mirror ball 60: service

Have you had an experience of giving your time, your energy, and/or your talents in volunteer/service work for others?
What did you do?
Did it benefit you, too?

Tanya:
I just returned from a weekend of love, light and pure spirit as one of three facilitators of a weekend retreat in Pasadena with the I Am Women ministry of the Agape International Spiritual Center. We guided thirty women on a journey of the self: reconnecting to their feminine power, tapping into their intuition, basking in their light and the light of their sisters, recognizing the necessity to nourish themselves on all levels, and channeling their innate creativity.  

 

This was a labor of love. We spent weeks preparing and visioning on the perfect unfoldment of this weekend. We gave our time, energy, joy and light throughout the three days as we witnessed the women take a journey of the heart and experience life changing transformation! I decorated the room, prepared the altar, led meditation and prayer sessions, and facilitated an Art from the Soul workshop. Through guided visualization I led these women on a journey to release all the false masks that we unconsciously wear throughout our day, and to find, reveal and celebrate their true face...the face of God as them. I allowed these women, who are not artists, to see that they are all creative, and that Spirit flows through each of them uniquely. This workshop became a celebration of the many faces of Spirit, all of which are necessary, as we all created beautiful and colorful masks together...masks that show our true face!  

 

Sunday afternoon we came together in a closing ceremony where each woman showed their "face" to the others and all celebrated the beautiful unique face of Spirit as they told about their mask. Through their words, smiles and tears, I understood how I led them to experience a deep joy and acceptance of who they are...these women who are not artists could not believe what they had made and how much they loved it and how it reflected their true self!  

 
What a gift to me this was!! I really felt the love, and the worth of what I guided them to do, see and know for themselves. I really felt that my mission to heal through my art was already happening, and my heart was full...it still is!!

Steve H:
Five or six years ago I worked at a company that sponsored a week-long trip for about a dozen employees to do service work in Mexico. I got to be one of the participants. 

We went to a community just outside Mexico City where people both live and work in one of the vast city dumps. There was a small organization there that provided meals and education to kids while their parents and older siblings foraged in the mountains of trash for recyclable items that could be sold. These families live in houses made of anything that could conceivably be used to make into a wall or a roof. Many of the homes' floors are dirt, which means that for much of the year they are mud. We were there to pour concrete floors in some of these homes. 

The night before our early-morning flight to Mexico I was suddenly terrified; I'm not sure of what. But as soon as we landed in Mexico City I felt so excited and grateful to be there. The whole week was a rich, fun, heartbreaking, beautiful experience. The work was very hard but of course we were all aware that it lasted only a few days, and that each night we got to sleep in hotel beds and have a nice dinner.

I know that we could probably have found a way to send money to an organization in Mexico to have someone there build even more floors than we were able to, rather than having a bunch of folks from Oregon fly down to do it. But I also know that all of us (Mexican, Oregonian) getting to know each other just a little was also valuable. Even in that short time I felt at the end of the week like I was leaving a bit of my heart there. I also felt that that week was a turning point in my life in wanting to find ways to do work that felt useful.

I wish I could communicate the colors, the smells, the heat, the shared laughter, the delicious lunches provided for us, the way we showed up for each other at moments when it got too hard, and the beautiful, sweet kids.

Charles:

I do, indeed, donate photographic services.

Currently doing some work for three organizations:

1) New Settlement Community Center in the Bronx. Photographed my wife's prenatal yoga class with more to come. The center serves an underserved population. Images will help the center raise money. They are also making the students extremely happy. It's a wonderful experience.

2) New Hope Lodge of The American Cancer Society. They provide housing for people who come to NYC for cancer treatments. Images will be used in fundraising materials. Also very satisfying.

3) Wild Bird Fund. The major bird rehabilitation center in Manhattan. I'll be teaching a bird photography class for them. They exist on donations.

The benefit for me in all of this is the doing. It also helps get my work out there, particularly with the birding community. But I'd be doing this regardless.

Steven S:
Giving Time/Energy - 

I have been concerned about a student in one of my classes. He is a Freshman. He seemed over his head in the first weeks. He deflected the attention I gave him in class and did not bond with his fellow students in any way. He finally emailed me 4 weeks into the semester. I was very excited. I told my partner that the student I had been worried about finally reached out to me. Had he not, my plan was to confront him anyway. But him coming to me was much better. It felt good.

After the next class I spent a fruitful eye to eye hour with him. I explained all the things he was missing. He asked me so many questions and seemed to understand everything we went over. I was high. I watched his face as he processed and grasped the things that scared and eluded him in earlier classes. Now he knew exactly what he was supposed to do to catch up with his assignments. He also promised to begin coming to my office hour and to seek help from the college's student academic support center. Even though my voice was tired from teaching all day, I called my partner and told him how excited I was. I felt as though I had changed the world. How easy!

The next week he did not show up to my office hour. Then as I was running across campus to our fateful next class, I saw the student casually walk into a store. From where he was, there was not much time for him to reach the room on the hour. He should have been hurrying like I was. Instead he seemed to be poking around. I kept walking. The student never showed. That day I taught another lesson that would widen the gap between himself and the rest of the students. I have been teaching for many years yet I still believed that I had him. I suppose that it's not a bad thing that I believed. Because it means that I'm not jaded yet. And maybe the next student who reaches out will actually follow through. It does happen.

I can't change this kid's past, his feelings about himself or his understanding of what he needs for the future. We all move in our own time and in our own way.  Maybe my small effort flipped a switch in the corner of some molecule inside some cell that will divide and reproduce. I will probably never know. And me knowing is not the point. For an hour after class one day, something good happened.  He had to have felt it too. But these things are so subtle. Not everyone can handle the idea that someone believes in them. My efforts may have pushed him farther away. I did what I thought would help.

Next week the class meets again. But where is the line between my own desire for him to succeed and his responsibility to himself? If I were perfect, I would know. And in that statement, I expose myself as being as broken as he is.