In the Land of Unlikeness: A Reflection On the Risky Adventure of Being a Chaplain

The work of chaplaincy within mental healthcare brings an invitation to enter a “world of unlikeness”, to set out deliberately to see and know the world through the experience of the other. If we respond to the invitation, cultivating an interpathic approach as the guiding model of our work, we are led to the margins, to places of anxiety and puzzlement. They can also be places of adventure where we discover both friendship and fresh ways of being ourselves. This reflection suggests that the hospitality we receive, both from individuals and within communities, can renew us as practitioners, as human beings and as people of faith.