The other side of service

Last night I had garbage duty in the dining hall. It's a pretty simple set up, really. You stand behind a table, people come up and drop off their plates, napkins, utensils, cups, and extra food. You sort all of that out so it fits into one garbage bag. Feeding 200 World Changers can lead to lots of bags of garbage if you're not careful.

I'm careful. I'm also good at Tetris, so I'm a pretty good at dropping stuff in place as it comes in. And I was a dishwasher a bunch of years ago, so I'm pretty good at arranging food waste and getting covered in filth. I have a system, and I stick to it. It's more refined than I care to admit.

So garbage duty isn't a big deal to me. I actually like doing it, it's a chance to serve other people and bless them. All they have to do is set their stuff down on the table. I handle everything else. And blessing others blesses me. So I get to stand there with a smile on my face and talk to people as they come up, and I make their life just a tiny bit easier.

Sometimes, though, people ignore the system. Even though I am standing there wearing my gloves and handling everyone else's garbage, they still choose to come up and take care of it themselves. Usually, it's the adults.

They mean well. I know what they're thinking:

"I don't want to be a bother."

"I can do this myself."

"Don't worry, I got this."

They'd hate for some poor missionary guy to have to handle their garbage for them. So they come back behind the table and place their stuff in the wrong bins and get in my way and - come to think of it, steal my blessing.

I am there to serve, but they don't want to be served. They take my service away.

Sometimes people would just rather not be served.

Take footwashing, for example. It's far more awkward and uncomfortable for the person allowing their feet to be washed than for the person doing the washing. Your feet stink, and they sweat, and that's terribly inconvenient for anyone getting close to them. But Jesus did it. Imagine Jesus washing your smelly, nasty feet. Now there's an image for you.

It's uncomfortable to let somebody serve you. It can be uncomfortable to need to be served. "I don't want to be a bother" and "I don't want to be served" are not all that different.

Are you good at letting people serve you?

I'm not. Some people - Christians in particular - are very eager to give, but would rather not receive. After all, we're told 'tis better to give than to receive.

But receiving service is different. After all, becoming a Christian has an awful lot to do with recognizing that you need help.

Sometimes, people genuinely want to serve you.

And there's nothing wrong with allowing someone to serve you. So let them do it. Don't take away their service.

So the next time you see me in the garbage line at CDC, with my hand out...

Don't worry, I got this.

The Number 26

Last Tuesday, I sat on a coffee table in Josh's apartment and gave him a formal schooling in Dr. Mario on the Nintendo. I dominated. The TV was sitting on the floor, in the corner, one of three in the living room for Fred's upcoming Midtown Tetris Challenge. I wouldn't be in attendance for the Tetris Challenge, but I had thrown my full support behind it. Later, Fred came back and proudly showed off his new Fender Rhodes electric piano, a relic from the 60s or 70s on which Radiohead's Everything in it's Right Place can be perfectly replicated. We tinkered around on it, they made me sit down and forbid me to play chopsticks, but nothing else would come to me. A few years of piano lessons and I couldn't locate anything but chopsticks and a few pretty chords. Don't tell my piano teacher.

When I was a kid, if you had asked me how I saw a typical night for me in my mid-twenties, I'd have pictured grown up things. Paying bills. Wife. Kids. Coffee. Harder crossword puzzles. Then I'd have gone back to the NES. And tinkering with a Piano.

Didn't work out that way. I think that when you're growing up you see a few discrete lines between childhood and adulthood. A driver's license, high school graduation, and a few big birthdays officially usher you into the land of grown-ups. You get bills, kids, coffee, and you suddenly know how to handle more stuff.

At 26, I've got the bills, but no kids, still can't stand coffee, and I still have questions for mom and dad about how to handle stuff. And I've lost the piano lessons. The world is every bit as perplexing as it was when I was a kid. Actually, it's more perplexing. It's weird to have time for Nintendo, and have friends who sponsor Tetris tournaments. So I still don't feel qualified for the whole grown-up thing. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up and I still shudder at the thought of big responsibilities. Not in a worrisome way, but I'd rather not be the last line of defense between order and chaos.

And yet: Age has to carry with it some innate and automatic growth, despite my perceived lack of preparedness. I'm more grown up than I realize. I know some stuff. For instance, that the way I used to see growing up - with the clear, dividing lines between kid and adult - was wrong. It's a gradual spectrum, a gradual ascent (descent? assent?). We've all got some grown-up and we've all got some kid. Some of us spend it on video games, some of us - all of us - still have worry, some of us carry our love for high-school drama with us. Having time for the Nintendo and piano tinkering does not restore my adolescence, even if I wanted it to, but it's still a good time.