Volunteer

[Guest]

We had a former discussion about whether callings are "volunteer" or not.  I've been spending some time thinking about this.  I remembered a scene in Live Free or Die Hard.

Sometimes I feel like this in my calling.

While I've been laboring under a molehill of frustrations from every facet of my life lately, the thing that happened to me recently made me want to quit my calling as music chair. 

• I tried to get this song into the program last year.  It failed.  I tried again this year and kept getting failure after failure.  I went through three pianists and five vocalists.  Each one had something come up after several weeks each.  The last ones had to bow out one week before performance.
• So, I had to cancel it and replace it with a congregational hymn.  It changes the entire flow of the program I had outlined.  Very frustrating.
• Then all three of the organists told me that they would not be there this week to play the regular hymns.  Last minute.  No one there.
• And I'm having a devil of a time getting anyone to show up for choir practice at all.

This was on top of all the other things going on in my life right now.  I just felt like I wanted to quit.  So, I thought,"OK.  Just after the Easter Program, I'll let the bishop know that I want to be released from my calling."  Simple enough. Wash my hands of it.

...

It felt so good for about 1 minute.  Then I realized that there was no one else.  No one else knew about music well enough to take this up.  No one knew enough about singing to take this up.  The one other man who could is moving out in a couple months.  And he already said he hated doing it and had asked for someone else to take the role so he wouldn't have to.

There are two other families that have a lot of musical training, but they don't really "grasp" music very well.  So, if I quit, then there will be no more special musical numbers.  There may be someone who would pick the hymns.  But they wouldn't make sense or there simply wouldn't be any variety. 

It is sad that there are so few people learning music anymore.  But here I am... that guy.  Am I volunteering?  Yes.  Do I look forward to it?  Not the actual labor and frustration and pain necessarily.  But I feel the need that no one else does.  And out of my love for music, my understanding of how music can bring the spirit to a meeting, I endure.

Edited March 24, 2018 by Guest

[anatess2]

@Carborendum, that's what makes you THAT guy.

You are awesome and your ward is blessed.  And the Church is blessed.  And humankind is blessed because you made yourself THAT guy.  It's more than volunteering.  It's standing up.