I ask a lot of our volunteers. I’m not gonna lie. Since the very beginning, generous souls have come forward offering themselves, their time, to The Sewing Machine Project. I throw “opportunities” out there on a regular basis and people always respond–and so quickly. I feel myself in a perpetual state of wonderment and gratitude! And not only do we get the work done but we all genuinely like each other. We all mean it when we say “it’s so good to see you!”. These bright faces seriously light up a room.

On a personal level, recently, I was considering the ways that I ask friends to help me out and also, how I offer myself up to my friends. In so many ways, big and small, we offer ourselves to one another– it may be me asking someone to let my dog out when I’m away for several hours or perhaps I’m taking a look at someone’s old sewing machine, offering advice on whether it’s worth fixing. And on even a deeper level, on a tough day, I haul myself to a friend’s house to simply sit at her table while she pours me a cup of tea.

And it dawned on me. We are all volunteers for one another.

We offer ourselves, body and soul, to those around us, to get things done, to nurture each other, to simply be in the presence of someone who loves us. Somehow this fans the little flames in our hearts and renders us more alive than we were before. It is often the case that when we’re at a low point the best medicine is to do something for someone else, lifting ourselves out of our “one-ness” and into a “we-ness”.

And so it goes. Whether we know it or not, we are all members of a global volunteer corps. And the more we amp it up the more gratitude flows and carries us.

Thank you to all of our Sewing Machine Project volunteers. And thank you to those who “volunteer” in my life. I hope that I can offer you even a fraction of the tremendous kindness you bestow upon me.