I believe that society needs awareness in order to heal itself. I believe that society needs individuals who can replace fear with love, transaction with trust, isolation with community and consumption with contribution. And I believe that service has the ability to make all of that happen.

I have been blessed with many things in my life, one was having the opportunity to study, serve and reflect with a group of men and women who strive to embody the teachings and practices of Gandhi, everyday. I’ve learned a lot from these creative and courageous men and women, including ways to describe my passion for service which for years could only be felt and never described.

I believe as Gandhi did that true service is born of love and not of fear, and that service combined with awareness and intent, transforms everything that it touches. Gandhi believed that service to others was a natural part of living in a community and of being human. Men and women have skills and assets that they freely give away every day. Sometimes it’s a smile, some days it is a strong back or a kind word, and others it is the ability to make clothing from scratch or to help a single mother balance her budget for the month. Service is natural, but in order for it to change a community, the world, and the servant one must to become aware of their gifts, and then of the sensation of being engaged in service.

Those who are serving must feel the adrenaline rush of service. They must feel how fear stops when trust is gained, when friendships are built, when isolation disappears and they are sudden not an individual, but part of a community. Service must always be accompanied by awareness and reflection, if it is to have a long lasting effect on the world, and service must always be done with a group or individual, never for. Service with builds a foundation for a new future. It empowers, challenges, and informs. Service with allows everyone involved to feel rush of adrenaline, the trust, and the community.  Service with changes more than the environment, it changes people.

Through service one becomes a member of a community, one piece of the puzzle, not an individual who is out to save the world. In a land of service, you are never alone and you see that Gandhi was right-- we do not have scarcity in this world; we live in a world of abundance. As a true servant, you are not merely trying to fix, or save, or improve. You’re work becomes about finding balance and equality, you begin to look at the world holistically, and your goal becomes wholeness not perfection.  As you do this, you find that you become more whole yourself.  You begin to heal and so do those who surround you. 

Service filled with love, intent, and awareness is a process. I have come very far. I have learned that I cannot save the world alone, but that we, as a species, as a community, can. I have learned that, I serve not only to help those around me, but to help myself and that this is not selfish, but brilliant and needed. And I have learned that some days, I will screw up. I will fall back into a land where I don’t trust, where things need to be fixed, and I think I know best. I have learned that at these moments I need to breathe, and remember that it took us a long time to create these societal challenges in front of us, and that it will take us a bit more time to heal and move on. At these moments, I am thankful for others that are traveling on this same path – a path of service and change, and I have learned to return to them grounding and support, to remind me that the only way to make change is with many, many hands and many, many hearts.