There are countless opportunities every day to be of support to our neighbors.
As I begin thinking about revisiting a book about community service that I wrote years ago – to update and prepare it for publication – I find my mind whirling around new ideas that must be inserted. Volunteer work is something I’ve been committed to since I was a little girl (going on forty-two years of continual service work); my first trained position, as a candystriper, was a powerful elixir for me.
So I’ve been making notes, talking with friends who are dedicated to their volunteer positions, and observing what unfolds out in my community.
I believe this inner contemplation and interpersonal communication have opened doors for me that expand my understanding of what service is and isn’t. I have had unusual – and somewhat extreme, lately – opportunities to explore my own edges around reaching out.
Yesterday was one such chance: an elderly woman with dementia lost her car for the second time this week in the grocery store parking lot and she wondered if my car might be hers. This set us off on a long journey together: this scared and pleasant woman, and me. By the end, we knew one another’s names, had discovered some shared past geography, had discussed feelings and next steps for her wellbeing, and were comfortable exchanging hugs. I left her safely ensconced in the authorities’ care, with her family on the way to her.
I left feeling I had been of assistance.
I left understanding that I had done precisely what was called for: not too little, nor too much. And I was able to rely, myself, on the care that others would subsequently provide for this woman.
It was a circle of care, of connection, of gifts given and received.
I believe that this place we live – Earth: with all her beings, and neighborhoods, and needs – is a communal one. A community. A place we inhabit, in part, in order to share in one another’s tragedies and triumphs. I know many who would have helped this woman, had she been delivered to their car in some other parking lot. Some would have done more than I did, others would have been comfortable giving less. But I believe that service requires us to deeply know ourselves, in order that we might deeply reach out to others.
Besides the obvious (helping someone in need), service is an opportunity for:
self reflection
getting to know somebody else
finding shared connection
being grateful…
and so much more.
I encourage you to wait for your own opportunities to be of right and spontaneous support to another; I promise that it will be of as much benefit to you as it is to the one you are gifted to assist.
All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2019 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
