Spiritual Care Week at St. Joe's

This week was Spiritual Care Week at St. Joe's and hence proved to be a much busier week than most. We hosted a thank you service and dinner for the Spiritual Care volunteers on Tuesday (and I must take this opportunity to say how blessed I feel to have the volunteer I have on my floor cause she is amazing with patients, and really has a heart for what she does, and it means so much to the patients) and then on Thursday we hosted a memorial service for all those who have died at the hospital between May and July of this year. It was a very meaningful service and it went off without a hitch. I would like to share one reading that was read at the service with you today.

"I'm not going to try to comfort you. ... I know I couldn't. But try to remember that the goodness of a person can never die. You will continue to experience this goodness many times. You will experience it in the streets. You will experience it in the houses, in all the places of the town. It will be in the trees and flowers, in the rivers and clouds, in all the things here that make this a world for us to live in. You will experience this goodness in all things that are here out of love, and for love - all the things that are abundant, all the things that grow. A person may leave - or be taken away - but the goodness of the person stays. It stays forever. Love is immortal and makes all things immortal." (adapted from "The Human Comedy" by William Saroyan).

A flower was placed on the alter for every person present in memory of their loved one...


This is Steve, on of the other residents, and he's holding a Tibetan singing bowl which was used throughout the service... a very cool instrument... actually, Steve is the king of cool instruments.



This is a carving found in the chapel, I think its absolutely beautiful and it wraps around the corner and symbolizes the movement from bareness and pain to growth and fertility. I've been wanting to take a picture of it for a while now, but haven't had the opportunity before now... unfortunately it didn't turn out quite as I wanted... I think I may have to try again another day.