by Jacob Rossi ’14
We sit in theology classrooms everyday and study how Christ lived, and yet we far too rarely embody the ideals Christ himself held. I don’t want this to come off as a scathing indictment of the boys at our school because I am right there with them, but it seems to be the case that only the big-name service opportunities are the ones students engage in.
I went to a CAT meeting earlier in the year when I thought football practice would be delayed due to thunder, and the room was packed. If you showed up late, you were sitting on the floor. That room was filled to capacity. So it would be doubtful that the problem some of these programs are having is the lack of desire to serve from the student’s end. Still, it would seem the students just don’t get it.
The desire is there, so the situation plays out something like this: a lot of guys try to sign up for the more big name service initiatives and when those are full then everyone walks away hoping that next time they can get their name on the list. But I contend that this method is not only flawed, but it blinds us completely.
I prefer to think of service as a give-and-take. Sure, we’re giving to others, but they give us only as much as we give them. Too often we lose that second part, and the people who walk away after their desired list is filled view service in a different way. They view it as a means to feel good about themselves, to be recognized as a do-gooder, or to get on someone’s good side. These motives are completely selfish and not in the spirit of Christian service. When walking into a CAT meeting, the first thing one has to understand is that he is there to serve others before himself. If he can do that, then he wouldn’t think twice about signing up for a “less popular” service activity, and I can promise he will get so much more out of his future service experiences.
