…To Be of Service

 I will be your standing stone - I will stand by you. Melanie DeMore

If I am to be willing to be of service to others, I must be ready and aware of opportunities. It can be as simple as a moment of opening a door for someone else, pulling back to let another driver merge, or a reassuring smile to a harried parent.

It can also be in planned activities: visiting with the sick and dying, giving those harried parents a night off by watching their children, or keeping a loved one company when they feel alone. There are so many ways to be of service! We are only limited by our imagination and the willingness to make ourselves available.

I don’t do for others what they can do for themselves. It would be easy to drift into a codependency, which serves no one. I must first take care of my own oxygen mask before helping someone else with theirs. Balance is key.

In the rooms of recovery, service to others is a built-in feature. No one is paid to sponsor. Speakers freely share their experience, strength, and hope so that others can use their example as their own standing stone. Tasks are taken on in a rotation, so that everyone has the opportunity to perform acts of service to the group as a whole. There are no gurus sitting around in their gilded mansions being served by their underlings - we are equals, each seeing value in the other, and filling needs as they arise. The idea, of course, is to keep the good juju going forward, in and out of the rooms.

It begins with and is maintained by willingness.


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