Input, Stephanie!

[qos]

I'm writing in haste this morning, and don't have time to get my thoughts down in a coherent fashion, so I'm going to shamelessly ask all of you for your thoughts and observations, so I can read my email and get more grist* for my inner mill/black box:

What does it mean to you to "serve"? Does rephrasing to "serve in a spiritual sense" make a difference in your answer?

How do you use your gifts to serve?

What does servant leadership look like to you?

Given what you know of me, in what ways can you imagine me using my gifts to serve? (If you can imagine such a thing at all. . . )


* Yes, poliphilo, I do hope you will contribute your wisdom. ;-)

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a long time since I thought in these terms.

The idea of service comes out of a hierarchical society, One in which the master-servant relationship is normative.

Can we talk about service and it not have connotations of subservience?

I'm just not happy with the language. I don't want to be anybody's servant. Nor do I want to be anybody's master.

I would rather replace it with a language of co-operation- of partnership.

Servant leadership? What does that mean? Can it be anything more than a self-deceiving pose? The Pope calls himself the "servant of the servants of God", but in what real sense is that autocratic old man anybody's servant? He knows what's best for us, he gives the orders. To call him a servant is just spin.

Sorry, these are fragmentary and largely negative. Please come back at me

[qos.livejournal.com]

These are great ideas, Tony. I like the idea of re-casting the concept as partnership, and I've always thought it a terrible irony that the Pope even pretends to be a servant. I can imagine him washing someone's feet for ritual purposes, but not truly acting in a way that took the concept beyond the metaphorical.

My friend athenian_abroad used the term "useful," which resonates with Swedenborgian theology and ethics: acting from love in a way that contributes to the increase of love and the welfare of others, and I like that too.