One afternoon, I made my way into the psych emergency department in the small city hospital where I was the token Buddhist chaplain.

I loved making rounds in the psych ED, the most spiritual of places, where everyone explores the edges of their lives. Do I kill myself? Why do I continue to drink? There are “normal” children labelled with disorders, junior psychiatrists with a prescription for everything, cranky nurses, wary security guards, scared family members, dark hilarious humor, and the easy talk of God.

For a chaplain it is an incredible opportunity to notice how we move, how we speak and gesture, and to be aware that a million projections are being beamed upon you as you set foot in that ground.

The first thing I noticed that day was a teenage girl propped on a gurney, fore-arms bandaged. A silver-haired woman sat on a chair next to her (“wringing her hands” would be an appropriate notation).

As I approached, the girl began unwrapping the bandages, and the older woman identified herself as her grandmother. I greeted them, explained briefly the function of spiritual care, and waited a moment. The grandmother smiled, and said she would leave me alone with her granddaughter, and walked away

We weren’t really alone, as her gurney was parked in the hallway, but it was enough. Who knows what suffices in these matters, and what is lacking? I did what I have learned works for me as a chaplain: I asked questions, I noticed things, I was straightforward.

I observed the shallow scars on her arms, and asked what she had used and how it had felt to cut herself. I asked about her relationship with her parents and grandmother. I noted the earrings she had made out of paper clips. The girl was reticent, tolerating me in a friendly way, and our encounter was brief. I went to find her grandmother down the hall.

Her eyes were shining. “I’m so glad you came,” she said. “I was praying and praying to God for help, and then you walked in!” Something had lifted in her.

I was moved and humbled. I had arrived with a hyper-focus on patients, and forgotten that spiritual care is for everyone, and that it can have an accidental and magical quality.

I had also forgotten that no detail is meaningless: that, for example, in unraveling her bandages, the girl created a metaphor for the weaving and unweaving that characterized her family relationships, AND she was saying “SEE me,” as she revealed her skin.

We seem to forever forget how interconnected and interdependent we are, how much we matter in our small or large worlds, how much we need each other to survive and to thrive. It’s a basic tenet of hospital chaplaincy that we serve patients, family, and staff, and it’s wonderful to be reminded of this in these jewel-like, chance encounters.