WHEN GRATITUDE AND FATIGUE COLLIDE

                               

                                

I just got back recently from my 10th volunteer mission trip the islands. I usually come home wondering what difference I am making because the needs are endless. The longer I am down there, the more needs I become aware of! I usually come home exhausted from the poverty, heat, noise, chaos and the endless nerve wracking stress of getting there and getting back! My life-long need to “fix things and make it all better” is severely challenged. I find myself worn down sometimes by “compassion fatigue” and, when I am especially tired, I am even tempted to “quit caring.” At seventy-four, I am aware that the sand is running out of my hour glass! I wonder how much longer I will be able to do what I am doing. It is my hope to keep going as long as I am able because I find it all, in a strange way, very compelling. It makes me happy. 

Am I discouraged sometimes? Yes!  Will I give up? Hell, no! I know in my gut that the experiences I have “down there” are helping me appreciate and be thankful for what I have “up here.”  Yes, I am giving what I can, but I am learning even more. I am learning to be thankful, very thankful, always thankful.

Compassion fatigue can be a serious occupational hazard for those in any kind of helping profession, with a majority of those in the field reporting experiencing at least some degree of it in their lives. This is no surprise, as it is typically those with the most empathy who are the most at risk.

Compassion fatigue is characterized by physical and emotional exhaustion and a profound decrease in the ability to empathize. It is a form of secondary traumatic stress as the stress occurs as a result of helping or wanting to help those who are in need. It is often referred to as “the cost of caring” for others who are in physical or emotional pain. If left untreated, compassion fatigue not only can affect mental and physical health, but it can also have serious legal and ethical implications when providing therapeutic services to people.

While it is not uncommon to hear compassion fatigue referred to as burnout, the conditions are not the same. Compassion fatigue is more treatable than burnout, but it can be less predictable and may come on suddenly or without much warning, whereas burnout usually develops over time.

 Even Mother Teresa Understood Compassion Fatigue

Mother Teresa wrote in her plan to the superiors of her convents that it was MANDATORY for her nuns to take an entire year off from their duties every 4-5 years to allow them to heal from the effects of their care-giving work.

One of her quotes that I have used often is this one. “To keep a lamp burning, you have to keep putting oil in it.”

On the Other Hand - Abundant Gratitude 

Sometimes, I step back with amazement at the generosity of the many good people who have come forward to help me in so many ways, both large and small, over the years. They, too, are teaching me to be thankful, very thankful, always thankful. In fact their generosity has affected me so deeply that my tombstone, which I just ordered, will have these words above my name. "Simply Amazed - Forever Grateful." 

"On the whole, resources are likely to come

to you in greater abundance when you are

generous and inclusive and engage people in 

you passion for life."

from

The Art of Possibility

Zander and Zander

OUR FIRST COMPUTER CAMP OFF TO A ROARING START

OUR COURAGEOUS VOLUNTEER COMPUTER TEACHER 
FROM 
LOUISVILLE

BETH KOLODEY

"Everyone is treating me so well! I feel
spoiled and it is an amazing experience!"
Beth

"They love it! Full of enthusiasm! Their faces
lit up at the mention of learning code and using the computers!
The snack breaks and interaction is a plus!" 
Kirt
 Local Youth Volunteer

Stay tuned! We'll have an update in a few days!

GOT PENS? I'LL TAKE THEM!

THE RESPONSE IS WONDERFUL!

One woman in Elizabethtown alone found 32 around her house. 

I received a box with about 25 pens, some other small items like erasers and a $100  check from North Carolina. 

I received a $30.00 check from Indiana. 

I have a promise from a person in Florida who has "a lot of pens," as well as a similar promise from two other people here in Louisville. 



LET'S KEEP IT GOING FOR A FEW MORE WEEKS! 
School Doesn't Start Till September 3rd Down There



ANNOUNCING
A 
"USED BALL POINT PEN DRIVE" 

I'll take those used ball point pens that you have in your desk and kitchen drawers. Almost everybody has a bunch of them!
Maybe your company is changing its logo or name and has a bunch that can no longer be used! 

Before my last trip to the island missions, I gathered up some things for the kids down there. I had about one hundred ball point pens in several drawers around my condo that I had just thrown in the drawer from the hotels where I had given priest retreats, from the bank when I go and from various sources that give out advertising pens. 

Down in the islands, many of them were snatched up by the staff of the Pastoral Centre where the bishop lives and has his diocesan offices. It seem that pens, because they are expensive down there and no businesses seem to give them out for free, are always in short supply. The schools and the orphanages value them as rare commodities. 

Why buy them when there are hundreds of them lying around not being used?

I have been buying up school supplies for the kids in the islands when school starts this fall. I am a master shopper for "sales." I recently bought several hundred dollars worth of school supplies for about eighty dollars! 

"On sale" and with my additional "$10 off $40 coupon," I got $1.49 notebooks for $0.25 each. I got boxes of $2.99 colored pencils for $0.81 a box. I got $2.49 boxes of crayons for $0.47, $2.00 bottles of glue and boxes of pencils for $0.47 a box -  on and on! 

One receipt that amounted to $55.40 after sale and coupon. 

Sister Carmen and her second grade class at St. Mary's School hold some of the 

school supplies I sent down last semester. 

Then I remembered all those pens I gathered from the various drawers in my house! Why buy more pens when people have them lying everywhere not being used? I decided to have my own "used pen drive." 

