“The Light is available yesterday, today, and to eternity. What is thee doing about it?”

Lucretia Mott

Chapter 7 in Robert Lawrence Smith’s Quaker Book of Wisdom: Life Lessons In Simplicity, Service, and Common Sense, “Service” breaks down the Quaker commitment to serving communities. As a part of “letting your life speak,” a Quaker ideal, serving others is central to faith. In telling the his service story, Smith recalls his middle school History teacher’s connection between service and work, “Work is love made visible.” For Smith, service and work are inextricable. I bought this book to connect with a faith built on service and work and love.

Smith recounts several meaningful service experiences from throughout his life. In each experience, he recounts receiving more than he gave. He quotes Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore,” ‘Let me light my lamp,’/Says the star, “And never debate/If it will help to remove the darkness.” Whether he was rebuilding villages that had been destroyed in WWII, or “digging privies” in rural Mexico to prevent dysentery, Smith acted on his faith in service, work, and love. Smith relates that he chose his career as an educator to serve, work, and love his community.

The connection between service, work, and love makes sense to me. The most meaningful experiences of my life have been when I make that connection. Community service at my church as a child. Social justice work in high school. AmeriCorps. Political campaigns. A prison writing program. I am grateful for that connection. In fact, I have learned that forgetting any part of that equation feels like my Light diminishes and I lose my way. In making that connection, new relationships are built between people. In making that connection, positive, sustainable, community change occurs. In making that connection, we save ourselves not others. In making that connection, love is the ultimate achievement.