Take a Load Off

First, my disclaimer: I love my church. It's liberal. It's honest. It's loving. It is open and affirming (read: loves the gays).

I love that there's room for me in this denomination--me, a left-wing, vegetarian, unitarian (in the old, literal sense of the word, although I love me some UUs as well) Christian who has somewhat stronger feelings about the Buddha than about Jesus.

Despite my deep love for the denomination in general and my congregation in particular, I am so excited to have just finished the year-end contribution statements for the church. I have been the Financial Secretary for the past three years. That's the person who makes the deposits and tracks all the income. It's been a concrete way for me to serve the church, I'm good at it,

and I'm ready for a break.

I met with the person who's going to take over last night and we did some training. I gave her the instruction manual I'd put together, and we talked about who would do what this next week or two or three as she gets oriented.

I'm going to drop off the year-end statements and some other stuff at the church today at lunch, and then there's one or two loose ends that I'll tidy up over the next few days.

And that's it.

I've told them I'm willing to do it again in the future, and I am. But for now, I revel in the idea that I won't be making trips to the bank every week, won't have to attend meetings, won't have to try to divine who has contributed stock*, etc. etc.

I've contacted our public radio station about volunteering for their reading program but haven't heard anything back. The lack of volunteering feels decadent and awesome. I'm not a power volunteer by any means--I don't do anything except this church gig. I do want to put something in its place, and hopefully the public radio thing will work out.

In the meantime, I'm going to watch TV and read Agatha Christie.


*Please, please, please, if you transfer stock as a donation, let the organization know it's coming. Those shares just get stuck into the account, and there is no way to track the donor. If you don't tell, we don't know.