As a retired pastor, I have learned by trial and error that there are things that work and things that don’t work in the life of a volunteer organization. Things that work have the wind behind them. They grow, like a person’s lifetime of experience, into something that defines itself by the good work it accomplishes. For example, I had a shelter in Alaska for villagers who were stranded or whose family member was in the local hospital. There were many poignant moments. One snapshot: the lingering death of a young native woman on a mattress in a corner above the sanctuary while her children played amid donated clothing and her mother sewed eskimo dolls in half-light. When I left, the shelter closed because it was my idea, my implementation, my back-breaking work, and my success or failure.
On the other hand, I have been involved in things that took hold and still evolve year after year, though I and others came and left. These good ideas became good programs with my support and continued to grow without my support. One example, is a seven-year-old family-style dinner for an entire community that now serves upwards to 300 people every week. It started with a few dozen poor and needy people at the table. After 6 months it still had the same couple of dozen poor and needy people. I wanted to give the dinner up because I received a lot of backlash from the elect, and therefore, diminishing faith that the rich and middle-class would cross lines to share meals with the town’s poor, but a committed volunteer said, “Give it one more week.” Her faith breathed life into a beautiful idea that became flesh. She is still there, and all the people who would not cross social lines, including the poor, now cook, serve, eat and clean up together after the community meal.
Activism also bears fruit. A young peace corps worker from that same community dinner town went to Koka Toga, Africa. She pledged to her village that she would build a much needed hospital for the region. She ran out of money before the hospital was finished, but she didn’t run out of love. She refused to leave Koka Toga until the hospital was built. Inspired by her, my youth group sponsored a drum circle workshop followed by a lasagne dinner and free concert for their town. The huge church was filled with townspeople, all of whom were given drum sticks that they played on the backs of pews while the people of Koga Toga Africa played with them on the other side of the world. The money to finish the hospital was raised in two hours that night. The hospital was built. Lives are now saved there every day. Thirty-fold. One lost, shy teen in my group found his voice in drumming and became a percussionist, and the other teens grew up seeing the power of community in action, sixty-fold. The backs of the pews are softly dented from the pounding they took; evidence of their story of sacrifice and commitment to a cause greater than their everyday purpose. One-hundred-fold.
Working for a cause is life-changing and life-sustaining. It is synergistic, meaning that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and it lives as long as it is tended to and cared for. It produces fruit. Otherwise, it becomes a part of the tradition of people who hold onto it because they don’t like change. The Christmas advent ring is one of those nostalgic traditions of the church. It is not a sacrament, though people have destroyed each other over it, many times over. No one knows and no one cares that the advent ring began in Germany when a pastor in charge of an orphanage got tired of the children asking how many days were left before Christmas so he put candles on a wagon wheel and lit one every day. It was magical for the original orphaned children. Now rigid interpretation, number, order, and proper color have been added to the ring. This is the absolute definition of institutionalizing irrelevance, but it holds no magic for children eagerly awaiting Christmas.
This is sadly what June Awareness Month is in danger of becoming. Its history and reason for being are already lost, and it is becoming a commemorative little feel-good substitute for true life-sustaining change. We have not achieved our purpose. We have not worked hard enough to unify once a year for a cause greater than out own take on lipedema. We need an ice bucket year.
My favorite story about June Awareness month is one I don’t want to be forgotten. One year, the Lipedema Ladies in Britain rented an open air sightseeing bus. They bravely went around London with a megaphone, calling attention to lipedema. There were fewer in number than hoped for (There always is at first), but, in my mind, this memory of a handful of determined women expresses the true meaning of June Awareness. They stood publicly, a handful of committed sisters, and identified themselves for the world to see because they wanted to make a difference in the lives of women who had not yet hears of lipedema. How much internal change had to occur within those women for them to make their bodies public object lessons, I can only imagine. These Brits are your bar, ladies. I say: “June Awareness has run its course. Let it go.” But, I also ask the question: Are there women who will step forward and commit to the challenge of the following statement, “Give it one more good year.”
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