The Essence of Service

This week I have been on the Gulf Coast. I staid in Mississippi for a few days and also made a quick visit to New Orleans.

It's been ten months since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the coast and changed the lives of every resident in this region.

It's been ten months since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the coast and changed the lives of every volunteer who has visited this region.

One theme to this trip to the coast has been community. Communities on the Gulf Coast are beginning to rebuild. There is also a powerful witness of service and caring that has transformed many people's view of community.

Community is your neighbor. Community is your neighbor down the street or in the apartment next door. Community is your neighbor 2500 miles away from your current address on the coast of Mississippi or on the streets of New Orleans.

I've been reading a book: Through the Eye of the Storm, and one of the most notable things that the author has reflected on is the great gift of serving others. She came to Mississippi to help after the hurricane.

She and various friends brought supplies, and relief to desperate areas of the coast. They nailed roofs on houses and assisted residents in filling out FEMA applications and insurance claims. They came to help. They came to be of assistance.

They found out that they were the ones receiving assistance, and they were being helped and healed in the process of serving others. They found themselves connected to a community of neighbors they had never before met.

Their help and assistance wasn't self-serving. Their gifts were more than charity. Volunteers are discovering life and the joy of service. The joy of service brings humanity back to a mutual agreement to live together in peace and harmony. We are all neighbors. We all live in the same community. I help you, you help me. We live together.

That is the essence of what the author describes in her book: "One Sunday Rev. Rosemary asked me to come and tell the congregation what we were doing for their community. I ended up telling them what they had done for me. I told them that I wanted to introduce America to them in hopes that their spirit and sense of community and love would heal our nation as it had healed me."

In healing we are healed. In loving we are loved.

This week I've heard that story; that joyous story from volunteers and from residents here on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and in New Orleans.

"People have come to help from all over."

"Thank you."

"Now I know what love is."

Community. The community says these things to each other. We live. We give. We receive. We are community.