Adding this to my reading list.
I've been reading Fr. Gregory Boyle's "Barking to the Choir" this week. The following sentence hooked me and wouldn't let go. "We always seem to be faced with this choice: to save the world or savor it. I want to propose that savoring is better, and that when we seek to 'save' and 'contribute' and 'give back' and 'rescue' folks and EVEN 'make a difference', then it is all about you...and the world stays stuck....The good news, of course, is that when we choose to 'savor' the world, it gets saved. Don't set out to change the world. Set out to wonder how people are doing. (p. 174-5)" This certainly hits a nerve with me personally (it's one of the reasons I have worked in and with nonprofits) - and professionally as someone who works with staff and volunteers and partners wanting to do all these things. Fr. Boyle goes on to point out that "before things become mutually beneficial at the margins, they need to be mutually relational" (p. 182), which echoes activist Bryan Stevenson's call to get proximate with others. This is a fundamental reframing of "service", particularly project-based service. Volunteer projects that are plug-and-play-and-walk-away can meet a need but they rarely are relational. If we're honest, that's the appeal. They allow us to do "community" on our own terms and without entanglement. True community asks us to show up and keep showing up, even when it isn't convenient or easy or fun. Which makes me wonder how project-based service can be a bridge or portal to community. I'm also thinking about what it means for me to be mutually relational. How am I showing up in community? Where am I missing the mark? How does mutual relationship show up in my work about volunteer impact and volunteer purpose...and corporate volunteering, which I posted about last week? How do we create conditions for mutual relationship in nonprofits when our organizations are rarely structured for it (and are often structured against it)?