About the Program

What is Literary Chaplaincy?

Literary Chaplaincy is a support service developed by Vanessa Zoltan. Inspired by traditional chaplaincy, our literary chaplains listen with the care of a good friend, but with the remove and fresh perspective only a well-trained counselor can provide. In each session, they approach your concerns with an open heart, asking clarifying and probing questions to help you find resolution about complex dilemmas. Where traditional chaplaincy would use a religious text, we instead use secular books, demonstrating their sacred power by applying sacred reading practices to them.

  • It can be hard to have a direct conversation about a difficult thing. Having a text to grapple with gives you a third element through which you can talk about this difficult thing. From our years of experience with Harry Potter and the Sacred Text and Common Ground Pilgrimages, we have observed firsthand how a shared text can accelerate mutual understanding and facilitate profound conversations. We are so excited to share this approach in a more private and accessible way through Literary Chaplaincy.

  • Traditionally, chaplains were representatives of larger religious institutions who provided spiritual care services in non-religious settings. For example, if you were a patient in hospital, going to church would not be an option for you, which meant you didn’t have your community or the rituals that you’d typically rely on during difficult times. Chaplaincy was designed to address that need, sending chaplains to places where spiritual practices and rituals were not accessible: chaplains would bring your religion and your practices to you. (This is why you often find chaplains in places like hospitals, prisons, the military, university campuses, etc.)

    In recent years, there has been a significant decline in the number of people who belong to organized religious communities and even those who participate often do so with a great deal of ambivalence. For many of us, we don’t have a community where practices and rituals can help us live into our values and get us through difficult times. This lack is what we hope our literary chaplaincy can address: our literary chaplains come to you, using a text you know and love to teach you about the tools and resources that can help you navigate a difficult time. They lead you in using sacred practices and rituals to make meaning of your experiences and access your own spiritual resources.

  • Chaplaincy is not therapy, and we don’t recommend using chaplaincy as a replacement for psychological evaluation or treatment. We do think, however, that spiritual care and chaplaincy play a role in addressing the current mental health crisis and epidemic of loneliness. Additionally, chaplaincy can be complementary to psychotherapy: it can give you connection, community, and reflective practices, all of which are valuable tools for getting well and staying well.

  • — 6-Week Virtual Group Chaplaincy Circles (6 weekly sessions): These chaplaincy circles of 6-8 participants focus on a specific topic like parenting, transition, grief, etc, tracing their unique and shared experiences through close engagement with a central text. Facilitated by one of our chaplains, each circle offers a non-judgmental space where participants listen to one another and use reflective reading practices to interpret their collective experience. As a group, they will identify their values and imagine what a life more closely aligned with those values might look like.

    — What Matters Cohort

Pillars of Literary Chaplaincy

— Literary Chaplaincy is a service that provides emotional care through the art of listening & witnessing.

— Through deep engagement with a secular text that matters to you, you and your chaplain will build the mutual understanding necessary for transformative conversations.

— While distinct from therapy, literary chaplaincy offers spiritual & emotional support.

— The text will give you a way of approaching difficult topics indirectly, making them easier to share.