washday on the plains - Minerva TeichertHelping - Service
I had written yesterday about a recent article a friend gave to me about the difference between Helping and Serving. It is by Rachel Naomi Remen and is called "In the Service of Life" Dr. Remen is a clinical professor of Medicine at UCSF. She is the author of Kitchen Table Wisdom, which I have since bought reading this article (on Amazon for $1.98) and love it. Dr. Remen has a 45 year personal history of Crohn's disease, and her work is a unique blend of the viewpoint of physician and patient.
You can read the article in full by clicking this link but her are a few highlights for me. I encourage you to print it out and take the time to read it. i put two paintings on this post by one of my favorite artists Minerva Teichert, the first represents Helping to me and the last represents Service.
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In recent years the question how can I help? has become meaningful to many people. But perhaps there is a deeper question we might consider. Perhaps the real question is not how can I help? but how can I serve?
Helping incurs debt. When you help someone they owe you one. But serving, like healing, is mutual. There is no debt. I am as served as the person I am serving. When I help I have a feeling of satisfaction. When I serve I have a feeling of gratitude. These are very different things.
Serving is also different from fixing. When I fix a person I perceive them as broken, and their brokenness requires me to act. When I fix I do not see the wholeness in the other person or trust the integrity of the life in them. When I serve I see and trust that wholeness. It is what I am responding to and collaborating with.
If helping is an experience of strength, fixing is an experience of mastery and expertise. Service, on the other hand, is an experience of mystery, surrender, and awe.
Our service serves us as well as others. That which uses us strengthens us. Over time, fixing and helping are draining, depleting. Over time we burn out. Service is renewing. When we serve, our work itself will sustain us.
When you help you see life as weak, when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. From the perspective of service, we are all connected: All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy.
feel free to share any thoughts you have after you read this.
19 comments:
I think I do more helping than serving. Very little fixing.
Intresting way to think of it.Thanks for sharing.
What a wonderful post, you are able to find the most wonderful and inspiring stories/poems.
Sometimes in helping I feel burdened or put upon some how, even if I've been the one suggesting the help, I like her thought that helping implies that something is broken.
Servcie on the other hand leaves me feeling fulfilled, whole. Our regional service project was to pick grapes and lay them out so they would dry and then be processed for raisins and used in the bishop's storehouse. We would get up at 4am, drive an hour to the vineyard and climb up under the vines, battle spiders, snakes, heat and powder like dirt to ensure that all the grapes had been picked, when the task was completed, about noon, we were exhausted but it was such a good tired, we had served.
Thank you for sharing this with us. Also, my $.02: I am thankful that your site is not private, because I have benefitted so much from reading your uplifting posts. I think that there are more of us out here who you help by sharing your thoughts and experiences than you will never know. Thank You!
Thank you for sharing.....Great perspective. Service has and does bring the greatest joy to my life. I could seriously write a book about helping vs serving and the blessings/miracles, etc. Many times, I dont recogize the impact on myself or others while I am in the middle with my sleeves rolled up.
I have the honor of calling Minerva Teichert: "Aunt Minerva" she is my Great Aunt. I have wonderful memories of being with her as a young girl. I love her art, also. My mother has an original painitng of hers, as do many other family members.
This has got some great meat in it, Kristi. Thanks for posting it. I especially liked "I think I would go so far as to say that fixing and helping may often be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul." This article has put words and titles to what I have felt but couldn't articulate.
It also gave me clarity in these two concepts:
1) "When you help someone they owe you one. But serving, like healing, is mutual. There is no debt." And, "When I help I have a feeling of satisfaction. When I serve I have a feeling of gratitude."
2)"Serving is also different from fixing. When I fix a person I perceive them as broken...When I serve I see and trust that wholeness."
Thank you for sharing what you've learned with me.
so were we helping or serving the woman in New Orleans that asked us to come pack up her house for her?
oh thank you so much for posting this.. I am printing the article.
love the thoughts and really makes me think about how I am going about my life.. in the church and with my kids and family..
They are both necessary.. really.. I need help a lot.. I sometimes like to give help.. but I would much rather serve..... and not make anyone feel like they owe me anything..
thanks again for sharing this..
Love this. I needed this today.
Beautiful, Kristi. Thank you for taking the time to share this. I love these thoughts. And I love Dr. Remen! Her book "My Grandfather's Blessings" is a favorite of mine.
Such a great perspective on service -- I really enjoyed the thought on something being broken vs. seeing the wholeness of the other person.
Thanks for posting this. You have given me some of the most delicious food for thought this evening.
I love this post. Makes me analyze myself. She wrote one of my favorite books, "My Grandfather's Blessings". Heather Rolapp gave me a copy of the book when I took over being RS President from her. Very inspirational. Hang in there!!
I'm so glad you elaborated on this from your post the other day. Since reading your previous post where you mentioned helping vs. serving it has been constantly on my mind. I feel that with my calling and being a mom I'm doing way too much helping which can be a drudgery. But serving is a much better point of view. Doing my kids laundry is a way of serving them. Cooking food is a way of serving. I must keep telling myself this. Also, I LOVE Minerva Teichart. I just had one of her painting {Pioneers Arriving} framed this week. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us!
I really enjoyed the art you used in this post. I'm so glad you shared the article. Thanks!
Fantastic perspectives, and smthg I hadn't taken the time to think about. I hope I can find an opportunity to share these thoughts with my friends at church here.
I really liked the distinction made between "helping" and "serving". I never really thought about it that way before, but it certainly makes sense and rings true to me. Thanks for sharing those quotes.
I really like Minerva Teichert too!
The article was just what I needed to read. I've thought a lot about it and how it relates to my life. I don't know that I can put all my thoughts into words, or that I'm even done thinking about how to apply this to my life. I hope to continually think about how I can serve those around me (especially my husband and kids). I always wondered why some women seem so happy in their roles as mothers while I'm overwhelmed and just plain bored with the monotany (sp?) of it all sometimes. Of course I love my kids, but I think I've been to caught up in helping them and it takes away from me. I know the most consistantly happiest time of my life was while serving a mission and looking back on it, it's because I was serving. Thank you for sharing and causing me to think and ponder my own life and how I can be better.
PS) you mentioned going private and although of course it's completely your decision I just wanted to let you know how much your blog helped me the past few months since I started reading it. Just one of the many things I'm learning from you by reading your blog is to be excited about simple things in life and to try and enjoy each day to the fullest. You seem to have mastered that and it translates in your writing. Thank you so much for sharing.
I passed this article along to Ken for his talk on Sunday, and it was so good. Our bishop asked for a copy of the article afterwards.
Such an new and interesting thought to me, I'm not sure why though. I guess I have never really thought that helping and serving are seperate. Definitely something to think about...do I help more or serve more? hmmmmm
There's a Minereva Teichert exhibition at the BYU Museum of Art right now and it's fabulous--I saw it with Claudia while she was in town.
You know this is subject is near and dear to my heart, so these thoughts are great. I think it goes hand in hand with cultivating Christ-like love in ourselves, and that as we do so it becomes a part of who we are rather than something we occasionally do.
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