Most people know about the Unitarian connection to Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone. And if you know that show (or have watched The Simpson’s Halloween Special), you probably know of the grizzley episode “To Serve Man” where seemingly beneficent aliens turn out to be connoisseurs of human flesh. The title ends up being a cruel irony, where decoding the language of the aliens reveals their sinister intentions. It’s a good episode––one of the best from The Twilight Zone.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this as I’ve been gathering our Wednesday evening meals, and thinking about inviting new volunteers to help support this chance for service after June 5.

The idea that serving people and using people to serve ourselves are so close to one another is part of the message of the episode. What seems like kindness turns out to be violence and selfishness. Maybe we have not been at risk of turning into the main course at an alien dinner, but maybe we have been in a situation where someone being nice to us turned out to be part of an effort to exploit us. And no one wants to do that, who isn’t from a planet full of humanivores.

I think this episode and that experience lends us important insights about what it means to be a truly open, truly affirming community that invites peoples’ authentic selves. Especially because the story is so creepy, we identify with the humans in the story. But when we are inviting people to our planet (as it were), we’re in the role of the aliens. So the questions for us to ask ourselves––do we have any designs, any expectations, any implied obligations to people who accept our invite? Are we inviting people to serve them, to serve their flourishing? Or are we inviting them to serve ours?

Acting in service to others can be the basis for a profound kind of community. Acting in a way that demands service from others can be the basis for a very frustrating kind of community.

Of course, we would hope that we could help others flourish and in turn have them help us flourish. But an intentional, covenantal community does well when it pops some popcorn and sits down with some old school Unitarian wisdom, and remind ourselves what it means to be those who search and serve.

Sometimes it is hard to tap into our spiritual selves or find time to nurture our creativity and intellectual curiosity. Here is a section that reflects on some nourishing materials from around the web and related media channels in order to get us thinking, get us feeling, and get us reflecting on the lives we are living in this big world. **Some Adult/Mature Themes May Appear in Links and Other Attached Material**

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Allan T. Georgia, MDiv, MTS, PhD

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