Living Well: Joy, Suffering, and the Pursuit of Wholeness

Wednesday, May 15 

7:00 pm

Crown 290

Stanford Law School

Free and open to the public.

When faced with illness and suffering, can we retain a sense of meaning and flourishing? Or is our wholeness dependent on our health, our bodies, our fragile and fallible physiologies? On May 15, 2019, Veritas @ Stanford will explore these questions with Drs. Ray Barfield and BJ Miller, two physicians shaping our understanding of wholeness and meaning in the face of profound suffering. Ray Barfield is a pediatric oncologist at Duke University, director of Duke’s pediatric palliative care program, and professor of Christian philosophy at Duke Divinity School. BJ Miller is a palliative care physician at UCSF, senior director and former executive director of Zen Hospice Project, a triple-amputee, and a leading figure on death, dying, and end-of-life care. Lucy Kalanithi — Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford; widow of Paul Kalanithi, author of When Breath Becomes Air — will moderate the discussion. Together, these three will guide the Stanford community through complex questions of human brokenness, and in doing so, help us better understand what it means to be whole.

Salt in My Soul

Thursday, May 16

5 PM – 7 PM

Stanford Bookstore

Free and open to the public

Join us on Thursday, May 16, for an event with Diane Shader Smith featuring the book “Salt in My Soul: An Unfinished Life” by Mallory Smith.

Mallory Smith, who grew up in Los Angeles, was a freelance writer and editor specializing in environmental issues, social justice, and healthcare-related communications. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University and worked as a senior producer at Green Grid Radio, an environmental storytelling radio show and podcast. She was a fierce advocate for those who suffered from cystic fibrosis, launching the viral social media campaign Lunges4Lungs with friends and raising over $5 million with her parents for CF research through the annual Mallory’s Garden event.

For more than ten years, Mallory recorded her thoughts and observations about struggles and feelings too personal to share during her life, leaving instructions for her mother to publish her work posthumously. After her death at age 25, Mallory’s mother Diane Shader Smith, honored her daughter’s wish with the completion of Mallory’s memoir, “Salt in My Soul: An Unfinished Life.”

Story Exchange

Tuesday, May 21, 2019 
6:00 – 8:30 pm
Roble Dorm
RSVP at bit.ly/stanfordstoryexchange

Story Exchange is an interactive and immersive storytelling workshop to empower students and staff looking to deepen their relationships and contribute to more empathetic community in and around campus. We’ll acquire storytelling tools to engage more authentically and feel more centered in our lives. Learn how to bring these perspectives back to your campus communities to nurture deep human capacities like empathy. Free dinner will be provided.

These workshops are hosted by the Stanford Storytelling Project, the Lifeworks Program for Integrative Learning, and Narrative 4.

Mythologizing Release Party

Tuesday, May 21, 2019 
3:30 PM Hume Center, Room 201

Come listen to Mythologizing, the latest episode of the Stanford Storytelling Project’s podcast, State of the Human.

Words and Silences: An Evening with Naomi Shihab Nye and Ryushin Paul Haller

Friday, March 8, 2019
7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Cubberly Auditorium

How can we stay true to what we care about through the words and silences of our everyday lives? Join award-winning poet Naomi Shihab Nye and Ryushin Paul Haller, former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, for an evening that will bring together poetic and contemplative traditions to explore how simple engagements with language and stillness can help us find not only our place and path and but also draw us close to blessings beyond knowing. Discover with these two renowned teachers how to belong to your own lexicon, engage intimately with silence, and listen to yourself and all that is given.

Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a “wandering poet”, having spent 40 years traveling the country and the world to lead writing workshops and inspiring students of all ages. Drawing on her Palestinian-American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas, and her travels, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity. She is the author or editor of more than thirty volumes of poetry, essays, and stories and has received many awards, including a Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, and four Pushcart Prizes. Her collection 19 Varieties of Gazelle was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Ryushin Paul Haller is a senior teacher and former abbot at the San Francisco Zen Center. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he teaches throughout the U.S. and Europe and has led mindfulness programs to assist with mental illness and recovery. He has also helped bring contemplative practices into many communities, including prisons and schools, and has had a long involvement with the Zen Hospice Project.