Service & Action

“If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” ~ Aboriginal activists group, Queensland

Famed boxer and humanitarian, Muhammad Ali once said, “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.” Those words ring with a resounding truth for those of us who are intending to be about peace and social justice. In fact, many who have labored their whole life in service to others regard that service as the defining activity that informed their lives with meaning and passion. I believe that the choice to serve is the choice made by a mature mind and an open heart.

Our intelligence tells us that the world is filled with injustice. Children are starving, adults cannot find work, elders go unnoticed, there is famine, and war and strife. These things are apparent and eat at our consciousness. Our heart tells us that people feel alone, scared, desperate and unsafe. It is only when we allow our head and our heart to engage that we can see our way clear to act. The act that is transformative in an unjust world is the act of service.
Service is a peculiar activity. It is not charity. The world and its people don’t need another well-meaning “do-gooder” who assuages the pangs of conscious and guilt by acting in a charitable way. Charity is a one-way proposition that leaves one superior and in the “giving” position and another inferior in the “receiving” position. Service is something else entirely.
Service is the act of seeking out answers to profound questions about the nature of life and the capacity of humanity. Service is about testing out your head and heart against the struggles of the world. Service is about placing your body, mind, and spirit “in the gap” where need and lack have a stronghold. Many have even described service as the act of submerging your own needs and wants so that the louder needs and cares of others can be heard.

To serve also means to struggle. The thing that we in the developed world struggle with most is our sense of displacement and alienation from ourselves, from others and from the very planet on which we live. Service requires that we acknowledge that struggle and understand that we can learn how to handle that struggle by connecting with others who too are struggling. Our struggles might be different than others but we are all united in a quest to find safety, peace and fulfillment. When one is engaged in struggle one understands the solidarity that exists between people.