Minutes Taken, Moments Given

Yesterday I wrote up the minutes of the last meeting of the Lewisporte Refugee Outreach (LRO). This isn't one of my favourite jobs and I'm not particularly skilled at it.  While in the meeting I'm always frantically writing the notes and trying to keep track of discussions and so I don't participate in the conversation quite so much and quite often the entire meeting is a practise in recording more so than in absorbing.  But it's a necessary job so that we're not wasting time on who is doing what and I've always considered a highly important task of any committee, just not one I necessary relish myself.

But there is an upside. It is while going through the minutes I'm able to unpack what is really happening in every single meeting. And I'm not referring to the actual events but rather the overarching narrative of this adventure we've decided to take together as a group.

From the moment last Thursday when a new person who has volunteered to help with translation described her first impressions of the west and how we can expect these newcomers to feel,  to the moment another resident shows the little foam hearts and book marks her and another member have painstakingly created as a fundraiser, I am in awe of these people.

People are all ordinary. We might, as humans have a tendency to categorise people as great or regular or even "less than"  but when we break it all down people do ordinary things nearly every day no matter what arbitrary construct we have of them in our minds.

People around here for example pretty much sleep, eat, exercise(or not) care for their families, work, drive to work, drive home, hit the drive thru, watch TV, do some Face booking and Tweeting, play some games, love their friends and start all over the next day. 

But people are extraordinary also. In their hearts.  And the best example of that is when they show up and allow the regular pace of  their lives to be interrupted to fulfil the needs of their community and the world, in an act of kindness and compassion. That is extraordinary. It isn't something everybody does.

Sitting and using scissors is normally considered an ordinary endeavour. Creating something with those scissors that is a tangible example of the remarkable spirit of giving is extraordinary. 

As I wade through, recording and setting up the "action list" I always create to help write the next meeting's agenda I am warmed by the offerings. Not offerings of things and dollars, (though many things and dollars are coming and we need them!) but offerings of time. The world is full of things that will still be in the world when we are not.   But time is something we all have a finite amount of and it is something that will expire for us. So when somebody says "I'll take this task and spend my time doing it for this effort" they are donating their most valuable asset. And that is extraordinary especially given the fact that these people are exceptionally busy to start with.

So in spite of the fact that I don't care for the task and that I'm not skilled at it, I am particularly grateful to take these notes and transcribe them because as I do so I realize that this my opportunity to record not just the minutes, but  some of the moments, of these very special people that I am fortunate enough to know.  

The minutes are taken, but the moments are given. And what could be a greater gift?