There is a reality in blessing. . . . It doesn't enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that. . . . I don't wish to be urging the ministry on you, but there are some advantages to it you might not know to take account of if I did not point them out. Not that you have to be a minister to confer blessing. You are simply much more likely to find yourself in that position. It's a thing people expect of you. I don't know why there is so little about this aspect of the calling in the literature.

 Marilynne Robinson, Gilead