Sustaining Spirits on an Open Sea

Offering a theology of accompaniment grounded in the lived wisdom of chaplains

Chaplains meet people at the most difficult thresholds of life. In hospitals, universities, prisons, and other public settings, they accompany those facing grief, trauma, illness, uncertainty, and loss. Their work rarely offers easy explanations. Instead, it depends on attention and a commitment to remain present when suffering cannot be fixed.

In Sustaining Spirits on an Open Sea, Shelly Rambo turns to the work of contemporary chaplains to reconsider a central theological question: How is God present to us in the midst of pain? Rambo places the narratives of chaplains in conversation with Christian scripture and the writings of Julian of Norwich and Howard Thurman, showing how theologizing the divine from sites of care yields new ways of thinking about divine presence and the importance of spiritual accompaniment. Rather than locating the divine in dramatic intervention or certainty, Rambo finds theological meaning in the rich imagery of ancient and contemporary chaplains, pointing to, and beyond, theologies of care to depict a theology of spiritual survival and the spiritual conditioning needed to withstand collective trauma. In contrast to views of divine control and rescue, Rambo unearths images of divine laboring, brooding, and nourishing, visible to those who insist on staying in close proximity to suffering. She offers a radical corrective to long-established threads of Christian theology and resists religious platitudes and cultural pressures to cure or explain suffering.

Drawing on accounts from chaplains across religious traditions and institutional settings, she shows how their meaning-making practices become a prism for reshaping theology, opening it to spiritual wisdom that emerges through encounter, vulnerability, and public care. The book celebrates the pluralistic character of chaplaincy, names the challenges chaplains face in doing this work, and reveals the power of drawing from one’s own spiritual inheritances while remaining responsive to the beliefs, doubts, and needs of others.

Written for readers in theology, religion, chaplaincy studies, pastoral care, and trauma studies, Sustaining Spirits on an Open Sea speaks to practitioners as well as anyone asking how faith might meet suffering with honesty, compassion, and endurance.