I am again sitting on an airplane, returning from a bittersweet trip to California.  I spoke at the memorial service of a lifelong friend, Faith Moran, and have come away from the experience filled up in a way I never would have expected.  My friend was a Unity minister who, along with her husband, worked for peace through interfaith cooperation.  There were over 1,000 people at her memorial service, among them religious leaders from many traditions.  To hear these leaders pray together, in one service, was inspiring and a living tribute to my friend’s success in living her purpose to a fullness I think she never expected or recognized.

As the service unfolded and people shared their thoughts and feelings about my friend, I was filled with both awe and grief – grief because I miss my friend and awe because of the impact her life has had on so many people.  One of the things that made her who she was was an unfailing capacity to love, along with her courage to express that love, no matter what.  In her willingness to connect with people, she crossed bridges that seemed not even to be available for crossing – and that hadn’t been until she began to create that possibility, one person, one interaction at a time.

The experience got me to thinking about a couple of things.  First, it underscored the enormous value of friendship, and the gift of having people in our lives on whom we can depend and in whose love we can find refuge.  Because my talk at the memorial was to help people today know who Faith was as a child, I had an opportunity to reflect deeply on our friendship, on what wove its way through our lives that always kept us connected and in support of each other, no matter what.  I invite you to reflect on your important friendships, as well, and to look at the choices you make, the opportunities you have, and the gifts you give and receive over the course of time.

The other thing that was brought home powerfully during Faith’s memorial is the impact of a life lived fully.  Those of us who knew Faith well believe she never knew the depth of impact she had.  She was just consistently and determinedly being herself, working for peace, loving God, loving people, and always being willing to act on that love.  Listening to tribute after tribute, I was forcefully reminded of the power of what one person can do when they are fully in tune with who they are and what they feel moved to do on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis.

And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to be aware of how you live your life, in terms of what you sense is your purpose.  Notice I write this with a small “p”, not as something immense, special, or big that we each have to accomplish.  Rather, I invite you to be aware of whatever sense of purpose you may have in the everyday sense of things.  It may be that you believe deeply in family, and that part of your purpose is to raise children.  Or, you may feel that part of the reason you are here is to make people laugh or to move them with words.  Perhaps you feel that part of your purpose is to allow your everyday work experiences to be the background to other activities that feel more central to your self-expression and being.  However you understand purpose, I invite you to explore whether your daily life reflects the beliefs and actions that will make that purpose real.

And so, this week’s experiment has two opportunities:  one, to become more aware of your friendships and your experience of them and, two, to play a bit with your sense of purpose, to explore whether you feel that you’re doing what you’re here to do.  Please leave judgment aside, as to what’s a “worthy” purpose and what isn’t.  I think that we really don’t know what our purpose is supposed to be and that it’s useful to be guided by the internal rudder that is a built in felt-sense of rightness, rather than trying to live up to an idea about purpose.

As with all the experiments, this invites you to play with living more consciously, with bringing awareness to the subjects of friendship and purpose.  Remember that these experiments work well if you’ve got curiosity in the front seat with you, so that you can discover things rather than preconceive or judge them.