‘Well‐being’ through reading: drawing upon literature and literacy in spiritual education

Abstract

In this paper reading is conceived as a spiritual gift that can help readers towards an understanding of being. The image of the well and the act of drawing water is employed to illustrate the relation of the spiritual and the aesthetic. The term ‘well‐being’ in relation to reading is used here to draw attention to the importance of ontology in both reading and spiritual education. How readers can practice reading as a spiritual gift is explored with reference to the philosophy of Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), reader‐response theory and selected biblical passages.

Keywords:

• Reading
• Well‐being
• Heidegger
• Spiritual
• Literature
• Aesthetic
• literacy

Notes

Corresponding author. School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds, England, UK. Email: [email protected]