Voices of Service

Dana Cassell

Brethren Volunteer Service Staff for Vocation and Community Living

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June 23, 2010

Ruining Lives

I was talking with a former volunteer the other day, a former volunteer who’s interested in re-joining Brethren Volunteer Service. She’s already served 2 years in a volunteer position abroad and returned to the States to her already-established teaching career, but she isn’t sure anymore that this is what she should be doing. We talked for a while about choices and intentionality, and then she confessed, “You know, Dana, decisions were NEVER this hard before I did BVS! It was always just, this is what I’m going to do, and then I’d go and do it. Now there are all these questions and doubts and other things to take into consideration.”

There’s a quip that gets repeated a lot – that these long-term volunteer programs will “ruin your life.” Some might argue that the opposite is true – spending a year or more working for peace and justice, living in community, and working for little to nothing actually enrich and transform, opening us up to the beauty and possibility in the world like nothing else. Actually, I think most former volunteers would agree with that argument. But this recent conversation about decision-making reminded me why we talk about volunteer service ruining our lives.

Once you know what’s possible – how little money can sustain you, how life-giving community living can be, how a small individual effort can in fact make a difference in the world – it’s hard to go back to what you thought you knew, or what you thought life should be like. Old plans just don’t seem to fit, anymore. All of a sudden, you have to take into account this glimpse you’ve gotten of life lived another way, and it throws things into tangled messes that you’re left to unravel.

I have no idea how to begin with the unraveling, but I’m convinced that it’s a good and fruitful task to be faced with. To begin to live intentionally, to throw out the auto-pilot approach to making choices, to start thinking about living a life of faithful service – that’s what BVS hopes to invite people to do.