2+0+1+3=6, Six is the number of Service

Six Ways to Serve.

Service is defined as an act of helpful activity, which can surely manifest in many shapes and colours.

Here are Six categories which might help you find ways to be of most help in this year of Six Energy and Service.

1). Ask what people need (and listen to the answer).

Sometimes, there is no question about how best to serve. If you have witnessed someone fall overboard, throwing a floatation device should be more instinct and reaction than considered response. Fortunately that kind of emergency is rare in daily life.

The people who populate your days do have needs, and can benefit from service, yet their needs may not be obvious to you. When you have made a decision to serve, ask what service will be of value to the recipient.

If you have decided to take a meal to a homebound neighbour, find out what they are recommended to eat, like to eat and want to eat. Preparing a nutritious beef stew before learning about their meatless diet serves no one. Delivering a spicy dish will not benefit the person on a bland diet. Caramel cake will not feel like a gift to someone struggling with diabetes. We each have food preferences: they need to be about what we put on our own plate. In service we cannot impose on others.

2). Give Time

In 2013 in the west we are scheduled and busy. Our devices keep us connected to the demands of work when we’re at home, and the demands of family while we’re at work. There is often a feeling that there is Not Enough Time to fulfill all the burdens of life. The gift of time, therefore, can be a great service.

Give an hour of child-care to young parents. Offer to sit with an invalid, or be present with a dependent family member so that the carer can get away for a while.  Donate a morning to a lonely senior: there is no need for outings: simply being companionable has immense value.

 3). Give Effort

The truth of the aging population in the west has created a society with many older people for whom stamina and sustained effort are consigned to the past. Each of us has abilities of value. For every person who can no longer reach into the bottom of the washing machine to lift out the wet laundry, there is someone for whom this is a simple, easily performed job. Sharing that effort is a service to be celebrated.

Among younger generations, there are household administration tasks that get neglected in the hectic schedule of working families. A friend with the willingness to offer vacuuming, shopping or garbage-management is a treasure.

In the community there are groups and programs, fundraising and educational projects. These are opportunities to offer skills like book-keeping or talents like piano-playing in service of grand goals.

4). Give Ideas

Life is about change. Every adjustment, every step forward, every progress began as an idea. Each of us has thoughts and dreams. Most of us have an inner mind that babbles running commentary throughout the day. That commentary contains the seeds for future actions. It suggests possibilities which we can accept or reject. For those who have the inclination, meditation and prayer are ways to find stillness. In that quiet we can hear the value that resides in the stream of thought. From this place of inspiration great contribution can come – but only when we offer it to others.

5). Give Money

For some people the most efficient way to be of personal service is to add to the financial resources of systems which are serving at broader levels.  Making a pledge of money to a nearby program can help expand service in the local community that reaches deeply into neighbourhood needs.

Donating to national and international projects can extend individual impact into global progress.

                                                                                        

6). Give Unconditionally

Service means an act of helpfulness. Do not impose an agenda or ideology.

It is not helpful to interfere. It is not helpful to make demands or add conditions to the service you are offering.

Saying “I will gather the coins and other treasures from under your couch cushions if you promise to never sit there again” is not an act of service: it is an attempt to control someone’s behaviour.

Service cannot carry judgement or demand payback. Service is best offered with a glad and loving heart.

If you are not ready to give without strings or to assist with no thought of reward, do not worry.

2013 (2+0+1+3=6) is a year of Six Energy. This is Service Energy.

The fact that you are still reading means that you are on a path towards Service. There are eleven months left, and you will catch up.