Since I’ve managed to hoodwink and bamboozle all my fellow teachers into thinking I know a thing or two about teaching, they chose me as the teacher of the year this year, for which I politely thanked them and promptly forgot about it. The head of the school’s Beta Club chapter didn’t forget, though, and started asking me in December if I would be the keynote speaker for the induction ceremony.
I said no thank you. She asked again a week later. I said no thank you. She asked again a few days later. I said no thank you. She asked again the next day. I said no thank you. She asked again the next day again. I said no thank you. She asked again later that same day.
I started thinking the only way to get her to leave me alone was to agree to do it.
“Five to ten minutes,” she said. “Something about community service.” Here’s what I came up with:
Chapel was at nine in the morning Tuesdays and Thursdays. During my freshman of college year I didn’t have class until 11 on Thursdays. Since I didn’t live on campus, getting up and driving to the college two hours before I had to be there for a class was less than inviting to an 18-year-old. (You might have noticed I only made an excuse for Thursdays; I have no excuse for the Tuesdays I missed other than to say I was 18 and not terribly bright.) As a result, I failed to fulfill the Chapel requirements that my small Presbyterian college placed on all students. To make up for the missing chapel attendance, the college required community service. I chose a soup kitchen downtown where I went to spend an entire Saturday to make up for my missing chapel requirements.
I had heroic visions of what this would be like. I saw myself serving homeless veterans, giving them hope and soup and a smile. I saw myself giving joy to those who had no joy of their own simply by showing I cared. I saw myself bravely facing the cruelties and injustices of the world and making a difference. I saw myself battling back the apathy of society and showing these poor souls that someone cared. I saw myself changing a life or three just by handing out some beans. In short, I saw myself.
By the time that Saturday rolled around, I was more than ready. I was excited. I was optimistic. I was going to change the world through my heroic self-sacrifice!
So I was a little surprised when, on my arrival, the director of the homeless shelter led me to a small pantry illuminated by one dim dingy light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
“Our pantry needs reorganization,” he said. “That’s what we’d like you to do.”
It was true: the pantry shelves had cans of fruit next to cans hot dog chili and squeezed in between them were cans of condensed milk and packets of tuna. Mysteriously there was canned cat food hidden here and there. It was chaotic. And dark. And dirty.
“We also need you to check to see which cans have expired. Set them aside so we can throw them out,” the director said over his shoulder as he left.
I stood looking at the chaotic mess and wondered how anyone could find anything. There was no denying it: the pantry shelves needed reorganization.
Still, this was not how I was going to become a hero.
The first thing I discovered was that many of the cans were not just dusty but filthy: something had leaked on these; those were so ancient that they had a cake of dust on them; some were sticky; some were missing labels. Being somewhat OCD about such things, I couldn’t just re-stack them and leave them a mess, so I requested some water and rags and wiped off most of the cans as I worked.
All told I spent almost six hours in that pantry, not talking to a soul, not giving out soup to anyone, not listening with patience to anyone’s stories, not sharing a bit of comfort or joy with anyone.
It was the antithesis of what I’d anticipated.
And that’s probably why, nearly thirty years later, I still vividly remember that Saturday. I did more community service while I was in college, though for less-than-altruistic reasons: once I discovered how relatively easy it was to knock out a third or half of the chapel requirements on a single Saturday, I started skipping chapel with abandon. But I don’t remember much about those other occasions. Just that first one, when everything seemed to be the opposite of what I was expecting but just what was needed.
Today, you are becoming members of the Beta Club, which most people see as recognition for your academic effort and perseverance. And it is that. You have shown great resolve and fortitude in maintaining the grades you have maintained. It is a laudable achievement and a reflection of the character of both you and your parents. But this prestige is not the greatest benefit of being in the Beta club.
The greatest gift to you is the opportunity the Beta club provides to do community service regularly.
Throughout the school year, the club will provide you with many opportunities for service within the school community, and many of these projects will bring a smile to your face. You’ll go to Build a Bear to create teddy bears for Ronald McDonald House and Children’s Hospital. You’ll conduct the SouperBowl food drive in the school for the Samaritan House. You’ll participate in the Acts of Kindness week for the Department of Juvenile Justice. All of these activities will, in their own way, be fun.
But I would argue that you need to fulfill some of your community service hours by doing something that’s not fun, that is in no way Romantic (capital r — you’ll learn about Romanticism in American lit), that is in no sense enjoyable. Something hard. Something that gets you dirty and makes you sweat. Something practical. Something you most decidedly wouldn’t want to put on Instagram.
This is not because I think you should punish yourself, because such work is not punishment. Such work, especially when done surreptitiously, is the stuff of character because it is often not recognized and seldom lauded. Rearranging that pantry was in a sense miserably boring. But I know that I helped other people help other people. In organizing that pantry I made the job of the cooks easier, and they were the ones doing the real work, day in and day out, not some little college freshman hanging around on a Saturday because he’d been too lazy to go to chapel. It was a little thing, but that’s why I remember it. That’s why, in a sense, it was big, because it taught me that often it’s the little things that make the difference.
So go out and find the bigness that’s in those little moments of self-sacrifice accomplished by completing less-than-glamorous community service. Go seek out jobs that bring no glory, the little things that you don’t think anyone notices. Before you know it, that type of service will become a reward in and of itself. You’ll do these things not for the Beta club service hour credits you earn but for the sense of accomplishment and character they bring. And then you’ll stop doing it for those reasons as well: it will just be a habit. It will be something you do without thinking, something you do because that’s who you are. And when you reach that level of serving others, of helping those in need, you’ll be someone who really makes a difference, someone who changes the world, one grimy soup can at a time.
In the end, I cut some of it on the fly. (I indicated what I remembered cutting above.) An odd experience overall: my brain was calculating several different trajectories at the same time:
- Am I speaking too quickly?
- Do I know the speech well enough to make eye contact at this moment?
- I need my notes! I need my notes! I have to break eye contact and gracefully let my eyes fall on the spot where I should be next — without panic.
- Who does she look like? She looks like someone I’ve seen before.
- Am I speaking too slowly?
- Didn’t I teach his brother? He looks a lot like Z from two years ago…
- Is this making sense?
- Can I cut this part short? As I say it aloud, it doesn’t sound as good as I thought it would.
- If I skip this next part, will I have transition problems?
- Why the hell don’t they have a mic stand? I hate standing here holding this mic.
In the end, my final version felt like it lasted about eight minutes, but I really have no idea.
An interesting experience, but not one I’m keen on repeating, but it’s not because it terrified me or anything of the sort: I make little public speeches multiple times a day. I’m just used to winging the exact words and having only a general plan in mind.