I work in busy hospitals, and sometimes it gets difficult to remember our patients are people (rather than statistics or problems or puzzles or petri dishes).
They are people with needs and dreams and regrets.
They have pasts and futures.
They have memories.
They have feelings.
They have stories.

When we put all these people in the same gowns and refer to them by numbers, it can be easy to forget they’re people. As we treat, we automate. We distance, and admittedly, part of the reason is self-preservation so our staff doesn’t experience the full force of every patient’s heartbreak. It’s not malicious; it’s a survival strategy, but it still dehumanizes the people we care for. Because so many others in the hospital lack the time or emotional energy, chaplains step in. In this space, a chaplain’s purpose isn’t having deep spiritual conversations which tick all the correct theological boxes (though these may sometimes occur); it’s taking the time to look someone in the eyes and communicate a simple message:
I see you.
I acknowledge you.
Let me sit with you in this.

But this situation —this drought of human connection— isn’t unique to the hospital.
We dehumanize and distance on the drive to work.
We dehumanize and distance on social media.
We dehumanize and distance in the grocery store checkout line.
And yes, we dehumanize and distance in crowded bars and brewery taprooms as we try to speed up the process of ordering drinks or closing tabs while a throng of others attempt to do the same.
Again, it’s usually not malicious; it’s a coping mechanism for a busy world.

What would it look like to take on the role of a chaplain in these other spaces?
To train a generation to see, acknowledge, and sit with others?
To treat people as people?

If only we could retrain ourselves instead to say:
I see you.