Giving and Serving Through HeartFelt

“ If, when contemplating your life purpose, you find words and concepts coming to mind such as service, sharing, compassion, loving, empathy, or kindness, you probably will not be truly satisfied until a goodly portion of your life is involved in giving and serving."

- John-Roger, D.S.S. from Serving and Giving: Gateways to Higher Consciousness

Giving and Serving Through HeartFelt
by Romo Gonzales
 

     Two and a half years ago my decision to move to Austin, Texas was largely based on the strong MSIA community in the Austin area. When the opportunity to serve as the HeartFelt rep for the area was presented, it was very easy for me to accept, as I knew the community here would be supportive in all efforts and events. This past August, HeartFelt participated with two local organizations to help with much needed services and donations in the community: SafePlace women's shelter and ARCH (Austin Resource Center for the Homeless). 

     As the population in the Austin area increases at a very fast pace, unfortunately so does the homeless population. I've noted that at almost every major intersection in the city, there is a homeless individual or group asking for money. Some of their signs are creative, like "$0.50 for GOOD KARMA," and the times I have felt compelled to donate I couldn't help but wonder what that donation would be spent on. South/ Central Texas is known for it's long HOT summers, and I began to wonder if many of the individuals I see on a regular basis were getting sufficient hydration. As the air temperature highs passed the century mark for days and weeks in August, HeartFelt teamed up with ARCH to collect and distribute bottled water to these individuals. ARCH also has refill stations at various locations, so individuals are encouraged to keep the bottles and visit these locations. However, many of these individuals do not live near the center or the refill stations, so I also dedicated a day to driving to areas throughout the city that are distant from the center but where many of these individuals live. I was able to take the water to them and talk to them about services available. With the help of the MSIA Ministers and community, HeartFelt was able to make a generous donation that was greatly appreciated! 

     Another area of HeartFelt service in Austin is SafePlace. SafePlace's mission statement "is ending sexual and domestic violence through safety, healing, prevention and social change." Every summer SafePlace has a back-to-school drive, collecting school supplies for children in need. With generous donations from the MSIA community, HeartFelt participated in collecting hundreds of dollars worth of school supplies for SafePlace in August, just in time for the start of school! Minister Hesperia Blackburn was very active in this, and she and I ended up doing a second and then a third donation of other items like women's clothing, kitchen appliances, etc. YAY!!

Thank you for the beautiful sharing, Romo.
God bless you Austin HeartFelt.

Sent with much Love and Light,

Skyler Maryl Patton HeartFelt Director and Paul Kaye HeartFelt President

Please feel free to email feedback or your stories of service you'd like featured in an upcoming HGN article to serve@heartfelt.org

Helping, Fixing or Serving?

“ Is it possible to see God? Absolutely... Perhaps if you're loving and you're caring, you may see God in the loving and in the caring. When you are of service to other people, you may see God in the serving." - John-Roger, D.S.S.

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The following is an excerpt from a very poignant article on serving with an open heart; the link to the entire article is below. May it help inspire us to serve in the expansive way that J-R has taught — in oneness and  loving and gratitude.  

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Helping, Fixing or Serving?
by Rachel Naomi Remen

"Fixing and helping create a distance between people, but we cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected."

Helping, fixing and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul.

Service rests on the premise that the nature of life is sacred, that life is a holy mystery which has an unknown purpose. When we serve, we know that we belong to life and to that purpose. From the perspective of service, we are all connected: All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy. The impulse to serve emerges naturally and inevitably from this way of seeing.

Serving is different from helping. Helping is not a relationship between equals. A helper may see others as weaker than they are, needier than they are, and people often feel this inequality. The danger in helping is that we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity or even wholeness.

When we help, we become aware of our own strength. But when we serve, we don’t serve with our strength; we serve with ourselves, and we draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve; our wounds serve; even our darkness can serve. My pain is the source of my compassion; my woundedness is the key to my empathy.

Serving makes us aware of our wholeness and its power. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness in life. The wholeness in you is the same as the wholeness in me. Service is a relationship between equals: our service strengthens us as well as others. Fixing and helping are draining, and over time we may burn out, but service is renewing. When we serve, our work itself will renew us. In helping we may find a sense of satisfaction; in serving we find a sense of gratitude.

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. is Associate Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at U.C.S.F. Medical School and co-founder and medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. She is author of the bestseller, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal.

Helping, Fixing or Serving?, Rachel Naomi Remen, Shambhala Sun, September 1999. 

Link to article: Link to this article

May God bless us all.

