Servant

I wrestled last night with the concept of being a servant.

A servant.  Second violin.  Someone who quietly works in the background, doing what needs to be done without fanfare.  A very difficult concept for me - not the working quietly in the background of course - 15 years in my job field have prepared me for that - but the fact that this very well may be what there is.

There is - was? - a point at which I really kept hoping that I was leader material, that I would be a leader.  To set the tone, to be in front, to boldly move into areas with others following.  And to be recognized as such.

But the tone of my life - if I'm honest about it - is not that at all.  Whether if by seemingly taking myself out or being silently removed by God, those positions that I had thought I would do or was fit to do have turned into doors which quietly, peacefully were closed in my face.

Ah, says the world at large.  That's okay - the world needs doers.  We need a silent army of people to do the very important minutiae that needs to be accomplished.  It's not as if everyone can be a leader - but everyone can be a servant.

Which is fine, I suppose.  It's not as if my attempts at leadership have been that successful up to this point - and people are always ready for more help.

But I guess the thing that unsettles me as I see those horizons darken is simply the fact that a servant is never recognized.  The work is expected to be accomplished and more often than not scarcely acknowledged when it is.  To be a servant seems to be an acceptance of the fact that one will not lead - and by not leading, one comes to accept that the act of accomplishing a task is more than likely all the acknowledgement that will come.

To accept that fact that most of what one does will be unrecognized may be facing the truth as it comes, but it is hardly the sort of fact that makes the truth comforting.