Sanjiv's Purpose

To fulfill my dharma to teach medicine, leadership, and happiness and to do this grounded in humility and with an ardent desire to learn every single day. To treasure with gratitude my family, friends, colleagues, and stu- dents who inspire me in countless ways, and, in some small measure, to inspire everyone that I encounter during this amazing life journey.

Gina's Purpose

To pay attention to this precious world in which we live for such a brief time, to use the light that is our life to radiate kindness, to learn and to use that knowledge to il- luminate the darkness, to appreciate, to forgive, and to be grateful.

Your Purpose

My life’s purpose is to inspire others to reclaim their lives after trauma. My purpose is to send a message of healing, hope, and possibility through my life of having overcome the devastating effects of paralytic polio and childhood violence.  ~S.D.

My purpose in life is to serve and energize others. It is with profound gratitude that I recognize how privileged I have been to be able to do this.  ~A.D.

I have not yet found my purpose, but until I do, I will continue to find happiness by being the best friend, daughter, and sister I can be and by being a compassionate caretaker of the animals in my life. ~G.R.

To love, play, and find joy wherever and whenever possible. ~L.M.

To share my life and experiences with my life companion. To support her and grow to our full potential together. To raise children in a loving supportive home, that they too are supported and grow to their full potential.

To live a life of health, vitality, love, happiness and prosperity. To assist other human beings to live lives of health, vitality, love, happiness and prosperity. 

To appreciate that life is limited in time but that we each have a purpose to fulfil and a journey to travel. To live life with unlimited passion and unlimited potential.

~Aaron Whitehead

Our True Heritage

By Thich Nhat Hanh

The cosmos is filled with precious gems.
I want to offer a handful of them to you this morning.
Each moment you are alive is a gem,
shining through and containing earth and sky,
water and clouds.

It needs you to breathe gently
for the miracles to be displayed.
Suddenly you hear the birds singing,
the pines chanting,
see the flowers blooming,
the blue sky,
the white clouds,
the smile and the marvelous look
of your beloved.

You, the richest person on Earth,
who have been going around begging for a living,
stop being the destitute child.
Come back and claim your heritage.
We should enjoy our happiness
and offer it to everyone.
Cherish this very moment.
Let go of the stream of distress
and embrace life fully in your arms.

Your Poems

Submitted by: Sue Miller

What I Learned From My Mother

BY JULIA KASDORF

I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins
and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point. 
I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know
the deceased, to press the moist hands
of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
sympathy, as though I understood loss even then. 
I learned that whatever we say means nothing, 
what anyone will remember is that we came. 
I learned to believe I had the power to ease
awful pains materially like an angel. 
Like a doctor, I learned to create
from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse. 
To every house you enter, you must offer
healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself, 
the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.