Classes in English or History might teach students to read texts as the expressions of specific ideological viewpoints, or to set them in historical context, but this course invites students to consider how their relationship to loved and well-known texts might become a source of mental strength and emotional resilience, facilitating the discovery of essential personal truths that might be found within or outside an established belief system. Drawing on the methodologies and insights of psychologists, philosophers, saints, and literary critics, this course will ask students to treat the profane—a novel, a movie, a pop song, a poem—as sacred, recognizing that meaning is jointly authored by the creators and consumers of art. Students will begin the semester by considering the writings of Victor Frankl, Vanessa Zoltan, and David Dark, who have advocated for and modeled the reading practices they will be adopting, in conjunction with several brief texts. Then we will collectively approach several well-known and widely-loved texts: one work of non-fiction, one classic work of literary fiction, and a sci-fi or fantasy novel. As a community of readers, we will explore the liturgical possibilities opened up by holding a text, in common, as a source of wisdom and truth. Finally, in the last weeks of the semester, students will select their own sacred text. Class sessions will be devoted to discussions of how individual reading practices of this personal, “profane” scripture cultivates a new understanding of an relationship to the world. Through their participation in this course, students will come to see literature as a source of practical wisdom, personal insight, and aesthetic pleasure; as a vital perspective upon history and the diversity of human experience; and as a guide for making ethical choices in their daily lives.