Recently on our list serve there was mention of the danger of burnout by the people of our organization who actually make it work and the need for more members needed to give time to take up some of the workload. This led to complaints that we were trying to make people feel guilty. Actually it was only reporting the reality of any Pagan organization the shortage of people willing to put their time, as well as money, into things Pagans claim to consider important.

Nor is it just the Pagan Community. In our society it is often far easier to get people to give their money than to give their time. We have all heard the reasons and used them as excuses ourselves We are too busy, we are overstretched as it is. We just don’t have enough time.

All of it is very true, yet equally true of those who are active in our community. It is rare that people with time give any, while those already far too busy often do. An old saying comes to mind. If you have something that really needs to get done, give it to the busiest person you know.

We are all busy and we have so many calls on our time. We give time regularly to many people, our family, friends, coworkers, bosses, employees, neighbors, not too mention our various causes. So it is not hard to understand that we resent calls for still more of our time. Yet there are times when giving of that time to still someone else may be the most important thing we do on a given day. I had an example of that myself just yesterday.

I run a tourist shop, only sometimes busy, but where I make a point of regularly giving more time than I see in many such businesses. Sort of like a old fashioned bookstore, I like to create a place that people are comfortable and hopefully want to come back to. That does not always make me a sale as we get other people than customers, including people asking for information and directions, people just browsing and sometimes even just time-wasters who tie up my time for no particular reason. But on occasion I have someone who needs my time personally and it seems like the most important thing to do is give it to them.

Certainly as a compulsive talker, I have tied up more than my share of other people’s time in my life, so on occasion I return the favor now, sort of a payback on time given to me over the years. And this is often regardless of how busy I am or even as behind as I am on my articles for ACTION as in this month.

This time it was a 75-year-old lady that somehow wandered into my store, though it was soon evident that she was not really interested in my wares. Yet I found myself compelled to go along with her need for conversation. I no longer question these occasional compulsions to give time, it seems sometimes something arranged in advance, perhaps by the goddess and the god . It is never uninteresting when it happens.

As the conversation wandered on, I soon knew she was an artist with a compulsion to paint. I found out she came from a near by town and had a crazy neighbor which she could not decide if she should ignore or be compassionate to. She also had been looking for possible property in the area and got the runaround, losing earnest money in the process. She had been a gallery owner at times and dropped it and considered doing it again. She did not sign her paintings because she wanted people to pay attention to the painting and not to who painted it. She went through periods of being public and periods of needing to be a hermit, which was about to happen again. Even a bit on the politics of the artist community and relationships with gallery owners.

I have no idea how long the conversation went on, maybe an hour or two, maybe more. It flowed into whatever direction she seemed to need to go. I offered comment as needed or listened. She thought I was the most real person she had met in a long time. Sometimes I surprised her by jumping ahead to things she was about to go into, it seemed easy enough to do as we seemed to be completely in tune. Occasionally I was able to give her insights into things she didn’t understand.

Yet to be truthful I was not as wise as she thought. Everything I did was somehow triggered in direct response to her needs of the moment.
I could not begin to tell you how, as it seemed automatic, that happens sometimes. I think the inspiration was not mine but comes from elsewhere, perhaps the goddess and the god.

She left much happier then when she came wondering why she had been directed to my shop. I felt good at accomplishing that much with a complete stranger. Meanwhile I had gotten nothing done on those oh so important things of mine, including my articles still to write. Yet I
came away with the feeling that it had been the most important thing
that I had done not only of that day, but of the month so far.

Today my writing seems to take off, the roadblocks are gone and I just type. Perhaps that and my use of time yesterday are connected.
It was not one of the expected results, it just happened.

And that seems to be one of the benefits of giving time, there is something that comes back from it in unexpected ways. So sometimes take a chance and give some of that oh so rare item, time, unplanned.
See for yourself what value you get out of it.

And by the way, if you can help out here at AREN, know that it will be more than appreciated by at least the busy people that keep the place running and make AREN even more effective. It doesn’t matter if it is an hour, or hours, of time each month.