Service: Looking for the Little Things

Spring is a wonderful season for reasons beyond the change in weather and signs of growth. March brings us College Basketball's "March Madness" and is closely followed by April's start to the baseball season. I always love these two events every year, however this time around our lack of television reception and any radio station that could pick up any sporting event leaves me a bit saddened and troubled. Clearly this is something that simplicity and community call me to overcome (and maybe it sounds like they're larger impacts than they should be), but I'd like to use this factor to reflect on service a bit.

Since I long to watch as much NCAA basketball as I can at this point of the season, I called up our community friend Betty Nicholson. Betty loves watching sports and loves having people over, and is probably my favorite community friend (yes, I have a favorite) so there were many advantages to joining her for some of the opening games of the tournament. When she asked me to take her to K-Mart to pick up her prescriptions for her eye medicine I was more than willing to say yes, although a small voice in the back of my head was wishing I didn't have to use so much gas (K-Mart is at least a 30 minute drive). But I did my best to ignore that fact and help Betty out since she does everything she can to help out the Farm and is such a positive friend for all of us. I was astounded at how grateful Betty was by this simple act, that I took my own time to help her out. She has been talking about how I offered my help for two days now, making me well aware how appreciative she is of my offering. To top things off, as we were watching basketball that Friday evening, when she went to put her eye drops in she had run out and needed to open the prescription we had picked up that day. Had I not been available (or willing) to help her out she would not have had her medicine for at least the night.

Looking back on that I felt largely affirmed by Betty that my willingness to help her out was in fact a small act of service. At the Farm we always encourage those forms of service along side our more tangible service of home repair. We emphasize the acts taken on home crew - cooking, cleaning, and welcoming friends home as a form of service. We stress the fact that we are building relationships with people and that just sitting with someone can also be a form of service. So what are some of the ways that you can serve others in these small ways? What holds you back from helping others in these ways?

I hope that in my life I can continue to do these small acts of service (or small acts of kindness) and that I can even get to the point where I don't have that nagging voice in the back of my head reminding me of the negative sides to those acts. Make sure to give of yourself today and this week...