Blessing of the Hands

Chaplains are tasked with meeting people at their most vulnerable, when they are confronted by the frailty of their bodies and the mortality of their souls. These are sacred moments, but ones that tend to be accompanied by sadness, grief, and pain. 

Fortunately, these are not the only opportunities for chaplains to help infuse the sacred into the everyday lives of those in the hospital. Blessings, invocations and rituals are other ways chaplains make the ordinary holy. Thes everyday rituals are ones that can bring courage, calmness, and peace.

Once or twice a year, many hospital chaplains will participate in the ritual of “blessing of the hands” of staff members. It is a simple practice that involves a person holding their hands over a bowl and the chaplain takes the pitcher and pours a few drops of water over their hands while reciting a blessing. Sometimes we will set up a table in the back of a banquet hall for the celebration of nurse’s week, or on a hospital floor  at staff’s request if it has been a particularly difficult week.

I typically make up the blessing for the individual on the spot, customizing it for each person, but it usually sounds something like this:

“I bless these hands who have cared for so many. These hands that touch, that heal, that convey compassion. May these hands continue to be a blessing for all. May these hands be blessed.”

Then I take a napkin and pat their hands dry and end with a light squeeze. It is a tender act that acknowledges the holiness of this work and tears often form in the eyes of the person whose hands I’m holding.

Yours truly doing a staff “Blessing of the Hands” during Nurse’s Week at the hospital a few years ago.

One year I was honored to be invited into the surgical suite before the hospital was doing a new transplant procedure. I blessed the hands of several operating room staff who were in equal parts excited and nervous (very scited!) “I bless these hands who are about to do a new thing. May these hands be guided with knowledge and care and remain steady and confident. May these hands imbue a sense of compassion as they change someone’s life. May these hands be blessed.” 

The team then went and washed and scrubbed their hands as they sterilized and prepped for surgery. It reminded me of my son wiping off a kiss (with exaggerated disgust), but the sincerity of the intention remained.

Blessing someone’s hands is such a simple act and one that anyone can replicate. The point isn’t to make it a precious act that can only happen in a hospital. The point is to bring the sacred into the everyday.

Minister and writer Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor reinforces this point in her book An Altar in the World. You can bless any object or person and the benefit of doing so changes the way you interact with them. There is no special knowledge or ordination required, it is merely the act of noticing. The words do not need to be fancy. She even talks about practicing a blessing by blessing a stick! 

She encourages people to engage in the act of blessing, writing,

“Anyone can ask and anyone can bless, whether anyone has authorized you to do it or not. All I am saying is that the world needs you to do this, because there is a real shortage of people willing to kneel wherever they are and recognize the holiness holding its sometimes bony, often tender, always life-giving hand above their heads. That we are able to bless one another at all is evidence that we have been blessed, whether we can remember when or not. That we are willing to bless one another is miracle enough to stagger the very stars.”

The idea of saying a blessing may still feel peculiar to you. There is no magic formula. It is more about observing something, which could be mundane and attaching an intention to it. Perhaps you’re not interested in saying a blessing aloud for someone else (and that took me lots of practice to get comfortable). How about trying to bless your own hands? 

At the onset of Covid, we all got very good at singing the “Happy Birthday” song to ourselves twice over to ensure we were washing our hands long enough. What if we continue in that vein and create a new tradition? Whenever you wash your hands, try saying a blessing for what your hands will be doing throughout the day!

James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits, talks about “habit stacking” as a way to build a new habit by pairing it with something you already do without thinking. For example, if you want to make a habit of taking your vitamins, put them next to your coffee maker and take them while the pot is brewing. Especially at this time of year, people may be thinking about resolutions and creating new habits.

Sometimes, people I meet with for spiritual direction think they must incorporate an elaborate spiritual practice in their routines, such as meditating for 30 minutes every day, writing 5 pages in a prayer journal, or reading a certain amount of scripture. Those might be valuable practices for some, but usually, we do not need one more thing on our growing to-do list. Especially when failing to get it done will add to our guilt. Instead, this is where habit stacking can serve us. Take something that you already do without thinking, like washing your hands and try to transform it into a sacred moment. Make the ordinary holy.

What can you” habit stack” as a mindfulness practice or moment of blessing?

How can you infuse a mundane aspect of your day with something sacred?

Photo by Mélissa Jeanty on Unsplash