a little community, a little service

when i was starting my first grade year at J. H. Gunn Elementary School, my parents made a decision that would forever alter who i am as a person and, ultimately, my future as a whole. they decided to enroll me in Cub Scout Pack 144. this was my first extracurricular activity. it was also my first experience of true community, something that the other Sunday school kids or regular school kids couldn't really offer. you really need a group of people who you can hang out and joke around with or, in my case as a 6 year old, run around and play with without getting in trouble or camp on the USS Yorktown with (still one of the coolest things I've ever done).

luckily, i liked my experiences in cub scouting enough to stay with it and, in the sixth grade, i moved up and joined Boy Scout Troop 144. boy scouting is much different from the parent-dominated, parent-led, arts and crafts session with the occasional camping trip that is cub scouting. we went camping in our boy scout troop about 8 or 10 times a year including a week-long summer camp at the ever-so-wonderful Camp Grimes and a cold-weather camping trip.

but rarely did we do any service on camping trips. my first experience (or so i recall) with true community service was when our troop woke up early on a Saturday morning every three months and got together for a roadside cleanup. a roadside cleanup for our troop was to meet at the church, put on a beat up orange vest which never stayed on because the ties were broken, wear gloves that looked and smelled like a dumpster in Mordor, line your pockets with huge orange trash bags, and pick up beer bottles, McDonald's bags, torn up newspapers and the occasional adult smut along Lawyers Rd between Wilson Grove and Hwy 51 in Mint Hill.

View Larger Map
it was annoying and awkwardly educational (kpdub knows what i mean). yet, it didn't really feel like service. maybe it was because i didn't really know what service was yet.

it wasn't until i got into high school that i really began to understand and experience what service was and what it meant. at the end of middle school, i signed up for the IB (International Baccalaureate*) program at Independence High School. one of the requirements is to complete a certain number of community service hours over the four high school years. even though it was a requirement, i didn't really mind doing the service. it was very easy to complete those hours because of scouting. i mentioned the roadside pickups, but we also went to homeless shelters and places like the Charlotte Rescue Mission to serve meals and fellowship with the people there. this is when i really experienced service. experiencing service involves human interaction with those you serve.

in college, i had two main communities and one minor community. the minor community was with ResNET, an on-campus computer troubleshooting service for other students on campus. here i got to meet frustrated people and, hopefully, be able to calm them down by fixing their problems. it was a simple way to serve, even if i did get free housing. the two main communities were Intervarsity Christian Fellowship (IV) throughout all eight semesters and the Appalachia Service Project (ASP) for three summers. all three of these communities provided me (1) opportunities for service and (2) opportunities to interact with those who I am serving.

in IV, i had the really fun job of being an IV band roadie for four semesters. i served not only the band, but the students who attended IV on any given night (that's most likely you). the part that i slowly realized i liked about it was that i was behind the scenes and the average IV goer didn't know me or what i did (i don't write this now to toot my horn, but to give you an idea of the type of service that i really enjoy). with ASP, i got to help extremely impoverished families in Central Appalachia who are in need of emergency home repair. because it is a volunteer based organization, i got to serve not only the families in need, but also the volunteers who willingly (or sometimes unwillingly) stepped out of their comfort zone to come to a strange place and get dirty for five days. it is, of course not about the volunteers, its about helping the families, but again, the volunteers didn't know that we (the staff) were serving them. there were times when we couldn't even see that we were serving them. it is the idea that God was using me to do His work and I had absolutely no control over it, is what I grew to love about that job.
and now scouting is over. high school is over. college is over. more importantly, all of the community and all of the service that came with those, are gone.

now is the first time since i was 6 that i do not have a true community and the first time since i was 12 that i do not have a service opportunity readily available for me to take advantage of.

until now, i have never seen community or service as things that i need or even want to look for. they have just been there, ready for me to be a part of. and now that those things are not readily available at my fingertips, i am thrown for a loop. i long to go camping with a large group. i want to help someone with their eagle scout project. i want to do home repair projects around my house. i want to fill my Saturdays with something other than hanging around the house. i want to help someone who doesn't know i am helping them. i want to help someone, period. i want to be behind the scenes.

i know that if i really want to do any of these things, i am certainly resourceful enough to find a place to do it. i guess this is just one of the many shocks associated with the shift from my young life to my young-adult life. resolving this problem will be one of my many new years resolutions (which i [1] haven't ever really done and [2] will post about later).

feel free to give me your thoughts on community and or service. thanks for reading y'all.

Blig of the Christmas Season: O Holy Night

Best Christmas song of them all (again, don't confuse Holiday and Christmas music). Hands down. Maybe its because of the 6/8 time signature, dramatic chord progressions and awesome melody, or maybe its because of its ability to kick the butts of all other Christmas carols. We may never know.

Jam of the Day: the raw emotion with which Alicia Keys sings her new song "No One"

I personally thing this song is awkward. I thought it was horrible the first time i heard it, simply because i thought she was over-doing it. i thought she was doing too much with her voice compared to the music and the beat. i still kind of agree with that. but the emotion with which she sings the lyrics grabbed my attention unlike any song before. sure there are other vocalists who belt it out with similar emotion (mariah carey, whitney houston, celine dion, freddy mercury just to name a guy) but alicia keys grabbed my attention with this song like none of those others could. now, whenever i hear the song on the radio (which is like every 5 minutes on 3 or 4 different stations in Charlotte) i usually listen to the whole thing just to hear her vocals. good stuff.

Junk and a half of the Holiday Season: Happy Holidays from David Hasselhoff



*for those of you who don't know and don't want to figure it out from the website, its an overrated version of AP with an international standard for tests which tricks young students and parents into thinking they will learn valuable life and time management skills because of the greater course load they will have to complete as compared to other high school kids. i don't completely regret that i did this in high school. i didn't get any credit at Carolina from my IB test scores (some of which were superb, but were only for standard level, not higher level, which UNC looks at). i do however, believe that my ability to show near straight A's in a course load with the IB name greatly helped my acceptance into UNC. the fact that my father is an alumnus and i am an eagle scout were the other two things that got me in. it certainly couldn't have been my SAT, ACT or essay performances. so i do not think i am better than you because i did IB.