'CERES Calling' NEWSLETTER (Spring Equinox)
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I called Susan to asked her to help me understand the concept of service. I said to her, "It seems that we don't value service because there is so much to do and there so little effort to support service jobs financially." I was thinking about taking care of people at both ends of life - the very young and the very old, or the sick, or disabled, or of being a good steward of the land, or of educating children, or of any other.... There is virtually an endless list of needed services. But it's hard to make a living wage in a service job; you will need two of them.
Susan said, "Traditionally, service is something we give to others without payment. That's the value in it."
I said, "In our society the lowest paid workers are in service jobs."
She said, "The greatest service is to do it without pay. It's a gift we can give - everyone can give."
When asked what someone should do who feels on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Karl Menninger the psychiatrist advised, "Lock your house, go across the railroad tracks, find someone in need and do something for him."
In the middle of this writing, I received a call that my friend's house burnt to the ground. They lost everything. They were in shock. Their beautiful house was a dream come true and it took years of planning and hard work. As Nancy and I walked to their house we saw the family parked at the end of their driveway. What could we do? I brought water to drink. We invited them home to dinner. They were fortunate to have a place to stay. They will grieve and we will share in it with them.
Service happens in the present, wherever you are now, with whoever you is present. Service is a gift of our presence, to others (those who are in need and those who are not.)
"So," I asked Susan, "What's the payment, the payoff for being of service to others?"
Susan replies, "A sense of connection, satisfaction, spiritual growth."
It's important to know how one can contribute to others. One goal of the CERES Project, as midwife to personal wholeness, is to create the opportunity and the conditions to discover one's true calling in life - that which fulfills our being with meaning, or fulfills our meaning with being.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer, who was a Christian, wrote, "The second service that one should perform for another in a Christian community is that of active helpfulness. This means, initially, simple assistance in trifling, external matters. There is a multitude of these things wherever people live together. Nobody is too good for the meanest service. One who worries about the loss of time that such petty, outward acts of helpfulness entail is usually taking the importance of his own career too solemnly."
There is a light in this world, a healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter. We sometimes lose sight of this force when there is suffering, too much pain. Then suddenly, the spirit will emerge through the lives of ordinary people who hear a call and answer in extraordinary ways." - Mother Teresa.
Theresa, Mother After his firsthand observation of her arduous work among the filthy, diseased, and suffering of Calcutta, a television commentator told her, "I wouldn't do what you're doing for all the money in the world."
Her simple reply was, "I wouldn't either."
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