Showering Starfish

I've volunteered at a day program for travelers and homeless in town the past couple weeks. For two afternoon I'm at the shower table, giving out baskets of body wash, shampoo and conditioner, deodorant, towels, sometimes socks, and checking for folks' mail. In between guests, I mop and spray down the shower stalls. It's not what I envisioned doing there but it's solid and it's a ministry.

My single fret is, no matter how I try, I can't get everyone in a shower who wants one. When I arrive in early afternoon, there can be as many as twenty names listed. Each person gets fifteen minutes before I begin to ask them to finish up. But the program closes at 3 and the showers end at 230. Even when everyone complies, it still won't work.

My initial impulse is to stay later in order to get the last folks through but I know the downside to that.  If I do so for one I need to do it for all, and it's unfair to the volunteers on the days I'm not there. A couple days ago I caught myself getting frazzled as I tried to get everyone through, so much so one of the staff touched my back and said, "You're all right, you can do this."

I move slowly and purposefully because I want everyone I come into contact with to know they aren't a burden on my time, that I have the time and patience to give them. The stalls are clean and sanitary. I remember the showers on the lower levels of Grand Central Station. There were two, you paid 50¢ for maybe ten minutes and the attendant was very aware of the number of people waiting, telling you to hurry. He sat on an overturned box in e corner of the tiny anteroom you waited in. There was a communal bar of soap, no shampoo, probably a towel. The dim light was a blessing because you couldn't see how grungy it was. But you could still feel the film on the floor and the slime if you touched the walls. But I still felt cleaner on leaving.

This informs my work and I've realized that, like counseling the dying and listening to the mentally ill, I can't do far them all. Like the fellow on the beach told his throwing a star fish back in the ocean makes no difference, it makes a difference for that one.