One hot day in August I was sitting in the chaplain’s office at the Georgia Regional Hospital outside of Atlanta, watching the sun’s long, warm rays crawl across the hospital grounds, when the phone rang. I picked it up. A nurse from the admissions unit told me, "Chaplain, Nancy has run away again, can you come down here?" "Sure," I said, "I’ll be right down." "Please hurry," she said. "All the male attendants have left and we don’t think any of us can catch her." I drove quickly to the admissions building, about a half-mile away.

The admissions building always had an eerie feel about it. The lighting was indirect and diffused softly, supposedly to keep down anxiety. I found it depressing. I began to wonder if Nancy did, too. Maybe that was why she ran away so much. The head nurse, a feis…