Celebration of Discipline #2

In Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline, I was interested to see the comparison of a spiritual take on service versus the usually-secular "community service" idea we have in society. Foster claims "self-righteous service comes through human effort ... so we can 'help those people'" and is not true service, which is the "grace of humility" (130). Service is mainly a hidden service, and receives very little recognition if any by others. When we engage in service, we have to be sure that we are approaching it for the goal of being unknown and lifting up others, instead of for the feel-good result of being recognized for your work. I can remember as a kid picking up food pantry donations every Friday at our church for years with my parents, after which we brought them to the food bank to be handed out the following morning. I always wondered if anyone knew who picked up the food, and imagined having some sort of recognition for doing it for years. Since I was so young I obviously wasn't engaging in this service to humbly serve other people, and while I recognized that what we were doing was "good" because I had been told it was, it seemed weird that doing something good had no tangible impact on my own life. Overall, I think our society does have a good representation of service because whether or not the organization takes on spiritual beliefs, the motives often remain the same (to help people). Most people, if they encountered a "service" organization that was self-serving, would be very uncomfortable. This is why we choose to donate to charities which spend significant percentages of their donations on the people they purport to serve and not on themselves through administrative costs. While there is evidence that our society does support selfless service, there are far fewer people who actually take the time to engage in it.