To Help or to Serve?

I have never thought too much about how “helping” has such an unequal aspect.  I always say, “How can I help you?” like I have the ability to fix something or someone.  But it goes even more profound.  Even if I master something and my effort could change it or fix something, my approach to it would be so different if I were doing it in a servant’s stance.  The difference between the two is compelling.  While it may look the same to others, my interior experience is very different.  In her book, In the Service of Life, Rachel Naomi Ramen notes, “Service rests on the basic premise that the nature of life is sacred.”  The energy of helping sees life as a weakness and fixes what is broken.  In serving, my energy is different.  I am connected to everything, and everything is part of a whole.   I wonder how different our world would be if instead of saying, “How can I help you,” we might offer, “How can I serve you?”