Service
Dear friends,
It is often said that service to others brings joy. Is that true, and why might that be? Glad you asked! :-)
One of the great delusions that keeps us from feeling Spirit's presence is our belief that we need our circumstances to be the way we want for us to be happy. If we only had more money, a better relationship, better health, a more satisfying job, whiter teeth, etc. This has us become tremendously self-involved. We constantly notice and measure exactly what we are missing and exactly how the world is slighting us.
The great thing about service is it is not about us! Picture a Mom with the sick infant. She becomes super-mom: doing it all, up whatever hours are necessary, sacrificing her own needs all in service to the baby. Once the baby is safe and healthy again, then she collapses.
It's not that we do not have our own needs, and taking care of them is entirely appropriate. But if that goes too far (and it does more often than we think) it becomes confining as we enter a never-ending search for "just a little bit better". The great power of service is that it takes us out of our natural tendency to evaluate what we need and don't have.
In fact, if you are ever in a bad mood, go serve. Your mood will vanish so long as you can focus on the object of your aid and not yourself (as in "They are not being grateful enough!"). Interestingly, service and moods operate in two different parts of the brain that cannot both be active at the same time (the amygdala and the left prefrontal cortex). Serving is brain chemistry.
May we learn that as well as giving bringing more joy than receiving, serving brings more joy than catering to our own needs and desires. "Service is Joy" is more than a catchy phrase. It nourishes our soul and is backed up by neurology.
Blessings,
David G., manager
For the staff at East West