From our newsletter:
This excerpt is from our full-time Chaplain, Sarah Currie.
“Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” 1 John 3:18
Hello, Friends!
As EdenHill/EdenHospice chaplain, I’m blessed beyond measure to be literally employed in our community, remunerated financially for facilitating spiritually supportive services to our residents, family members, and team. But the benefits, the rewards of serving are truly immeasurable—for while at work, I get to engage with so many wonderful people, with so many amazing life experiences, gifts, and capabilities. Among those gifts are the willingness, indeed the eagerness to volunteer, to offer time, talents, and energy to brightening the lives of others.
One dimension of giftedness that doesn’t get enough of our attention is the human impulse, the elemental need, to be of service. In our culture that emphasizes personal success, competitiveness, financial prosperity, and “winning,” we can lose sight of how essential is that dimension of our humanness that is interdependent, and most fully realized when we are focused on one another’s well-being, and on doing our part to help each other—without expectation of recompense or even recognition—just because it’s the good and human thing to do.
And we all know this—when we get outside ourselves and focus on others, our perspective expands, and we reconnect with that membership in the human family, that remembering that we aren’t in this by ourselves or for ourselves, that is so essential to a sense of balance and a measure of serenity in navigating through life.
There are so many examples of how that impulse, that energy, that commitment to service has blessed and benefitted the members of the EdenHill family through the years—and currently we’re in an active process of recruiting even more service-oriented folks to join us in our ways of creatively caring for our family members’ needs.
One aspect of life that can get lost when we’re focused on the practical and necessary tasks of life—joy! We’re hoping to welcome even more volunteers into our community to bring that joy, through sharing their presence, gifts, and most precious of all, their time. In the last newsletter I noted some of the areas of service already in action. Here are just a few possibilities for how we’d like to expand and create, with volunteers:
The arts—music, visual arts, dance, movement
Pet Therapy—bringing sweet animals to visit and share their unconditional loving presence
Engagement with Nature—gardening, bird watching, connecting with the earth
Wisdom of Words—reading and dramatic presentations
I look forward to hearing from you, and to your helping us grow together in love and service in the season to come. Visit our Volunteer Page HERE to learn more and see upcoming events you can get involved with.
Blessings and Peace, Sarah+
Read our latest newsletter HERE.