Broken Things and Service

When we help, we become aware of our own strength. But when we serve, we don’t serve with our strength; we serve with ourselves, and we draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve; our wounds serve; even our darkness can serve. My pain is the source of my compassion; my woundedness is the key to my empathy.
Rachel Naomi Remen / Kitchen Table Wisdom / September 1999

This quote was my favorite part of the article, or maybe just a portion that stood out to me specifically. It reminded me of a story in my life that I would like to share. Life is full of experiences, and many of them are painful or difficult in the moment, but the value of the experience and the capability to serve appears to be unfailingly exponential towards the positive in these cases of difficulty. It is because I have seen it, and felt it and been there or even currently am that I can empathize with another and share with them the experience.

This is something I have learned about teaching, also. I had a wonderful teacher who explained to us that when she was a young dance teacher she felt like she could not mess up, wobble or be anything but the perfect example of how it was to be done, because she was the teacher. She began to realize that this expectation she had placed on herself also made her students feel as though they could not be anything but perfect and trying to do this didn't actually allow for learning and growth, because we learn much from failing and striving again.  Also, as she grew older and natural physical limitations set in she found that her students were better capable of producing the movement, but she had a wise sense of how to accomplish it that they had not mastered and that was what she was there to give, while they had much to also give to her.  They were serving each other as student and teacher and doing so in part by being willing to admit their limitations to one another.

Another professor I worked with mentioned that often professors find it necessary to act like they have all the answers, and he found his work became not only easier but more fulfilling when he started telling his students that he didn't know. His students were, rather than frustrated with him at his lack of expertise, comfortable and trusting of him in a way that allowed all of them to explore topics and not be afraid of asking questions and not having answers but to continue to ask questions and learn to seek out answers together or be okay with there not being an answer, sometimes that being the hardest and most important lesson of all.

I have taken these lessons form these two different teachers in my life and tried to apply it in small ways to what I do, including in my teaching.  When I do not have an answer, or when I make a mistake, I have come to be better at admitting so. I feel less anxiety about teaching and more capable of focusing on serving my students and interacting with them. In summary, I am less focused on myself and more on them.  I am no longer the source of all knowledge, the one to fix or correct what they say or do wrong or the one to help them change the way they are doing things so that it is more correct but there to serve by sharing my own weaknesses, the way I overcame struggles, the way I continue to do so and what I have learned along the way and they know they can take or leave any of it and that they have something to give back to me, also.

This is my same philosophy for approaching teaching in the field. While in India I want to teach people.  I have knowledge and want to develop a way of giving that knowledge, but I want to do it on the terms of the people I am working with.  I want to serve them and allow them to serve me. By mutually sharing experiences and knowledge I feel that we will benefit the most in the ways we each need to and I feel that what I have to offer will be most accepted when I approach the experience in this way. I know that I will make many mistakes and that the ability to accept those, learn from them, admit to them and move forward will also be very important in the entire process. Leaving this those thoughts today I want to share my story about giving service and things that are broken...but not.  I share a few personal beliefs and religious ideologies in this account, these are also important aspects of my approach to this project and my interaction with people, especially people throughout the world.  It is often on my mind how I will continue to live these beliefs and also learn from the many beliefs and sacred things of others, especially the Tibetans I will be living with. I believe that finding commonality through service is essential to living together and that will be important to do.

The things you think are broken...

...are, of course, sometimes the greatest gifts.

Feel free to consider some of these things yourself. I've heard a broken heart is one that learns humility and greater love, that seems like a gift worth having. I think that I've not only heard that but felt it in some ways. There are many different things that have broken my heart...
A few are:

My personal weaknesses and sins, which have lead me to the part of repentance that requires a broken heart; the gift being cleanliness and progression possible through the Atonement of Christ.

The poverty both temporal and spiritual I saw in the Philippines, this lead me to serve and surely lead me to deeper love for those people and for Christ who taught me to love those I hardly know but He knows perfectly.

I've felt a time or two the heart break of opportunities lost and relationships ended; some worse than others but each taught me that I can learn something from everyone, we are all important, and that forgiveness is possible and I am capable of giving it.

Let's move on from broken hearts --
My purpose in this story is far more jovial than the preceding lines' deepness in thought have lead it to be, but here goes the story.

One day, not too long ago, I woke up to drive myself to work and my gas tank was beyond full, it claimed. I knew this was not the case and as the day progressed and it stayed there I was upset. I complained about it to a couple people. I jabbed at the glass case covering the dial urging it to move back to its half empty (half full?) location of the day before. I've had a car with a broken gas gauge before, and I dealt with it by keeping track of miles. I was annoyed anyway, and I wasn't sure about the miles in this car and not pleased to need to find out.

As the night moved on and I drove to Salt Lake and home again the dial inched its way down a little and I realized it was moving normally. What? Then I remembered. The day before I was rushing to a dance final and asked my neighbor to give me a ride. I had him drive my car because I'd already cleared the snow from it. Ding! My dear friend not only dropped everything in a moment at my request to drive me but filled my car with gas after.

I spent a lot of time being upset about things I thought were broken, when really it was a gift.

It made me consider how often we fret over broken things that are gifts in disguise.

I'm grateful for the many gifts of life, even the seemingly broken things.