Commitment

Sri Rosyati (R) and Sri Irianingsih (L), walk to the school they have run in a Jakarta slum area since 1996. The twins, from a typical middle-class background, have been the driving force behind the free education of more than 2,000 poor children. They have purchased the uniforms, textbooks, school equipment and everything else needed to teach the children. The twins have also helped open similar schools in 64 areas of the country.

REUTERS/Beawiharta

Mercy

Sudanese children in a refugee camp in Chad.

Every time we think we have touched a place of poverty, we will discover greater poverty beyond that place. Beyond physical poverty, there is mental poverty, beyond mental poverty, there is spiritual poverty, and beyond that there is nothing, nothing but mercy. - Henry Nouwen

Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty

Love

Come, Lord Jesus, come. Do not just come to our understanding, but enter our hearts -- our passions, emotions, and feelings -- and reveal your presence to us in our inmost being. Otherwise, we will keep clinging to people, things or events to find some warmth, some sense of belonging.

Compassion

There is much hidden suffering in the world: the suffering of a man who dwells with others in a room of metal cages; the suffering of a teenager who does not feel secure; the suffering of countless people who lack caring friends, satisfying work, a peaceful home, a safe neighborhood, clean water, adequate food; the suffering of millions who feel lonely and wonder if life is worth living.

Once we look downward - instead of upward - on the ladder of life, we see the pain of people wherever we go, and we hear the call of compassion wherever we are.

adapted from Henri Nouwen

Joy

Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing - sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death - can take that love away.

Patterns

Laundry hanging outside a student dormitory in Wuhan, China.

Reuters

Giving = Happiness = Giving

A survey of 30,000 American households found that those who gave to charity were 43 percent more likely to say they were "very happy" about their lives than those who did not give. The survey doesn't show whether giving made people happy, or happy people were more likely to give, but the anecdotal evidence is strong that many people find that when they begin to give, they free themselves from the acquisitive treadmill and find new meaning and fulfillment in their lives.

Peter Singer, Newsweek, 3/09/09

Prayer

A young Buddhist monk participates in a prayer for peace, prosperity and long life, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Manish Swarup/AP

Patterns

Workers on tractors harvest soybeans in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil.

Maurilio Cheli/AP

Justice

Children of sex workers take part in a rally ahead of International Sex Workers Day, Kolkata, India.

Parth Sanyal/Reuters

Poverty

A man burns incense while sitting in a small cage in Hong Kong's Tai Kok Tsui district.

REUTERS/Victor Fraile

Community

Buddhist monks take part in religious exercises at a monastery near Tongren, in China’s Qinghai province, on the eve of the traditional Tibetan new year.

Reinhard Krause/Reuters

Patterns

Job seekers holding umbrellas flock into a job fair in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.

Ritual

An ascetic Buddhist monk runs through flames during the Nagatoro (Japan) fire festival, to celebrate the coming of spring.

Toru Hanai/Reuters

Patterns

A drawer of antique glass eyes is displayed at the Science Museum's Object Store in London.

Macdiarmid/Getty

Patterns

Men walk their bikes on a bridge during an annual 'car free' day in Bogota, Columbia.

Luis Ramirez/AFP/Getty Images

Beauty

A jellyfish is irradiated with coloured light at the Blue Zoo in Beijing, a joint venture between China and New Zealand.

Diego Azubel/EPA

Depth

Hua Chi, a Chinese monk, has prayed on the same spot at a monastery near Tongren, Qinghai province, so long that his footprints are embedded in the floor.

Reuters

Patterns

A woman walks the snow covered path along the National Mall in Washington March 2, 2009.

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

How long?

Street children sleep in rows of large drainage pipes in the port city of Zamboanga, southern Philippines.

REUTERS/Stringer

Patterns

Iron ore piles at Parker Point, Dampier, Western Australia.

Christian Sprogoe /Rio Tinto Ltd/EPA