Those of you who have followed these Sparks for a while may have noticed the absence of one for July. The circumstances surrounding this missing Spark is what has “sparked” this edition.

As some of you know, I typically write from some aspect of what is going on in our lives at the time. Well, a whole lot of nothing happened through the month of June, hence, no Spark for July. 

On reflection, there was actually a lot going on. There was the continuing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico with the resulting oil washing up on our local beaches. I thought about writing something along those lines, but it seems there has been enough said about that already. We experienced a rather difficult month personally, but there just didn’t seem to be anything specific that I could glean from those events. Probably the biggest event of the month of June for me was the half-century anniversary of my birth. I guess there is probably something that could have been said about that, especially since there were many people in my teen and early adulthood years who had the notion that I might never see the age of twenty-five.

So, the other day I had the thought, “So much of life isn’t even worth writing about.” 

Maybe I just lead a pretty dull life. After all, I’m no famous celebrity, I’ve set no world records, I’ve found no cures for life-threatening diseases, nor have I invented anything that served to better mankind. It seems I lead a pretty mundane existence.

I recently heard someone say that ninety percent of Jesus’ life was spent doing the ordinary.

Here is something to think about. When I mentioned the name Jesus in the previous sentence, I didn’t have to include a last name or some other type of distinction, you immediately knew who I was talking about, yet the majority of His life was spent doing pretty much the same things that you or I do each day - studying or going to “school”, learning a trade and going to work, eating and sleeping. 

I will never be as famous as Jesus. It is likely that I will never gain any renown nationally, or even regionally or locally for that matter. But fame isn’t really the point of this existence. Jesus spent about ten percent of his life making a difference in the everyday lives of others, and only a few of those instances are recorded. I guess that even Jesus had times when it just didn’t seem that there was anything worth writing about.

I wish I could somehow coalesce all my thoughts into this brief space, but I guess you will have to fill in the blanks with your own life experiences. The one thought that I have had is, how do we even know if something is noteworthy or not? Something that may seem ordinary and mundane, something that is, as the saying goes, “Nothing to write home about”, may have an impact on someone else that we may never know. 

Some of the people who have had the most profound impact on my life will never have their memoirs published. In fact, they never even wrote a memoir, because so much of life isn’t even worth writing about. 



Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity. 
     ~ John Ruskin

I've seen and met angels wearing the disguise of ordinary people living ordinary lives.
    ~ Tracy Chapman

The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate "apparently ordinary" people to unusual effort. The tough problem is not in identifying winners: it is in making winners out of ordinary people.
     ~ K. Patricia Cross

I don’t know anyone who would not be able to finish that quote. Alexandre Dumas immortalized the phrase “All for one, one for all” in his book The Three Musketeers. Though I can find no indication that this was an actual motto for the French Musketeers, the implication elicits an image of chivalry akin to King Arthur and his Knights of the Roundtable. Yet the very thing that makes the imagery of the Musketeers and Arthur’s knights so appealing is something that does not come to me naturally or easily.

I have come across the words servant, service and serve many times and in a variety of places, formats and contexts lately. The most recent occurrence was this afternoon as I was perusing an email newsletter that I subscribe to. This most recent assault on my propensity for self preservation and self promotion came in two separate articles referencing leaders and leadership. Before that, a couple of days ago I was reading of a man named Jesus who told his followers that the greatest among them would be the servant of all. And just a few days before that, I was reading materials from a sales training session that stated that the very heart of effective sales is to serve the customer.

I can be a little slow on the up-take sometimes, but even I can get the hint when something shows up three different times, in three different contexts and three different formats, in the span of just a few days. As I reflect over this time frame, I suddenly realize that there was yet a fourth occurrence just a couple of days ago as I was talking with my two youngest daughters about another divergent topic. Do you suppose someone is trying to tell me something?

It seems that this whole idea of service, serving, and servanthood is upside down. I have experienced “customer service” that didn’t seem to have anything to do with service and have had “servers” in restaurants that seemed to have something on their mind other than serving. While these individuals were doing the job they were hired to do, they really didn’t seem to embrace the connotation of their title.

But then, maybe I’m the one who has it all upside down. Should I expect to be served, even by those who bear that in their title, or should I expect an opportunity to serve them? I know, that doesn’t really seem to make sense, but following is the way that Michael Q Pink has proposed service in his sales training.

