Between the months of August 2020 and July 2021, I documented my daily hospital encounters with both patients and medical staff while serving as a Humanist hospital chaplain in NYC during Covid-19. At the conclusion of each clinical day, I numbered that day’s surgical mask with the number of daily patient visits (bottom far left), successful medical staff support encounters (bottom left), admitted Covid + patients (top right), and the number of PUI patient - “Persons Under Inspection for Covid-19” (top left).

Over the course of a year, I have accumulated over 250+ used surgical masks documenting my daily "emotional labor” output - less crudely, my “Love’s Work”; as a means to protect and account for my energy in an attempt to make the invisible, more visible. This collection will hang as an installation piece on a very large tree in Central Park, on the Upper East Side, across the street from the Mount Sinai Hopsital in NYC - where I recently completed my Spiritual Care Residency.

The Project also includes audio recordings of improvisational prayers recited at the bedside to/with patients - of all faiths and none - during “ultimate life moments” be it confronting end-of-life, performing baptisms for parents grieving a fetal demise, organ/transplant rejection, cancer diagnoses, and chronic illness. Each prayer is particularly crafted with care and intention as an attempt to touch-meet a stranger, in moments of passing, to offer an articulation of a chaplain practicing the art of witnessing.

This year-long Spiritual Care Residency will also be featured in a documentary film, directed by Luke Lorentzen, following myself and three colleagues, over the course of our training. The film will serve as an entry point for those who are curious t learn about a day in the life of hospital chaplaincy.