When I was young there was this book that came out, The Five Love Languages. It was a decidedly Christian book, but the concept made its way into broader culture. Perhaps you’ve heard of the book or the idea. It doesn’t matter.

The five love languages concept was introduced to me early, and it’s stuck in my brains. They’re Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts and Quality Time.

Acts of service rates very high for me, and it’s number one for my number one. My wife’s primary love language is me cleaning the kitchen. She also loves cleaning the kitchen herself. Tidying up is a thing for us. It’s a kindness I know I can show her to get the place tidied up before bed. “Nothing nicer than waking up to a clean kitchen”, says she.

That’s not exactly helpfulness though, is it?

I have a pet peeve–it’s when dads say they’ll “babysit” their own kids. I want to smack them. I want to shake them by the shoulders and tell them to get a hold of themselves. Grow up. You don’t babysit your own children, you’re just with them. I don’t even like babysitting my friends kids. I like to just be with them.

That’s also not exactly helpfulness.

I am a worker. I get things done in my life. I feed the chickens, and I collect eggs. I figure out why my tractor won’t start. I am slowly preparing a 1987 Cushman Truckster for its next life. I use tools and I don’t cut my fingers off.

These things are also not quite helpfulness.

It’s one of my top five values. So why am I having such a hard time writing about it? Why can’t I think of any examples of me being helpful in my life?

Maybe I value it because I feel like I need it in my life. My wife is a great help to me. Too much, in truth, sometimes. She overextends herself in order to help me stay on top of life. I mentioned in a recent post that my brains are sometimes like a cat holding firecrackers. Just bedlam. And that woman holds me down.

You know in truth, I think that’s probably it. Especially right now. In this season. Because there’s a lot going on in my life right now. And I sort of feel like I’m drowning if I’m honest. I need help. I need all the help I can get.

I wish I could be a greater help to the people around me but right now it feels like I need to take. I need to withdraw. I need to call in favors. And that’s uncomfortable for me. I want to be the one doing favors. I want to change your oil for you. I want to fix your computer. I want to write these essays and feel like they’re moving someone’s needle a little bit. Helping. I want to do the values exercise with everyone I meet. And I want it to be helpful. But really, the writing of them is primarily a help to me. A cry for help.

I am familiar with helping. I think of small things I do or have done to benefit the people around me. I make jam. I wake up at 6am and make spritz cookies with someone I love. I run errands and pick up supplies and I use AI to research how to fix my wife’s turn signal switch.

I have done this card sorting exercise with a lot of people now. And I think it’s been genuinely helpful in some people’s lives. It’s precipitated new patterns of thought for them and new conversational avenues for us together. Usually when I do the exercise with someone I snap a photo of them with their selections and text it to them. And then I stare at the beautiful photo of my beautiful friend and their beautiful choices and I almost always am filled with love for them and kind words. I hope they’re kind. They’re meant to be kind. They’re usually just observations. But sometimes that can be a kindness I think. To just sit with someone and report what you see. Repeat what you hear. Tell of what you observe.

And right now, just now, in this time of life I’m feeling deeply unhelpful. I’m feeling slow and exhausted and empty. All my wells have run dry. I feel like I have no best to bring to the table, and that makes me feel inadequate.

There may be an unhealthy aspect of helpfulness for me, too. If I’m not careful I’m helping in order to secure the love and approval of my community. That’s certainly been the case in the past. I know that. I have spent a lot of time feeling like I’m not a valued member of my community and it’s a feeling that rots in the pit of my stomach. It’s awful and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

And I guess, to me, maybe that’s what helpfulness is? It’s about inclusion on some level? When we help one another along we show one another that we’re loved. Loved enough to sacrifice for.

When I think of sacrificial help, I think of Buduburam Camp. Buduburam is a displaced people’s camp about 25 miles from Accra, the capital city of Ghana, a country in west Africa. Initially established in the early 1990’s as a response to the influx of refugees fleeing Liberia’s ghastly civil war.

I was there once. I will not share all of the details of how I arrived there now, but I was there unexpectedly, and for a short time I felt very alone indeed. I was far from home, in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people and unfamiliar food and a completely different system of accessing toilets than I’d ever experienced before.

I met a man who made room on his bench for me. Look, it was a refugee camp. I could describe it in great detail here but that risks making a show of someone else’s circumstances, and that feels gross. But it was unfamiliar. And it was hotter than the hinges of Hades. I asked how hot it was at one point and all they would tell me is “very”.

This man with room on his bench also had room at his table, he fed me and showed me the way around. But he had no room in his home. He lived in humble quarters with his family, and so the only place for me to sleep was nearby with an eighteen year old boy, (his wife’s brother), who I will never forget. He had seen things with his own eyes I will not describe here. War is hell. War is hell. War is HELL.

He slept in a weird little concrete shack exactly the size of a twin mattress. His belongings fit neatly on a shelf hung on one wall, and mine fit neatly in a backpack hung on a hook. During the day he walked alongside me and at night we slept together on the twin mattress, me gasping for oxygen in the humid atmosphere, him hugging me.

At first it was weird—annoying even. Give me some space, man! Give me some air!

I came to realize after a while that he was comforting me. Far from taking, he was giving everything. He gave up half his small bed. And he hugged me because I was far from home and he knew I was afraid. He hugged me at night because at night I cried. I may never have encountered a heart of helpfulness like his before or maybe since. Who was I that he should comfort me?

He had nothing. His parents, killed in front of him. His journey to safety, arduous and treacherous and long. His eventual safety, a refugee camp where there was no money or space or opportunity. In the long run he was blinded by an accident and later on he was killed because someone thought his life was cheap. This is the story of the boy who loved me without a good reason.

I am wondering if that experience has affected me more than I realized at the time. Because when I strip away the tractors and the kitchen tidying and the competence... that is what remains. Working for the welfare of others. Making room on the mattress. Holding someone while they cry.

That is Helpfulness.

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