Rev. Joan Alevras: March 2014 GTF Residential Institute

So I wanted to come here for this particular Institute ["Examining Approaches in Pastoral Nurture"] to get further sharpened as to how I could work with my chaplains to train them in quickly helping people to assess meaning in their lives despite the fact that they might be on hospice care or palliative care or dying sooner than they can even make that. Now certainly not everyone is dying in my organization, my hospital, but the, the helping people find meaning, so this Institute really attracted me, looking at various systems to do that because one system doesn't fit all or we'd have stopped, you know, years ago. So, and, I appreciate very much being here and getting connected to the broad and, and the breadth of the history of the Graduate Theological Foundation which in emails and even reading the publications did not give me a sense of what I am now a part of, and that has been extraordinarily meaningful to me. I, I feel that I am in the company -- even though they're not all here -- of great minds and great leaders, and I appreciate that. It's a gift, it's a wonderful gift.