Death, addiction, grace: a year as chaplain in New York’s toughest hospital

While training as a chaplain and caring for society's most vulnerable, I learned that spiritual care is an act of social justice

The patient, who I'll call RL, was homeless and came into Bellevue's psychiatric ward experiencing hallucinations. His struggle with severe mental illness was similar to many of the other homeless people I saw on my daily commute through New York.

It was July 2020, and I had just started my year as a chaplain-in-training on the ward. Already, I was struggling to help him. He couldn't hold a conversation, slept most of the day, and whenever awake, would stare blankly at the television in the activity room and talk to himself. Yet occasionally, when I spoke to him, his eyes would light up and I'd catch him in a moment of clarity. We'd talk for a minute about barbecue or baseball, two subjects I knew he liked, before the light clicked off and he walked away.