What is a person?

I suspect that part of the difficulty surrounding the Spirit is the way we in the West think of a person. According to Boethius's famous (or infamous) definition, a person is “an individual substance of a rational nature.” But what if instead of trying to fit the Holy Spirit into this definition of a person and finding her [he follows the Hebrew in referring to the Spirit as feminine] wanting, we reversed the order and let the Spirit expand our ideas of personhood? The Spirit is profoundly other-centered, humble, patient, and good. She loves communication, fellowship, and togetherness. Perhaps we need to modify our notion of personhood to include being a facilitator of fellowship. Perhaps a real person is not simply an individual substance of a rational nature, but one who loves bringing others together to share life, an individual who is other-centered, relational, and full of passion for communion.— The Shack Revisited, page 104