FATHER KNOTT'S 

VERY FIRST 
USED PEN DRIVE

 You, of course, are invited to collect them from various friends, neighbors, parishioners and relatives for me. 

Bring them to the Cathedral (I am there most Sundays) or, when you get a bunch, give me a call and we will find a way to get them to me.  

502-303-4571

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

Come away by yourselves to a deserted place.

people  were  coming  and  going  in      great

numbers, and  they  had  no opportunity even

to eat. 

Mark 6

It was the Fourth of July, a typical holiday for me. I was holed up in my house, sitting in front of my computer cranking out RECORD columns, yet another homily for Bellarmine and outlining a chapter for another book. The doorbell rang and one of my friends stepped across the threshold and said quite emphatically, “I’ve come to drag you out of your hole!” I wasn’t behind in my work, necessarily. I was actually enjoying what I was doing. Like Mozart, “When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly.”

“I’ve come to drag you out of your hole!” Even though I was enjoying myself, he was right. I find writing and public speaking “enjoyable” and regular recreation and killing time “hard work.”  I admit that I overdo it. I am notorious among my friends for my lack of a social life. Even though I am entitled to one day a week off and four weeks of vacation a year, I often work on my day off and forget to plan a vacation until another year rolls around. Even when I do get away, I have written most of my books, sitting on a beach chair, on “vacation!”  The first step to dealing with a problem is to own the problem. I have to admit that I am a “workaholic.” I am addicted to my work. 

The story of Jesus’ disciples coming home tired from preaching and teaching and healing is one near and dear to my heart. I have been there and done that!  Their ministry was so busy that they didn’t even have time to eat.  Jesus steps in and takes them away for a short retreat. They go away to a deserted place to rest, recharge and re-assess. This story has so much to teach us all. 

The first thing that stands out is that there was plenty of work to be done, the disciples seem to be enjoying what they were doing and they were reasonably successful at doing it. It was a matter of too much of a good thing. Jesus knew the “harvest was great and the laborers were few,” but he also knew they needed rest, if they were going to last the long haul.

I am reminded of a situation when I was in the “home missions.” I was lucky to have two nuns from Connecticut working with me. Their order allowed them to work in the missions without a salary, but they had no car. I begged a parish up here in Louisville to buy them a used car, which they did. A few months after they got the car, they came to me one day and said that it had quit out on the highway. We had to have it towed in to the garage. It did not take the mechanic too long to diagnose the problem: the engine had locked up because they ha forgotten to change the oil. They simply drove it till it had run dry and the engine froze. We ended up having to take it to the junkyard.

Saint Vincent de Paul, who worked with the massive numbers of poor in his country, said it well when he spoke to those who worked with him. “Be careful to preserve your health. It is a trick of the devil, which he employs to deceive good souls, to invite them to do more than they are able, in order that they may no longer be able to do anything.”  This was why Jesus invited his disciples to “come away and rest a while.” He knew that, if they didn’t build rest and prayer into their schedules, they would soon be able to do nothing. To have something to give to others, our “wells” needs to be filled. We need to give our bodies rest. We need some time not doing.

It is pretty likely that you – or someone you know – is a workaholic. Workaholics live for their work, often spending many extra hours at work, and often taking work home to complete. When work becomes the sole reason for a person’s existence above more important things (such as family, friends and God), the issue becomes critical.

Part of the problem is societal. American – when compared to many other countries – are typically a work-hard culture. Americans are working more hours per week than in past years, and with all the downsizing and consolidations and lack of replacement hirings, more and more workers are putting in extra hours to complete work previously done by others. We priests are not spared. Single priests are now taking multiple parishes or ministry assignments, doing the work that several priests in the past used to do. Some studies show that 40% of workers, myself included, don’t even bother to take vacations. They even work more and more on Sundays, that sacred day that God calls the “Sabbath rest.” Instead of obeying God, who knows more than we do, we now have that “endless loop,” the seven-day workweek. In some cases, part of the problem is financial. Many Americans must work multiple jobs simply to earn a living wage and keep their family out of poverty.  

Just as Jesus and his disciples discovered, it is hard to get away, even if you want to get away. It says that they “took a boat to a deserted place, but people tracked them down.”  Today, especially, we live in a connected environment – e-mails, instant messaging, fax machines, cell phones and digital assistants – making it almost impossible to truly get time away from their work. People have better and better ways to “track us down.”

Another reason for working too much, which is not mentioned in this gospel, is that many of us use work as a drug to numb ourselves against having to face a fundamental loneliness that all human beings have. If we stay busy, we don’t have to feel that pain. More and more of us hide behind work so that we don’t have to deal with our struggling marriages, the constant demand for availability to our children and the lack of intimacy we need, but don’t have, in our lives. We can avoid it all, behind the respectable veil of “hard work.”

Regardless of the reasons, workaholism can be a serious condition that can lead to the decline and destruction of families, to stress-related health problems and to a total loss of a spiritual life. When work becomes the sole reason for being – when it becomes the only thing we think about, the only thing that truly makes us happy – then it is time “come away by yourself to a deserted place and rest awhile.”    We need not confuse hard work with workaholism. Hard workers know the boundaries between work and personal time and can function normally when not at work, while workaholics have no personal times and cannot function well unless they are working.

God isn’t as dumb as many of us think. He told us to rest one day a week and we think we know better! Really?