Service

Fred Allebach

 Essay On Service 1/9/98

 updated 2/25/98, 4/2/98, 2/28/01, 10/29/09   

In order to be as clear as possible I first have to ask the questions: what does service mean and why do I want to do it?

Serve and service have huge definitions in the dictionary. There is a lot of meaning there. For the purposes of this essay service could be religious in nature or it could be secular. Either way it consists of charitable works and helping or benefiting others. The motivations whether religious or secular seem to me to be essentially the same. Compassionate people want to alleviate suffering. Compassionate people want to help others and correct perceived wrongs, injustices and inequities. I don’t see any person or group as having cornered the market on compassion.

In many contexts, the verb to serve in Spanish means essentially the same as the verb to work, for example “Este parte no sirve arreglar el motor” meaning this part does not serve/work to fix the engine. It is clear that serving and working have a lot of shared meaning. For example you do charitable work (service), you work (serve) for others. In many ways to serve and to work are interchangeable. To serve and to work both imply action and doing although serving seems to imply more sophistication than mere work.

To me service means working for things larger than myself, for things other than myself. Those things could be environmental issues or social and economic concerns. Service could be working for the public lands or for the benefit of a species or an ecosystem. I perceive certain things to be going wrong with the world and I see service as action that seeks to right those wrongs. While I see service as working for things larger than myself it is simultaneously for myself as well. For me to be the most effective I have to work with my interests and with the particular skills and abilities that I have.

In terms of regular labor and the trades, service is what you provide to the customer. People who are really good address not only the specific task, they go the extra mile to be considerate of the client’s sensibilities. Working for what is important to somebody else can be quite mundane as well as at the level of the highest idealism. 

Is it possible to work selflessly and should that be a goal of religious or secular service? I believe a person cannot escape from having their own private reasons and rationales for wanting to participate in service work and these reasons are likely never going to be identical to an institution’s, a religion’s or a client’s description and explanation of why the service work is important and just what service really means.

If the highest service is supposed to be selfless what does that really mean? A goal of selflessness implies that there is something wrong with some of the aspects of being human. With the self involved, service may be seen as somehow degraded. I can’t buy that. I don’t think it is possible to separate the mind and the heart. Wanting to toss off the mind is the result of believing in particular premises that define it as bad. Wanting to toss off the heart is the same in the opposite direction. I see the various aspects of my humanity as integral and worthy of inclusion and understanding rather than as some type of disease which needs to be purified out of me. The issue keeps coming  up about service and whether one is doing it for ego or selfish reasons or from the heart, from a desire to serve God rather than the self. Is the self not a part of God? I will have to save a full exploration of the meaning of God for another essay!

(Dear Fred, 

One has to expect to receive something in service work or you

will burn out.  It has to serve both the server and the served.  It hasto. You cannot just go to Texas and do that kind of work unless you get something in return . The volunteers have to come away with a feeling of gratification in helping others.  People who work with the dying have to have a feeling of being served by serving.  -  A sense that they are getting as well as giving.  A sense that they have something to learn from those that they serve. This is a whole school of Yoga. Karma Yoga.

In helping others we also help our selves.  

Love,  George)

I can see this as really an epistemological debate and these are fine points. This gets back to my initial contention that the primary motivations for service, whether religious or secular, are essentially the same. If we are being tolerant and allowing other’s spiritual paths to unfold, why does it always matter so much that somebody might be framing service in a different way than we would? With service being such a basically good action, it seems a shame that we want to pick apart each other’s  motivations and say that some are more substantial than others.

Unless a person would somehow become a god, there is no escape from the shortfalls of being human. We are all subject to appetites, passions, partial understandings and to look for those things in others and demean the quality of their service is like the pot calling the kettle black.

On any particular service project what and why will be interpreted as differently as the number of people involved. Everybody has their own path and comes to understand aspects of life at their own pace. I don’t see the need to force an interpretation on anyone. It would be rigid and dogmatic to insist that everyone have the same exact interpretation of what service is and why. With all symbols and assumptions everyone will have their own twist and I don’t see any reason to not honor those differences. If people honor the ground rules for a trip it doesn’t really matter that they see their service in different ways. That’s life.

Why do people want to work for others or for causes larger than themselves? I think one simple reason is that it gives meaning to life. It is somehow more satisfying to perform deeds that enhance the world around you versus working only for your own benefit. With Kundalini Yoga, the chakras are energy centers which are metaphors for inherent human qualities and capacities. The lower chakras or levels are marked by a focus on oneself and one’s body. At the heart level comes the realization of being human, more than animal and ego desires. A person can begin to see outside of themselves and recognize and identify a common humanity. Phrases like “thou art that” point to heart level realizations. When you see another human you are also seeing your self. You are the same.

