This is the 3rd in the most drawn out blog series ever about the creed of Sigma Nu Fraternity. See part one here and part two here.

The third line of the creed is:

To Serve in the Light of Truth

We’ll break this down as we have the others.

To Serve

When one hears the word serve, its initial impact probably says a lot about one’s cultural background. If you grew up in a military family, or are yourself in the military, “to serve” is almost certainly going to mean being in one of the armed services. If you grew up in the American South, your mind might drift to thoughts of slavery and the Civil War. Perhaps you were a flower child of the 60s and so serving is wrapped in thoughts of helping a community be its best.

While I’ve carefully avoided unpacking the religious, specifically Christian, connotations of the other parts of the creed, mostly because I think they’re obvious and not all that interesting, this one phrase hangs heavily in my mind as it relates the idea of serving the Lord, Yahweh, God, etc. However, in this case, I’m at a loss for a better example than the humility and devotion that this phrase echoes loudly from the call that many answer to become followers of Jesus. That sublimation of the self to a greater good is what seems so compelling to me and why I’m willing to concede the religious example here.

That said, I do not consider service to be some act of self-effacement or docility that the sheep and shepherd analogy might engender. It is just as active and participatory as the previous verbs of the creed: believe and walk. It demands action and energy along with a responsibility to that which you serve. This is then a duty (fits well with the armed services connotation). It’s also a burden, but one we choose to take on (unlike the slavery connotation). Additionally, it’s chance to connect with a broader truth (as in the flower power connotation).

So, we have a burdensome duty which creates connections to the rest of humanity. This then is service.

The Light of Truth

The light of truth is that turn of phrase that makes unpacking our amazing language fun. At the same time that this phrase clearly evokes the idea that truth is that thing which brushes away the darkness of our being like turning on the lights in some fifth floor walkup in the East Village and watching the roaches scatter, it also shows truth to be a beacon toward which we turn when the seas are rough. Another reading might have us see the truth bearing the weight of our service thereby lightening the burden and making it more fulfilling.

Much has been written about Truth with a capital T. How do we define truth? Can the world exist if we always told the truth (greatly explored in the recent film The Invention of Lying)? Does the truth indeed set you free? I certainly don’t have those answers. In the context in which this creed lives, truth could be as simple as the honesty shared between brothers of the fraternity. It could be that thing which means we don’t have to lock the bedrooms in the fraternity house. I wouldn’t be writing this blog post if that was it though.

Truth and the light it brings as it relates to service has to about being that beacon to which people look and say, “That guy is doing it right.” It’s about being an example of what can be good and right about our modern society. Sure, everyone has a different structure for what good and right mean, but some core part of us knows when someone is on the right path and instinctually we won’t to follow them. This part of the creed echoes the desire of the fraternity to help build people like that.

I work with a guy who always strikes me as doing things right. He has a beautiful happy family, is creative and ambitious in his job, treats the people around him the way they want to be treated, and radiates a sense of rightness. That’s the truth that I think most of us don’t mind agreeing on. It gives us energy like a sun straightening a wilted sunflower. It provides a model for us to strive towards and it opens up the possibility that at some point, we might all serve each other in the same way.