Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

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Serve In Order To Serve, Not In Order To Help

Sonoma Veterans Hall, Sonoma, California, USA

Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 2024

"Don't assist to get better. In assisting, move from being served to serving."


...

"You're gonna have to serve somebody, yes you're gonna have to serve somebody, well it may be the devil or it may be the lord but you're gonna have to serve somebody."

... Robert Allen Zimmerman aka Bob Dylan, Gotta Serve Somebody

"If you're gonna serve then serve. If you're not then don't. Interimly serving is a gift you give others. Ultimately it's a gift you give yourSelf."


... Laurence Platt recreating

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve."


... Albert Schweitzer quoted by

This essay, Serve In Order To Serve, Not In Order To Help, is the tenth in a dectet written on Thanksgiving Day:

The Friends Of The Landmark Forum In South Africa
Simple Things
Full On You
Regular Guy
No Line
Orchid Leaves
Service: The Same Game Played In A Whole New Way
Coming From Love
Velcro Faces
Serve In Order To Serve, Not In Order To Help

in that order.

I am indebted to the infirm and the homeless and the senior citizens of Sonoma County, California who inspired this conversation.

	Preparing Thanksgiving dinner for 400 people		Serving Thanksgiving dinner for 400 people

Sonoma Veterans Hall, Sonoma, California, USA

There's a lot to be said for receiving / accumulating / collecting in life. If life had no possibility for being transformed, we may have considered ourselves to be what we've received / accumulated / collected, like a measure of who we are. There's the old adage that says "He who dies with the most toys, wins", an adage which can morph into a game that trivializes and demeans who we really are. At some point, my life veered off (derailed from) the receiving / accumulating / collecting track. There wasn't a conscious decision that it should veer off / derail like that. One moment I was a receiver, an accumulator, a collector ... and the next moment I wasn't. Instead I'd discovered giving / serving. Don't get me wrong: I love receiving (who doesn't?). Yet there's a je ne sais quoi that goeswith giving / serving which, while counter-intuitive, is arguably more worthwhile than receiving / accumulating / collecting. Really it is.

The three components of Thanksgiving that I love are: one, what it represents in the first place; two, the preparation of and serving of the feast; three, the opportunity to be with and celebrate it with the people I love for whom I give thanks. Upholding all three has always come easy for me. Yet in my erstwhile naïvete, I imagined all three were easy for everyone else too. Clearly that's not the case. Even if both what Thanksgiving represents, as well as being with people we love, are available to everyone, the Thanksgiving feast ie the ingredients and preparation thereof, are quite expensive and beyond the financial reach of shockingly huge numbers of people. This realization became woven tapestry-like into my life as it veered away from receiving, and toward serving.

It wasn't until I experienced serving in a multitude of forms over many years in various situations (from serving spiritual masters in a sacred environment, to serving regular guys like you and me in a more profane environment) that I began to grasp something profound about what it is to serve. It's this: the most predominant thrust of serving is to provide what's missing, to volunteer, to help. And the trouble with all the above is that each of them comes with an "in order to" ie serving in order to provide what's missing, volunteering in order to provide what's missing, helping in order to provide what's missing.

If there's one thing I've learned about serving, one thing which elevates serving from something hum-drum, something menial, something dry, something black and white, to something awesome, something remarkable, something extraordinary in Panavision and Technicolor, it's this: don't ever serve in order to provide what's missing. Serve in order to serve, not in order to help. Look: nothing's missing. It's all already perfect and whole and complete exactly the way it is. If you're going to serve, then serve in order to serve, and not because anything's missing. Serving in order to provide what's missing ie serving in order to help, actually diminishes serving. Serving in order to serve escalates and elevates the humble act of serving into something profound and magical.

I stand behind a long line of tables groaning under the weight of large plates piled high with yams, beets, orange and fennel salad, and candied walnuts and feta cheese, clutching industrial-strength serving tongs. In front of me file hundreds of people, plates outstretched. These are our guests, wide-eyed and appreciative and dressed in their best, and it's likely they haven't had a meal like this in many years. To the left and the right of me, more servers offer other items from the menu. Oftentimes I'm convinced we're out of whack when some tycoons have hundreds of billions of dollars, yet entire communities can go to bed hungry. Other times I get it's just what's so. But that's not why I serve, even though it's what I sometimes contemplate while I'm serving.

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