Dancing with a Difficult Volunteer
Volunteers are gold. But sometimes, volunteers shuffle in with other agendas, or they simply are so out of step with the nonprofit that they become a liability.
Volunteers are gold. But sometimes, volunteers shuffle in with other agendas, or they simply are so out of step with the nonprofit that they become a liability.
It matters not which side of a political fence that you or I sit or straddle. Rigidity has seized the moment and clouded our ability to see beyond the now.
A few months and committee meetings later, you discover that the committee leader is impossible to work with. You can’t please the leader; you are under constant critique from the leader who seems to delight in admonishing your suggestions. Defeated and depleted, your volunteer-enthusiasm is sucked out of you like a Hoover super, megapower vacuum.
If I could add another 30 or even 60 days to my mindfulness project, perhaps I could grab complete control over the distracting beeps, bleeps and burps. Maybe. Maybe not. The calendar and life-responsibilities, however, won’t give me those extra 30 to 60 days.
So I decided to wrap the final days with a contemplative retreat at a nearby monastery where retreatants vow to not speak during their stay.
Yes, Edward Parone owned some celebrity and great respect from many in the world of entertainment — something I never knew until much later in our friendship. But he retired from all of that. His choice of retirement venue said it all — an unremarkable old adobe casita among a few other old adobes on a large ranch in Nambe, New Mexico.
Editor’s Note: After 41 days of occupation, the standoff no longer stands. For an update by Jake Klonoski, please scroll to the end of this post. Saturday, I sliced into a medium rare steak hot off the grill. Smothered in garlic, salt and pepper, it was delicious. The evening’s news rambled in the background. When the news anchor turned to an Oregon report about a group of armed men still holding the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge hostage, my blood pressure jumped a […]
…a few days before this Christmas when I spent a night in my daughter and her husband’s Taos Ski Valley condo. It’s near the first chairlift. Looking out the patio door I recalled taking both my daughters, who were about 11 and 13 at the time, for a day skiing there.
Both Cruz and I savored this holy show, yet we each harbored a sadness knowing full well, that our seas are not healthy. It brought us to a conversation about our mutual experiences with faith, religious devotion, and honoring our earth.
I often discuss taking the high road in these matters. That is no easy task. A personal analogy would be my desire to hike trails that traverse hills and mountains, and then to have my knees fail me. This is so personally frustrating. It’s as though I can not reach the heights that I seek. And, yes, it makes me angry.