My understanding of the Kundalini metaphor is that a person never divests themself of their “lower” chakras unless they happen to be Jesus or the Buddha. For the outstanding majority of us, the self will always be a part of the whole conglomeration which includes the heart. I don’t think the metaphor is intended to put these qualities in an all or nothing context. You always have your basic human qualities and capacities and move in and out of them at various levels. As with all metaphors, they are not identical to the phenomena they seek to describe; the map is not the territory.

It is interesting the supposed dichotomy of mind and heart. In Plato’s description of the soul, there was reason, appetite and will, a three pronged soul. Plato saw reason as the highest capacity as it was this reason which connected with the divine reason, or logos, and allowed people to cut through human generated illusions. The emphasis on heart and working from the heart, seeing from the heart, etc, is essentially the same thing. We can get tripped up by words. In different metaphors, mind and heart stand for the same thing.

In general you don’t find a lot of really poor people lining up to do service work because they are too busy surviving. There are exceptions. If you look at all this through the lens of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs it seems that those that have the luxury of serving are those whose basic needs are already met. They are hungering for some larger meaning in life. (This is why you find the demographic of wealthy white people trying to save the world, they have the education and leisure to be able to do it.) At the highest level of this hierarchy is self actualization and what service work holds the promise of is a transformational experience that satisfies these self actualization capacities. Service also holds the possibility of transforming those who are served, of opening up new realizations for them. Maslow or not, people want to be fulfilled and regardless of the reasons they use to gain this fulfillment it seems to me to be an inborn, innate, teleological tendency. Perhaps at the highest levels of being human is the urge to go outside of oneself, to make and take action in areas of concern.

The self is always fundamentally limiting. At every level you get to it is as if to a hammer the whole world looks like nails, so we get tired of stale takes on things and need to generate new ones. This is the teleology, always striving for the next level of context.

I think there is a difference between service/action and activism. Service works for the needs of another while activism seeks to change another or change the world order.  Service in this way may have a particular Quaker twist because Quakers in general do not proselytize or preach to try and convert others. Service is what Quakers do when they want to act on their principles. They walk their talk. Activist stances are frequently “against” something, rather than “for” something and the activist world may be more polarized, more black and white.

I believe it is important to understand these subtleties. People are bound to compare their styles and motivations and the quality of their work and if judgments are to be made it is worthwhile to understand the context. I ask myself : “Am I wanting to serve for ego or heart reasons?” It is hard to tell. Being human I am fallible. I fluctuate within my human capacities. I don’t get to a stage of enlightenment and just stay there. I am steering towards my highest motivations and that is the best I can do. If I fall and screw up that just means I am human. I have never felt a clear boundary between mind and heart and to frame the question in those terms may be creating a false division. All metaphors break down at some point.

One distinction I have become aware of is between serving as a “feel good activity” versus serving to meet the needs of the cause or people in question. For example if a bunch of  people go to a Mexican colonia or village and then proceed to want to work on those things they themselves feel are important, that would be violating the sensibilities and the needs of the people they are seeking to help. Those people may already be heavily invested in working towards change and they might not appreciate do-gooders coming with no sense of the current playing field. It is not necessarily that the motivations are somehow wrong or that some are feeling ego and others feeling heart. It could be just a matter of experience in being effective. It is interesting that within the service field the phenomena of feel good work would be identified. The implication is that some have a higher revelation than others.

Feel good service work generally would be understood as primarily meeting the needs of the people who are serving or working. Therefore they would be serving themselves and their own purposes rather than those of the people they were trying to help. As I mentioned earlier, it may not be possible to eliminate one’s own reasons for wanting to participate in this type of activity and therefore, to identify feel good service as a lesser action is to some extent disingenuous. The motivations are all on the same scale. It is a question of degree.

One insight here is that people doing service work are at all different stages of life, teens, twenties, forties, sixties etc. and perspectives change during life and service will necessarily mean different things to different age sets. It is developmental as well. Nicholas Dewey, a Friend from Santa Barbara, pointed out to me that it is the recently retired who can be the most active in the Meeting and who have the time to do service work. They are young enough to have lots of energy and free enough to make good use of it. Service work can be approached at different levels. Some endeavors can be grand with a huge impact while others are more middle of the road and still others are smaller in their effect.

In group service projects there are whole sets of issues on just what is the best way to have group process? Are you goal oriented or process oriented? Is your leadership style that of a parent, a coach, a teacher or all at different times? The effectiveness of a group service project can all get down to how well it is all framed to the participants. How the stage gets set is very important to how the play carries on. I see a modicum of props as necessary to prompt the group process and for efficiency. How the agenda and process is framed right from the start is very important. How this all plays out in the field depends upon the honesty and forthrightness of the group and the skillful steering of the leaders.

