May 17, 2010
Mandatory Volunteerism
A school board in California has decided to force parents to be involved in their children’s education. Their justification is that they are being advocates for the students. Parents, or other family members, are being required to volunteer 3 ½ hours a month (30 hours a year) in their child’s classroom. This seems intrusive on so many levels. On the one hand I can feel indignant for these parents and think they should be allowed to choose, however when I put on my believer-hat I sometimes wish God would give me just a 3 1/2 hour monthly requirement.
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Gail;
-----I think volunteerism is good for the community, the parents, and the children. But California is not forcing volunteerism. They call it volunteerism even though the very meaning of volunteering places the choice to do so or not to do so upon the individual. Requiring another person to work for no pay is forced servitude. Whether or not it demands the full working day of the individual, whether or not it buys the individual and places him in barracks, whether it is done by a plantation owner or a government school district, California’s solution for its failing school budgets shares the trait of forced servitude with the old South’s solution to the expense of labor, which is commonly called slavery.
-----Slavery could well have been said to be good for the community, the plantations, and the children. It taught people, they could say, the value of volunteerism. Crops were raised and products made by this volunteerism that were useful to everyone. These crops and products were traded around the community, making economic vitality, which made available many other goods and services for the strength of the plantations and the health of the children.
-----But the dirty little lie would have been that slavery was not volunteerism. It is the same dirty little lie about California’s forced servitude. Neither is it volunteerism. Volunteerism rises in the heart of the volunteer, at his discretion. It comes from a communal spirit living within the goodness of the individual, a desire to take part in what makes life better for all. This inspires similar sentiments to rise in others, which inspires more. Eventually the community becomes made of individuals having a healthy awareness of mutuality. That awareness of mutuality is the mental substance of respect for the law, love of neighbor, and love of God.
-----Required volunteerism does not instill mutuality into the hearts and minds of the people. Most folks do not volunteer. What would lead them to do so 3 ½ hours per day would be fear of reprisal for not doing so. Fear is a real thing. Though it does not always linger upon the heart after the mind has accepted the conditions given to alleviate it, every question the mind presents as to why it follows such conditions brings back fear as the answer. Therefore fear becomes stitched into the fabric of the soul, and fear interlinks with distrust. Even though the slaves would not be laboring in the schools with fearful beads of sweat upon their brows, they would be knowing in their hearts that they and the rest were only there to avoid penalty. Understanding of the true lack of volunteerism amongst them would cause complete distrust for the authoritarians daring to call such coercion volunteerism.
-----This is why God regenerates the found soul in Christ Jesus rather than coercing it by a law. True mutuality can not be coerced from outside the heart. It must grow from within the individual for bringing forth to others. Hearts growing to desire good to all around them and setting forth to realize their desire inspire more love within themselves and those they benefit. Love casts out fear. And where there is no fear, there is no innate link to distrust. The community can then be accepted as a shelter for all, rather than the harbinger of an authoritarian master.
-----Our communities would do well to remember what has been lost to atheistic deconstruction. They would do well to begin rebuilding their sense of shared faith in Christ. If we want true volunteerism we must have true mutuality. And for true to be true, we must admit the Truth.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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