By Jon Luchs, ND student at NCNM
Week 2 of this term (Fall 2007) I traveled to Washington, DC, to represent my medical college’s (NCNM) interest in a financial aid program that allows non-endowed graduate schools to provide need-based financial aid to their students: The School-As-Lender Program. Inspired and mobilized by Sue Yirku and emboldened by business cards hot off the press from Robert Siemans, we jetted over to the marbled halls of The Empire to make a good case for a good cause. 
I was recruited by my inspiring classmate and friend Sarah Giardenelli, whose thoroughly prepared spiel and graphs were focal points in our 13 meetings with Congressional offices, including two meetings with sitting members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
I nearly refused the opportunity. The school year was just underway, I wanted more leisure time with my fiancée, a sore throat was knocking on my door, and I’d made 4 roundtrip flights this past summer, already. But I went, and returned healthy, more inspired, happier, more at home with myself. Why?
Simply put, I enjoyed that feeling of being part of something larger than myself. I’ve suggested before that I appreciate the feeling of ‘getting over myself’, of being contentedly busy enough with good works to have a break from wondering about my own needs, fears, whatevers. That is the gift of service. Healthy service—service that does no harm to the servant—engenders relationship and belonging. Service invites openness, receptivity to the other, as we look beyond our immediate, individual needs. In the act of service, colleagues are more likely to identify themselves collectively by good works, and so meet each other and themselves in generous light.
As much as our lives are collections of moments ranging from the petty and piercing, to the poignant and precious, these hours of actively loving the world beyond “ME”, boosts our average. When I act on a collective “behalf”, my entire day is colored in with a greater sense of belonging. I make healthier decisions. If we are our own worst critics, we too may become our own best cheerleaders.
There’s a simple science to healthy service. And like natural medicine, there’s also an art to healthy service.
I don’t really know how to add this up but for now will suggest that the science is to identify one’s own basic needs, and to meet them completely. Then add to this science the art of aligning these needs with a purpose beyond those basic needs. Or say that again, reversing the terms “art” and “science”. It’s not clear to me where the science and the art begin and end in the practice of sustainable service—it’s more of a converging continuum.
Examining the mechanics and brush strokes of this recent service experience, I’d say the action was choosing (or being chosen) by a friendly collaborator, planning for academic absences, reviewing the lobby issues, planning the trip, and showing up at the planned orientation and Congressional meetings. Once committed to our planned service, Sarah and I found comfortable spaces in between to embellish and frame the adventure. The art of working with the space in between the service led us to enjoy our city setting in beautiful late summer downtown DC, and to even have a few meals with our various family who hosted us. The artistic considerations fit in with the planning like water seeping into a glass of sand—more water fits in more comfortably than you might imagine at first.
Sitting on that airplane on my flight home, school mission complete, I slipped into a fruitful liminal state, full of possibility. It is in this intoxicating and slightly unnerving state of mind that we choose our ‘road(s) less traveled’. In mundane terms, I reconsidered the possibility of studying Classical Chinese Medicine (CCM). By chance (?) my co-conspirator in service Sarah is enrolled in the CCM program at my school, NCNM. She egged me on, gauging my enthusiasm over my practical world hesitation. Like the archetypal Chinese Rabbit, I found myself darting for a slim hole of opportunity, lunging to catch the trailing rays of sunrise and a new day. After a few hours of sifting through schedules and degree requirements, followed with a few email and telephone exchanges with the graceful Dean of the CCM program, and I was practically enrolled. Before I had thought it was unrealistic to add another class or few to my busy naturopathic medical course load. Now I feel like I’ve come ten big steps closer to my proverbial home. The relevance of CCM to my life is another story. The point here is that a service trip with a thoughtful friend was an ideal soup of dreaming and receptivity which has reanimated what was a dry spongy part of my heart.
Healthy service —>
receptivity to positive self image —>
powerful liminal state —>
life-changing decisions for good.
Getting over oneself in a caring way, opens doors. And so it was when I went to Washington DC this past September.