First, there are those who serve to live. This is the average individual who may or may not have the word serve or service in their title, but they do the job, ie. serve a customer, for a paycheck. Serving is a mode to get what they need or want; if it weren’t for the payoff they would have no inclination to take action. Literally, they serve to make a living.

Second, there are those who serve to serve. These people are quick to help when asked and will do it with a smile. They genuinely enjoy serving others but they don’t anticipate. Their service is reactive.

Finally, there are those who live to serve. This is a true servant. Not only are they willing to serve and happy to do it, they are proactive, anticipating needs and preparing solutions to be ready when the need arises.

I like the idea of “All for one”. If I am in a bind it is comforting to know that I can count on someone to back me up. “One for all” is a little tougher. If it wasn’t for the “All for one” would I be willing to truly give the “One for all”? To be a servant of all means that I don’t expect someone to serve me back, which would include that customer service representative or restaurant server. If I were truly living to serve might I not try to anticipate how to serve them?

Having the heart of a servant doesn’t come naturally to me. It is something that I have worked on but it seems I still fall short. I like the “All for one” idea where everyone can pitch in for the mutual benefit of those involved. I still struggle though with the “One for all”. To move from reactive service to proactive service is something that I must continually work on.

One for all. 


To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.   
     ~ Douglas Adams

If he works for you, you work for him. 
     ~ Japanese Proverb

Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.... You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
    ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

He who gives when he is asked has waited too long.
     ~ Sunshine Magazine

Books, television and movies are full of plot lines that center around a person or persons whose lives become endangered because they “know too much”. Thankfully I do not find myself in that dilemma, and I hope that I never do. Yet, I have found myself in a knowledge quandary of a different sort.

I have heard the phrase “They don’t know what it is that they don’t know” used when addressing a person who somehow missed the import of the subject at hand. Interestingly enough, I have heard or read this phrase most often in reference to leaders who are blundering their way through some situation or another. The reason they are having difficulty is because they aren’t aware that they lack the knowledge they need in order to bring about a successful conclusion.

In school it was pretty easy when I stop to think about it. A teacher, or the reading I was assigned, gave me the knowledge needed to pass a test, if I could remember that information when the time for the test actually rolled around. The more knowledge, or information, that I could accumulate and retain, the better the odds of passing the test. Somewhere along the path of life things changed.

I don’t claim to be a person of great learning or knowledge. I have no college degrees; I have never actually taken a college course for that matter. I do read varied subject material ranging from classical literature to contemporary works on subjects of personal interest, and I have gained a fair amount of experience (a form of knowledge) in the school of hard knocks.

The dilemma that now presents itself is this: I have gained enough knowledge to know that... I really don’t know anything.

Somehow, I now feel like the child who has just learned that “two and two are four” but asks the question, “Why?” It is a simple mathematical operation, but who decided that two is actually “two” and that when you add them together it actually equals four. Maybe an oversimplified example, but any of you who have had the opportunity to have children in your household know how these types of questions can go on and on, and after awhile “Just because” just doesn’t cut it anymore.

I love children. Though they may not be cognizant of the subject at hand, they are aware of the simple fact that, they don’t know what it is that they don’t know, and they want to find it out.

You would think that after a half a century of life I would have some answers, and I guess I do have a few, if you know the right question, but I find that more and more I have to honestly answer, “I don’t know.” Maybe people just aren’t asking me the right questions!

Obviously, I’m not referring to questions of mathematics or grammar. The questions at hand have much more to do with history, sociology and things spiritual. Questions that have much more to do with the “why” behind the “what”, rather than the “what” itself. Many of these questions seem to revolve around the questions of “Why am I doing this?”, “Why am I doing this in this manner?”, or even, “Why is this the expected outcome?”

Too many answers end up centering on tradition, that’s just the way it has always been done, or the dreaded, just because.

It is frustrating coming to the realization that I really don’t know anything. It feels like I have run into a wall. After all, if I have spent all this time and only learned enough to realize that I don’t really know anything, then what am I supposed to do from here?

Maybe I should just throw in the towel. In the words of the Borg from Star Trek-the Next Generation, “Resistance is futile.”

No, I don’t think so. I think I’d rather be like the four-year- old who just keeps asking questions. With each new answer comes a multitude of new questions. Questions without end.

And just maybe that is the ultimate knowledge to be gained, to know that I must keep asking questions to discover what it is that I don’t know.