‘Peace House Community Journal’ Archives
Working Instead of Staying Busy
Peace House Community Journal By MARTI MALTBY Someone recently sent me an article that, among other things, lamented the busyness that people experience at their jobs and the amount of time and energy that this busyness wastes. The author’s goal was to get his readers to move from busyness to action, from working a job that may or may not pay the bills to finding ways to deal with weightier societal issues like the breakup of the republic, the mass extinction of many of earth’s animals, war, disease, famine … the list goes on. The author pointed out that many people discovered during the pandemic that their jobs involved far more busyness than accomplishment. From picking out appropriate work clothes to sitting in traffic to finding a parking space, workers found that they could accomplish just as much by staying home as they could by going to work. And all that time was saved before they even started working. Once they added on the time saved by avoiding [...]
PHCJ: The Sacredness of Used Clothing
Peace House Community Journal: The Sacredness of Used Clothing by Marti Maltby Like many nonprofits, Peace House Community relies on donations of both money and items to offer services to its community. Sometimes the items we receive are essential to our work, but often we receive donations that cause more problems than they solve. I used to work at a housing agency that had to deal with six burial plots. For decades, the plots showed up on the company’s balance sheet, never being used and having nothing to do with the agency’s work. I’m sure the donor had good intentions, and they probably received a nice thank-you letter, but honestly, it would have been better if they had thought about their donation a little more before filling out all the forms. When nonprofits receive those donations, we often roll our eyes. We know someone just created a bunch of work for us. Dealing with the donation will take more time and energy than the gift provides. It happens all the [...]
The Trouble with Normal
Peace House Community Journal By Marti Maltby A friend of mine who struggles with addiction recently told me about a hiking trip he took with a group of acquaintances. He didn’t know anyone in the group very well, but he knew them well enough to talk with them throughout the day, and he enjoyed his time with them. I was surprised when he told me that later on he had suffered a severe bout of depression because of the hike. “I feel like I lied to them. I tricked them,” he explained. It turned out that as part of his recovery from addiction, he tries to be completely honest with others, not living a double life as he did when he was actively using drugs. Understandably, he hadn’t used the hike as an opportunity to tell the group about his addiction, and he was worried that they thought he was “normal.” He felt like he had pretended not to have any problems, when from his perspective he was an addict who was totally messed up, despite the time he had been able to [...]
