Volunteers share time, talent and treasure
‘Some celebrate Christmas once a year; you do it every time you are here’
I am torn. How to celebrate Christmas? I’ve begun with a folder, several lists and even some gifts, already wrapped, awaiting a few more to be whisked away to New Jersey and Carmel. I’ve kept a running file in my head of the items that brought smiles to a face or a faraway look in the eye of those I love and I’ve dutifully written each on that list in the folder. But I know that even if I accomplish all of the things that are associated with this season – the gifts, the decorations, the feasting – I will not have celebrated Christmas because Christmas, however it is constituted, means far more than the modern world holds as appropriate.
To adequately celebrate Christmas, you need more than a day, you need a lifetime. The message, the meaning of Christmas isn’t the date or the gifts or the celebrations …not even the generosity of the moment, but rather the living of the words of Peace and good will to all, the possibility of redemption in a world that isolates us from the contact and sustenance of each other. Christmas is about giving of self in all the ways of kindness and caring and sharing. Feeding the hungry, visiting the sick and incarcerated, sheltering the homeless, the lost, the refugee, and caring about the creation in which we live.
And, joyfully, Christmas can and does live and thrive in places, all year long, without fanfare or a twinkling light.
When I was in my mid-20s, I was a volunteer at the old Memorial Hospital, bringing juice around to the patients’ rooms. In one of those rooms, a visitor told me. “Some celebrate Christmas once a year; you do it every time you are here.”
Flattered, but not really catching the weight of what he meant, 20-something hubris being a barrier, I filed that away for future reference. I found its relevance again many years later in a small room on the first floor of St. Joe’s hospital.
Located to the right of the main elevators in the lobby, its diminutive space belies the impact of its mission. It’s part of a suite of rooms designated as the Office of Patient Experience. Choreographed by Mary Hagen, the volunteer office is a continuing gifting of time, talent and even treasure in service of the work of the hospital, its patients and staff. It is “operations central” for all of the volunteer activities performed by more than 470 individuals.
They are the extra hands of the staff, augmenting the professionals who provide the medical and ancillary services to patients and their families. They do everything from making visitor badges to visiting patients in the emergency department. There is work for all, and meaning in every assignment in the hospital and its outlying service facilities.
There is also a cadre of folks who volunteer at home, knitting and crocheting, making hats, booties, afghans, lap robes and such that are distributed to those who will benefit from both the item’s warmth and intent.
This year, the St.. Joe’s needle-workers produced red white and blue lap blankets which were distributed to each patient who had been in service to our country. This gesture of recognition with a handcrafted blanket resonates as a specific corollary to the prescription attributed to the Christmas message: Peace on earth, good will to men and women … for those who “bore the battle” in answering their nation’s call and offereing their lives in our defense. These carefully handcrafted blankets were an acknowledgement of the powerful gifts given to us by our military men and women.
Hospital volunteers epitomize one way to live Christmas, one way to share that which we all own and which each of us is called on to share, our humanity, illuminated by the coming of the Christ child to remind us of what and who we are and why we are here. That is not a one-day thing, rather a lifelong journey, not restricted to one faith community, one place or event.
To all the volunteers who share their time, talent and treasure, who live the message and the meaning: Merry Christmas.
Ann Ferro is a mother, a grandmother and a retired social studies teacher. While still figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up, she lives in Marcellus with lots of books, a spouse and a large orange cat.
