Hope you are surrounded by laughter today! This post is about the spiritual practice of Authentic Service.
When I was 16 years old, I was a first-time camp counselor at Agassiz Village and loved it! A few days before the end of camp, I was playing a card game with a few of my campers when one of the older campers, Sasha, approached me and said, “Allison, can I talk to you?“
“Sure,” I said.
Sasha and I drove our power wheelchairs to a quiet area of the courtyard and Sasha began, “Could you do me a favor?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Could you ask Johnny, the worker, if he’d take a picture of himself with my camera? I know you’re friends with the workers.”
I couldn’t help smiling. Most of the male teenagers who worked at camp were called “workers.” Many female campers developed crushes on at least one worker during their time at camp. Lord knows I had my share of crushes on various workers when I was a camper.
My family, mostly my big sister, would hear about how cute so and so was for the 11 months that I was home from camp. My sister always asked if I talked to the workers who I had a crush on. My answer was usually no. Crushes were for looking at, not talking to, according to 13-year-old Allison.
Sasha was a 14-year-old camper who reminded me a bit of myself. In response to her question, I said, “Yeah, I would be happy to ask him for you, but I think it would mean more to him if you asked him yourself.”
Sasha’s eyes got wide as she said, “It would? Would he talk to me?”
“Yes, he’d talk to you! He’s really nice.”
“I guess I could ask him,” Sasha said quietly and with a bit of hesitation.
“Would you like me to help you figure out what to say?”
“Yeah!! Don’t move,” Sasha said as she held her hands up to signal to me to stay where I was. “I’ll be right back.”
Sasha turned the speed dial on her power wheelchair to the fastest speed possible, went into the rec room and emerged with a piece of paper, a pen and a book to write on. I had never seen her move so fast. With her writing tools in hand, she drove her chair at top speed towards me, turned on a dime and brought her chair to a stop right next to me.
“Ok, what should I say?” Sasha asked, bubbling over with excitement.
“Before we write anything, tell me why you want his picture,” I said.
“He’s really cute,” she said with a huge smile, “and nice too!”
I chuckled and said, “Yes, he is very cute but let’s keep that to yourself. He’s a staff member and we want to make sure no one gets in trouble.”
“Oh, ok.”
“Do you want a picture of him to remember him through the school year?”
“Yeah! I do!”
“Ok. Then let’s start with this. Hi Johnny. My name is Sasha.”
“Wait, wait! This is good stuff! Let me just finish writing ‘my name is Sasha,’ “ Sasha said as she wrote. I smiled to myself and waited for her to finish writing. After 10 minutes, she had written down a complete script.
“Do you feel like you can say this to Johnny?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Great! Do you want to practice saying it to me?”
“No! Someone might hear me,” Sasha said bringing the piece of paper to her chest, “but, I’m gonna practice in my cabin when no one else is there.”
Two days later, Sasha came up to me and said, “Allison, I did IT!!! I asked him and he didn’t take one picture with me. He took TWO pictures with me,” she said, holding two fingers up and bursting with excitement.
“He did!! Ok, you’ve got to tell me everything!!”
After giving me a play-by-play description of the entire interaction between her and Johnny, she thanked me for helping her and proceeded to dance in her wheelchair as she drove to her cabin.
When I agreed to be a counselor, I was prepared to sing songs and play cards with my campers. Given my past perspective on crushes, I never thought I’d help a camper talk to her crush. But, by helping Sasha, I saw how far I had come. I had gone from the 13 year old camper who didn’t talk to her crushes to the counselor who empowered her camper(and the counselor who had a summer romance herself).
As Sasha danced her dance, I danced in my chair too with love for, and pride in, myself and my growth. This is one of the beautiful gifts of engaging in authentic service. You not only help the person you are serving, you also help yourself because we are all one. As you pour love into others through your service, love is poured right back into you.
Love, blessings and purple,
Allison
Try to do this exercise everyday this week(or as often as possible). If you need modifications to the practice, scroll down to the section titled Access Notes.
Engaging In Authentic Service Through Prayer
One way you can engage in authentic service is by praying for the happiness of others.
Choose one person (this person can be someone you know or someone you don’t know) and spend 3-5 minutes praying for that person’s happiness. When you pray for this person, refrain from praying that the person receives certain things, such as a car or a house or a job. Instead, pray that the person experiences more qualities such as love, joy, harmony, blessings, abundance, health than ever before. Also, feel as much emotion as you can while you pray. Praying with deep feeling adds power to your prayer.
The following modifications are intended to create equal access to the spiritual practice above. These modifications are somewhat general to be as useful as possible to as many people as possible. Please feel free to further tweak the exercise as needed so that you can participate as fully as possible while honoring your body’s needs.
1. If you are nonverbal or minimally verbal, I suggest doing the following to determine how to make your prayer practice as effective as possible:
a. First, if you use an AAC device that has a voice synthesizer, type the prayer into your communication device. Have your communication device speak the prayer. As your device says the prayer, feel as much passion and emotion as possible.
b. Second, say the prayer in your head with as much passion and emotion as you can.
c. Third, write/type out your prayer and ask someone to speak it out loud for you. As the person says your prayer, feel as much passion and emotion as possible.
d. Once you finish, figure out which method enabled you to feel your prayer the most deeply.
2. If you communicate via sign language, sign your prayer with as much feeling as possible.
3. If composing a prayer is difficult for you, choose someone you want to pray for and try saying (either out loud or mentally) or signing the following prayer.
Dear God(Universe or Loving Power ) Thank you for the gift that is my life! Thank you for (say the name of the person you are praying for). I pray that their lives reflect the love, joy, fun, abundance, health, support, and beauty that surrounds them always, that is the very essence and truth of their being! May they experience more wealth, more harmony and more love than they ever have. May they experience so much wisdom, peace, and prosperity that they become the personification of these vibrations and spread bliss and blessings everywhere they go forevermore ! Thank you for the manifestation of this prayer. And so it is!
4. If you have challenges focusing while praying, the following suggestions may make prayer more accessible to you.
a. Try writing out your prayers in advance and then reading what you wrote out loud. You can write out the entire prayer or write a bullet point list of what you want to pray about.
b. Pray in a quiet place in your home.
c. Before you begin praying, take a few deep breaths to relax your body.
d. Pray while manipulating a fidget/STIM device.
e. If sitting still while praying is too difficult, try praying while exercising.