Nobody likes to have other people come and impose their views upon them. But you can see that in many cases this is exactly what is happening when groups of people or individuals identify a concern and then set out to right it. For example with environmental service work if people try to stop housing development in certain areas of Tucson, they are actively trying to force their view of what is right upon others who may not agree. If they sincerely believe they are right and own the truth they can justify violating other’s sensibilities, can justify their judgment because the others are perceived as wrong or somehow unenlightened. Is it possible to serve without being dogmatic, partial and overtly judgmental? I think this is a built in paradox. People have ethics and morals and these are the reasons for their action. Service is action and seems to necessarily contain some elements of activism. People have to make judgments and this usually implies being partial and possibly dogmatic as well. How we all get along with so many differences is a miracle anyway!

Courses of action could however be taken which rather than antagonize and exacerbate differences, seek to understand them. The agenda is critically important because it frames and makes the context for everything that follows. This all illustrates that it takes some sensitivity to navigate the waters of service work. Your heart could be in the right place but you could be lacking in contacts, funding and experience. Maybe you want to do good but just don’t have the people skills to pull it off. Maybe you feel strongly the suffering of others and feel a need to walk the path of doing something about it. Where your reasons and motivations are will be an evolving process.

I have noticed that in some cases people find it necessary to frame the agenda with a strong sense of ultimate right and wrong. An evil force is identified, for example the US or other government entities, white men etc and it is an a priori assumption that these entities are unquestionably corrupt and out of touch. If a person tries to look at and understand government or larger forces from a different perspective, that puts them in a position of going against the grain. All hammers have to identify the same nails or you could be a heretic! Could everything the government has ever done be evil or could the government sometimes be OK?  For me personally to get to a space where I am comfortable with my motivations I really need to be working for something rather than have my primary motivations be against something. This is my own comfort zone, the zone where my motivations and energies can condense. I am just not comfortable being an angry person. That is not me. I am willing to be challenged and to grow but please don’t ask me to be angry to change the world.

Speaking to the agenda, social and economic service work might be done starting out with educational goals, goals of tolerance and respect for difference as well as trying to maybe right basic inequities in the distribution of wealth. Social and economic injustice and environmental degradation seem to me to be core starting points in framing a service agenda.

(And it is worthwhile to consider, from an evolutionary psychology position, that morals are something we are born with, not the content but the capacity for them and thus the impulses to alleviate harm, to be fair, to be pure, to be loyal to our fellows and to respect the appropriate authorities, these things stand as basic impulses we cannot sidestep. This, the impulse to serve is perhaps born into us.)

Service work can have multiple goals at the same time. For example a project could seek to alleviate suffering, educate all involved and do some actual work for the benefit of the people or cause in question. These goals and agendas involve a process. A primary motivation might be to help others because larger economic forces have created conditions of crushing poverty. No one likes to witness suffering and I believe core human attributes are to want to try and alleviate suffering (harm), to be fair. Educationally a group might proceed with a project to work on improving a villages water supply with no intention of forcing anything on anyone, group members or the recipients of the work would generally be steered in the direction of learning about each other and working with an open ended process. The goal might simply be to use the project as a vehicle to enlarge all the participants and recipients views of the world. Service work here would have the dual benefits of materially helping people in need as well as being the vehicle for a transformational experience for all involved. This is how it has been in Trigo Moreno, Punta Chueca, Desemboque and Mesa de Abajo with Mike Gray and the AFSC/IMYM Joint Service Project there over the last four years.

How would things be with a humanist service organization? That would be some great dynamism, humanists out serving communities of poor Catholic peasants! Sure there would be the opportunity for misunderstanding and judgment but most people are smart enough to not bite the had that feeds them. 

It is interesting that a guy with some decent outdoor/group skills and experience can make a relatively good buck and have a great time on programs like SCA which primarily cater to well heeled, highly educated, highly motivated youth or adults yet if that same guy wants to bring those skills to bear work for less advantaged people he has to volunteer or work for subsistence. People with money and the desire are willing to pay big bucks to be transformed. Esalen Institute is an example of a high-end market catering to people who want self actualization. The lion’s share of the money goes not to the most needy but to those who are already doing well. It is ironic if I want to focus energy in areas having compassion for other’s suffering and apply my same exact experience and skills the compensation dries up.

Self-actualization through service is in some respects nowadays a bourgeois activity.

In a developmental context, there can be a time and a place for all sorts of explorations, ones that are primarily personal or ones that seek out service. I don’t think it is wrong or selfish to serve myself as well as other people because only through refining and questioning my own motivations will I grow and be able to offer the benefit of those insights to others. My personal explorations are the foundations for arriving at more sophisticated understandings of life and of service. I need to have some sense of who I am to serve larger causes more effectively. To be for something I need to have well developed thoughts and experiences, otherwise I become a follower. Without my experiences and reflections how would I have a sense of where my condensation points are?

This is a lot of talk and talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words. This was fun anyway and it has helped me to clarify my ideas somewhat. The real clarifier is on the ground, down and dirty, doing it and I suppose that once a person has all their intentions and motivations figured out, the work falls into place in a bit more meaningful way. All this abstraction doesn’t relieve me from being human and in the end, I just have to do the best I can.