Service

Affirmations:
I am willing to be of service.
I give my best when I am serving.
I live my fullest when I serve.
For the sake of all, let us serve.

Serve for Goodness Sake.

To serve us our greatest gift to all.
We are all volunteers here.
We serve our selves, our community, our world.
We serve the Good of all. 

However we serve, we are offering our best to others.
We serve our children and our parents.
We serve our partners and our friends.
We serve without asking in return.

We serve to realize our own value.
We serve to bring happiness to others.
We serve to be truly helpful.
We serve to create a better place.

Serve by sharing.
Serve with teaching.
Serve with helping.
Serve with caring.

Serve because it has value.
Serve because you want to.
Serve because it is helpful.
Serve because it feels good.

When you serve one, you serve all.
Service benefits your family.
Service benefits your community.
Service benefits your world.

Being truly helpful is our way of paying forward.
Being of service is our loving reminder to others.
Being willing to contribute makes our world better.
Let us be of service today and everyday.

Blessing those who serve.
Betty Lue

HELPING, FIXING, SERVING
--by Rachel Remen (May 29, 2000) 

Service is not the same as helping.
Helping is based on inequality, it's not a relationship between equals. When you help, you use your own strength to help someone with less strength. It's a one up, one down relationship, and people feel this inequality. When we help, we may inadvertently take away more than we give, diminishing the person's sense of self-worth and self-esteem.

Now, when I help I am very aware of my own strength, but we don't serve with our strength, we serve with ourselves. We draw from all our experiences: our wounds serve, our limitations serve, even our darkness serves. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in the other, and the wholeness in life. Helping incurs debt: when you help someone, they owe you. But service is mutual. When I help I have a feeling of satisfaction, but when I serve I have a feeling of gratitude.

Serving is also different from fixing. We fix broken pipes, we don't fix people. When I set about fixing another person, it's because I see them as broken. Fixing is a form of judgment that separates us from one another; it creates a distance.

So, fundamentally, helping, fixing and serving are ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak; when you fix, you see life as broken; and when you serve, you see life as whole.
When we serve in this way, we understand that this person's suffering is also my suffering, that their joy is also my joy and then the impulse to serve arises naturally - our natural wisdom and compassion presents itself quite simply. A server knows that they're being used and has the willingness to be used in the service of something greater.
We may help or fix many things in our lives, but when we serve, we are always in the service of wholeness.
--Rachel Remen, from Zen Hospice