Volunteers in the Big Society

I really wasn't in the zone yesterday on my volunteering shift. Term is off so all the students are gone. In addition, quite a few paid staff have been permanently axed by funding cuts within the last two weeks... So the remaining volunteers are asked to do more and more by a management team that seems increasingly stressed out and desperate.

I moderately enjoyed being asked to be there during my maternity leave "if I'm feeling well". I'm already in the third trimester as it is, and I wasn't feeling particularly well on that day. I also sense that compassion fatigue is starting to kick in. It does affect me when little kids are visibly hungry and Eastern Europeans are so skint they can't afford a 50pence cup of coffee. Some days I'm just not in a place to brush it off and I want it all to go away. It seems to me that I might be in need of some TLC. I'd better ditch Barbara for a while, dig out my copies of Regena and Debrena, buy some posh make-up and get into a pink bubble bath.

The reason I'm letting myself be so uninspired in here is that there is no point in pretending that I don't sometimes operate according to common cultural standards that are miles away from what I would like to be about...

So hang on a minute... I don't have to be there and I'm not at all interested in propping up the a**holes we've got in government, especially when the people whose job it was to do what I'm doing for free are now at risk of losing their homes. I still cannot believe that those millionaire b**tards would so shamelessly highjack the goodwill of lefty idealists while doing no amount of volunteering themselves.

On another level, I'm only just realising that I do like to feel valued. Even though I should know better than feel entitled and expect others to do the emotional work of patting me on the back all the time. I don't enjoy new expectations being placed on my shoulders when not a moment of attention is being paid to how I'm feeling or to my physical wellbeing. If management doesn't provide the warm atmosphere we need to thrive in, maybe I could find the resources to help.

Everyone can have bad days. It's just bad luck when we have bad days at the same time but it's nothing to worry about for the long term.

So I'm typing this here, not because I'm right, but because I want to keep it in mind that we can't always function as if we've just gotten drunk on communion wine. Some days the assumptions of the culture we grew up with will get the best of us. When this happens, it's not such a terrible idea to get into a pink bath, or browse the Book of Common Prayer, or both.

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us, and to all men. We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all, for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we shew forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives; by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory, world without end.

The Book of Common Prayer, "A General Thanksgiving".