I’ve been asked to give a talk to a group of Junior High students who are preparing for confirmation about service. Each student is expected to do a service project as part of their preparation. In thinking about what I want to say I keep coming back to the idea that it is essential to be aware of your intentions in acting as much as the result or outcomes of your action. Let me explain a bit.
There is a significant difference I think between serving others because it is part of your confirmation preparation, and serving someone because it is something you feel is the right thing to do. Service is minimized when it becomes only one more thing we do because it is what is expected or because it looks impressive, or we can talk about how generous we are with our time or the poor unfortunately people we have helped. While service is most certainly about serving others, it is also about making the act of service a part of the way we live our lives, not a part of our resume, or an ego boost.
Perhaps in Junior High we are a little young to truly grasp the importance of this distinction. But I would like these young men and women to venture into the world, into the working world, with a calling to serve. I would like that to be a calling that comes from within their own hearts, not a calling their junior high religion teacher or their parents chose for them, or their high school required of them to graduate. Whether they chose to serve as an accountant, or as a community organizer it doesn’t matter so much. I would argue, and encourage our youth to think about the fact that what is important is that the work we do is for and in service of others. If that is serving people in business, or serving people on the streets, again it doesn’t matter. As long as the purpose of our work is for others, not for the Company, not for the money, not for the power and prestige the work may bring us, but for the people that will benefit from our work.
It may be better to serve because someone tells you to, or requires it of you in order to reach another goal, like high school graduation, than to not serve at all. But I think we need to challenge our youth to think for themselves, to find their own way and their own way to serve, and their own passion to serve. Perhaps we need that initial push out the door and into the world of service in order to be immersed in it and then to take a deeper look at what we are doing and why. But ultimately, service needs to be about a longing to give of oneself for others, a selfless giving, a realization that the self by definition is made to be given away.
Politics may be a good example of this notion of our intentions. If you enter politics to someday gain the status of Senator, or President, you are missing the point of the job. Politicians are public servants and in that respect, what they do must be done with the intention of serving the people, not themselves, not their special interests, or big business, not their friends, but the public good.
I have a week or so still before I have to give this talk, so if anyone is moved to give thoughts on service that they would like shared with junior high youth let me know, I’m happy to have others thoughts and suggestions to work into my talk. Certainly this is not the only thing to be said, but i think it is an important point to make. In a way what i think I am trying to say to them in a real sort of way is to remember to see and to serve God in all that you do, in the poeple you serve.
Hope everyone is well.
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6 comments:
The dilemma you face is one that I am familiar with too. As the one of the 8th grade religion teachers at my school, I help to prepare kids for Confirmation and part of their preparation is the completion of service hours. While I think that it is good to get them in the habit of serving others and making it a part of their lifestyle, I am not sure if it can have the same impact on them as it would on an older individual.
Developmentally, middle schoolers have the whole sympathy thing down. They want to talk about big and important things to show theat they are becoming more adult-like, and can understand them to a certain degree when considering them as an outsider. The trouble with them is that, though they may have a handle on sympathy, they are not wired for empathy quite yet. They are not at a stage in their development where they can comprehend a situation from another person's point of view, or, for lack of a better term, put themselves in another's shoes. They are still very egocentric, living a life in which they are the star. Until they grow out of that, service for them may be just a way to meet a quota or to feel good about themselves.
That said, I think what you wrote about service was very beautiful and meaningful and worth sharing with those students. Just because they aren't at a place in life where they can fully understand the plight of others doesn't mean that they shouldn't be exposed to the real reasons for doing what they are doing. I think they need to hear that they should be putting others before self repeatedly so that they can internalize it when they are developmentally ready to do so. In a society where extravagence is lauded and there is a pervasive sense that image is everything, selflessness should be celebrated whenever possible.
Are these kids yours? If not, I think it will be even more beneficial to hear these thoughts from you - they have an off switch when it comes to the dronings of their parents and teachers...
For the record i have no kids. i have left that up to the married couples among us.
With that cleared up... Thanks for your comments, and no these are not students that i have ever worked with before, but rather students at my parish, in the same position I was 12-13 years ago when i was preparing to be confirmed. i agree that these sort of comments will likely be more powerful coming from someone who is not an authority figure in their lives.
your developmental observations bring me to question the age at which we expect young Catholic boys and girls to get confirmed. Is this too yong of an age? do they really understand what they are saying and doing? or is it done because it is what is expected and what all the other kids are doing? it would take a special Jr. High kid to stand up and say that they aren't ready to be confirmed when the other 50 kids in their class are gonig to be. but how many of us truly felt called to commit our adult selves to the Catholic Faith? i very much remember thinking in seventh grade that i wasn't so sure about much of what the Church believed, the trinity, Christ being wholey human and divine, transubstantiation (though i gaurantee i didn't know that word then) and so much else, even just heaven and hell.
Thanks again Colleen for the thoughts.
Two very compelling questions in these comments: the rationale behind doing service, and the age for confirmation.
Colleen, that is a very astute insight to say 8th graders are the star of their own lives, and that they do service to make themselves feel good; unfortunately, I don’t think it is limited to middle school kids. The ideal reason for people to do service is obviously to help others, but it seems to me that at all ages you will find people who do service to make themselves feel good or to assuage a sense of guilt. ND always talks about the high rate of students who do service – I find it unlikely at best that all those students are doing service because they want to make the world a better place, as opposed to resume building and looking good in other people’s eyes (maybe I’m a cynic?). It is a special person who performs service completely selflessly. But I think, no matter what the age or the rationale, it is better for people to do service work of any kind than to not do it - so service hours for school kids/ confirmation are good requirements.
On the other point, my class was confirmed in 11th grade, and while I think that this is better than doing it in 7th or 8th grade, the majority of kids at that point still just did it because it was what everyone else was doing – most of us were in Catholic high schools, so it was just a normal part of the schedule for the year. 16 year olds are better equipped to be conscious of what they are choosing – we’d had four more years of theology classes, and had a good a sense of what we were signing up for, but it still takes a very mature kid to say, “You know what, I’m gonna pass on what my parents want for me, and what my peers are doing, and not get confirmed.” To not get confirmed means, in many cases, passing up a fair amount of money (in confirmation gifts) and upsetting your parents, at an age when most kids still rely on their parents for almost everything. That being said, my faith was as strong as it has ever been junior year of high school, and I thought it was the perfect time to make that sort of commitment to my faith and my Church. I am always surprised when I hear about 8th graders getting confirmed – in our age of “delayed adolescence” it is unrealistic to expect 12 year olds to be able to truly commit themselves to the Church; does anyone really believe that more than one or two kids at that age know enough about their faith or themselves to make that decision?
some thoughts on service and confirmation age:
1) as someone confirmed in 8th grade, i've always thought that is too young. i even petitioned my pastor when i was in college to raise the age, to no avail. not only do few to no eighth graders pursue confirmation of their own volition, in many parishes confirmation is a graduation from religious ed. instead of a leap into an active adult role in the church, it's an endpoint - congratulations, you don't have CCD/faith formation/religious ed anymore! see you when you have kids of your own (maybe)! of course, it needs to be acknowledged that if you wait til high school to confirm, especially if you are not attached to a catholic HS, you are going to lose many many kids. but that simply may be an argument for more vibrant youth ministry.
2) service...another point you could bring up with the kiddos is the difference between charity (most 'service' work) and justice (advocay, seeking change to root causes) and how as Catholics we're called to pursue both.
Well said.
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