle has since grown her reputation for desserts at these parishes.  Many times, they have called her ahead of time to request her chocolate eclairs.  This year, a recent sale again coincided with strawberry season.  Michelle purchased some little tart crusts and made a mini-version of her strawberry pies.  I helped bring two trays of the treats into the room where the baked goods were set up.  There was about eight ladies all looking busy until Michelle’s treats caught their eyes.  Everyone had to gather around to ooh and ahh.

It may be coincidence, but it seems like the baked goods tables are the one area that always have plenty of volunteers.  They are always open early supposedly so bakers can drop off their donations before Mass starts.  It is convenient for the bakers.  But it also gives the volunteers an opportunity to look everything over and perhaps, just perhaps, make a purchase or two before anyone else gets a chance.  I guess there’s no real harm; the money is going to a good cause.  And even Jesus said, “Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer deserves his payment.” Luke 10:7

His Peace <><

Deacon Dan