The Blessing of Personhood

One of the first things I learned in my chaplaincy training was the importance of personhood.  It was drilled into us as residents that we were to refer to the patient by name rather than by the patient in room such and such.  In a world where people can be reduced to a room number or a diagnosis, it is important to me as a chaplain to be cognizant that I am referring to them by name, and giving them the blessing of their personhood.

Now my head has known the importance of this personhood for a long time, but it is only recently that my heart and soul finally got it.  I go once again to our trip to Hawaii, and seeing and hearing the vacation experience through my seven year old daughter’s eyes.  Now first you must understand that my daughter has the ability to charm anyone she meets, and is completely and blessedly unaware of this ability.  So in her young innocence she commented one time at dinner on how the wait staff was so attentive to her and spoke directly to her.  Eating out is not an uncommon event in our family and she has been taught how to interact and speak to the wait staff at a young age, so this awareness of hers gave me pause.

I found myself reflecting on her comment and wondering about what it was about these vacation restaurant experiences that raised this awareness in her.    Whether the waiter’s recognition of her own personhood came from the Hawaiian cultural perspective of the importance of family and the role of the child in the family, or just because we were in a high tourism area, the outcome was the same.  My daughter’s face beamed as the waiter interacted with her as she gave her order and later as he brought her plate and other times throughout the meal.  She felt important and felt like she belonged as a person of equal importance at the table.

She asked me why the waiters were so nice to her.  And it was at that time I realized that even if the waiter did not realize it, he was blessing her.  This is how I explained it to her.  It was also the moment that I got to pondering more about blessing and how it is that I might incorporate blessing more into my everyday life.  I saw how having her personhood blessed made my daughter’s face shine and how she seemed to sit up a bit straighter at the table and how important she felt.  It made a difference to her.  And that seems to be the most important part of blessing, it makes a difference.  It helps someone feel special and it recognizes the importance of who they are as a person.

As we enter a New Year of resolutions or intentions I have found myself thinking deeper about my own intentions for the New Year.  And I keep going back to the joy on my daughters face when she had her own personhood blessed by a complete stranger.  I have decided that, for me, this is the year of blessing personhood.  It means being more intentional about the everyday blessing practices I give to my family: the bed time routine that is special to my daughter, folding and putting away my husband’s clothes, taking my Sabbath Friday, and other daily activities that I have  come to see as routine, but actually serve as activities of blessing.

It is also time to be intentional about how I bless the stranger; maybe it is a smile or a kind word to the customer service person on the other end of the phone.  The possibilities are endless and quite simple, but actually may be the one thing that just makes that persons day.  And I have a hunch that this practice may just end up blessing me back.