Sent with much Love and Light,

Skyler Maryl Patton HeartFelt Director and Paul Kaye HeartFelt President

Please feel free to email feedback or your stories of service you'd like featured in an upcoming HGN article to serve@heartfelt.org

Our Venezuelan Family

         Our MSIA family is a global one, and many people in MSIA live in countries where there are great challenges. This issue of the HGN Bulletin is focused on our MSIA family in Venezuela. Due to the delicate nature of the situation in Venezuela at the moment, names and faces are omitted but their story is important and your loving Light is requested.

           Venezuela has been beset by civil unrest, criminal violence, high inflation and scarcity of goods. Since the government is highly dependent on oil revenue, the recent drop in prices is exacerbating the country’s troubles. In the past six months alone, inflation has increased 50% over the past decade and the price of food has increased more than 2,000%. Prices are fixed, leading to distortions: a cup of coffee costs eight times more than a car's tank of gas.

           There are many issues facing our Venezuelan family. One Venezuelan minister has told us that there is a serious lack of personal security, which causes her as well as many others to self-impose a curfew after 6-7pm at night. They must also take great care where they circulate. They have access to a map of zones where they can circulate and should not circulate under any circumstances, but the areas where they are safe are very limited. 

            Fortunately, many of our ministers live in "safe" areas. Even so, they are facing immense difficulties with a proliferation of kidnappings and shootings occurring on a daily basis. One minister must also be careful walking anywhere simply because her hair color makes her a target for "express" kidnappings which happen all the time, as she says. And some ministers have been robbed at gunpoint- fortunately without injury- and one even kidnapped, and fortunately released without harm. 

           The local supermarkets have long queues when and if milk, coffee, masa (corn flour) (with which to make their delicious arrepas), cooking oil, rice, detergents, shampoo, and medicines are available. Toilet paper makes its appearance weekly or fortnightly or once in a blue moon. Diapers for babies and adults are almost impossible to obtain. Other products take respective turns in disappearing- and some never return! The biggest scarcity and most worrying is the lack of medicines. Also, every day it is more difficult to obtain dollars or any other currency. In addition to all that, the airlines have cut the frequency of flights to and from Venezuela by more that 60%. To find an air ticket one has to buy it outside Venezuela and with dollars (only very few can be found to buy in bolivars). 

           Last week dozens of people spent the night waiting in line to buy foodstuffs at an outdoor supermarket in north Caracas. It is typical now that people wait upwards of 3-5 hours in lines at supermarkets, being watched carefully by patrolmen with rifles as they rush to gather meats and pantry items. Many people make several trips to supermarkets far out of their way searching for necessities local supermarkets are out of.

           The student uprising was very active in our Venezuelan ministers’ areas. One minister had the National Guard right outside the building where she lives and even had tear gas bombs thrown into her lobby. “The scene looked like war,” she said- and this went on for four months. Roadblocks made getting in and out of the area difficult.

           In spite of all this, a ministerial project was held to help some of the street children and our beautiful sisters and brothers in Venezuela go to great lengths to help each other individually.  For the time being, our Venezuelan ministers are able to stay in contact with each other and support each other in this time of need. They are in touch regularly with the MSIA community through attending monthly Ministers meetings, which they take turns hosting at their homes. One Venezuelan minister has taken it upon herself to help out another minister (who was elemental to the growth of MSIA in Venezuela and Spain) who lives far outside of Caracas- picking her up at the metro station and taking her wherever the meeting is, receiving all of this minister’s correspondence from MSIA (be it postal or through e-mails) as there would be no way would it get to her where she lives and she doesn't have a computer and internet.  

           At the moment the Venezuelan ministers are able to freely communicate through e-mail with each other on subjects that are not political. Almost all the ministers and MSIA members in Venezuela participate in a daily WhatsApp MSIA group chat set up by one of the ministers where they can communicate between themselves and post info on MSIA activities etc. *(For those that are unfamiliar with WhatsApp, it is a cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows people to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS, instead using the same internet data plan that you use for email and web browsing.)

           Not all is hopeless, though- in fact, the Venezuelan ministers are extremely hopeful. One Venezuelan minister says: “I still manage to be hopeful that we will get through, over and beyond this and that we will become stronger, wiser and more considerate and loving to one and other and definitely more conscious that we need far less to be happy. The Venezuelan humor rises above constantly making jokes out of every situation but some say for that same reason and complacency we are where we are.”

           So, what can we do for our Venezuelan family at this time? Not much is needed aid-wise yet, our rep says. However, they do ask for you to please keep Venezuela and her people in a column of Light and in your prayers and hearts and, of course, our group of Ministers and the MSIA community. She says: “Just to know that you all are praying for us and sending the LIGHT will be of great moral support.” 

Sent with much Love and Light,
From Paul Kaye HeartFelt President & Skyler Patton HeartFelt Director