The Nearness is a space to explore life’s big questions with like-hearted people.
Each Nearness course gathers small groups of five to six people for weekly online discussion, where you engage in self-inquiry and reflection, experience the joy of meaningful connection and community, and experiment with new practices and rituals to support your spiritual life.
Our Origin
We started the Nearness because, like so many people around us, we weren’t traditionally religious, but we longed for connection, meaning, and spirituality.
Co-founder Alec Gewirtz grew up in an atheist Jewish family, where spirituality was never more than the butt of an occasional joke. When he began to struggle with depression and anxiety, he became interested in spirituality, and he went on to study religion at Princeton University and live at an interfaith L'Arche community for people with disabilities.
Co-founder Casper ter Kuile grew up in the English countryside, in a non-religious family that was nonetheless rich in rituals. He's spent a decade exploring how spirituality and community are changing as a researcher at Harvard Divinity School, a writer, and as co-host of the podcast, Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.
Our Team
Casper ter Kuile
Alec Gewirtz
Carolina Pissarro
EJ Baker
Our spiritual advisors
Derrick Scott III
Elizabeth Oldfield
Sr. Mary Dacey
Serena Bian
Spiritual seeking was often a lonely process for us—an isolated experience of listening to a podcast, following a teacher on Instagram, or reading a spiritual self-help book.
There was no structure of community that might compare with a traditional religious congregation for nonreligious people like us. Yearning for such a structure, we set out to create one with The Nearness
Our Spiritual Principles
People participating in The Nearness have a wide variety of beliefs, practices, and backgrounds. We don’t ask anyone to believe in any dogma; instead, we welcome difference.
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Our COmmitments
We are a cooperative
Being a cooperative means that we co-create our experience together and adhere to the internationally recognized cooperative principles.
We are open-minded and caring
When joining a small group, everyone affirms the community Covenant, which you can read here.
We are varied
That means that we all have our own practices, beliefs, backgrounds, and contexts. And everybody is allowed to be fully themselves.