Community service has become so institutionalized that it is traded like a commodity. You can trade 20 hours of community service to pay the University back for drinking a beer. A couple of semesters of community service will help you get into medical school. Somehow this seems to violate the spirit of community service.
What then is true community service? First we have to look at the first word, "community"-who are we serving? The popular response is to think of some group of extremely poor people in a far-away country, who should be honored to learn from such enlightened persons as ourselves-a small farming village in Nicaragua, for example.
This is not community service in the traditional sense because the group of people you are serving is not your community. It can be argued that we are all a part of the global community, or the brotherhood of mankind, but this is an ideological stretch reserved for Mother Theresa and other saints. As University students, we need not look so far for our community or opportunities to serve. We can start right where we live, where two people sharing a room form a micro-community. God knows that there are plenty of opportunities to serve even in the narrow confines of our dorm rooms.
When was the last time you picked up all your socks so the room would smell a little better? When was the last time you swept both sides of your room? You can't put this on your resume and the Community Service Center won't give you an award for it, but these small acts are where true community service begins.
Service is the second and arguable more important word in the term, "community service." In a world of mixed motivations, how can we tell what is actually service and what are hidden attempts at self-gain? We often serve because it makes us feel good about ourselves, which is essentially a selfish act. This does not negate the fact that we are serving, on one condition: We expect no direct compensation for our actions.
It is not wrong to serve in the hopes of a future benefit, we just cannot demand it. For example, if we take the time to sweep our dorm room, hoping that our roommate will take out the trash, we are not justified in yelling at our roommate if he or she does not do so.
The final result of our service is not in our hands; we must have faith that we have done the right thing. In Christianity, service is said to find favor in God's eyes, causing Him to be merciful. Hinduism teaches that our good deeds generate good karma which pays us back many times over. All we can do is serve and hope for the best; the rest is left to God or the laws of the universe.
People often serve out of feelings of guilt, which may be questioned as a motivation, because guilt is often thought of as a negative emotion of which modern people should rid themselves. In some cases this is may be true: We need not feel guilty for the rest of our lives about teasing our little brother when we were young.
Guilt, however, can be healthy as well: We should feel guilty if we break our roommate's computer. We should feel guilty if we are given a gift and do not thank the gift-giver. It is only when we linger in guilt that it becomes unhealthy and self-destructive. We could feel guilty for years about privileges we have received, until we decide to serve others to express our gratitude. Service is a way to say thank you and transform guilt into gratitude. This service need not be monumental: It could be as simple as writing a letter thanking our favorite high school teacher.
Many gifts cannot be directly repaid: We cannot hope to repay our parents monetarily for sending us to Duke (at least not in the next few years). Most parents do not want payment; they would simply ask that we serve our children as well as they served us. On a larger scale, we could not possibly repay all of the teachers, friends, family and forces that have formed the total of our lives. We can only be grateful and try to pass on through service a fraction of what was given to us.
James Todd is a Trinity senior.
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