Resisting the Powers that Fragment

Posted on February 11, 2026February 11, 2026 by Jeremy Frye

by Jeremy Frye

The work of repair does not begin with systems. It begins with people who are awake.

Every winter, two of my dearest friends and I make the same mini pilgrimage together. We leave behind our calendars, our screens, and the low hum of the obligations that fill our ordinary days, and we travel to my family’s cabin for a short getaway. There, nestled in the stillness of trees and time that doesn’t demand anything from us, we reclaim something that often slips through our fingers in the pace of daily life: attention.

We watch old movies. One of our traditions is that each of us brings a film the other two haven’t seen—something we love and want to share. Sharing stories we love with people who will understand why they matter to us. We linger over meals. We talk about the things that have shaped us, the hurts that haven’t healed, and the hopes we don’t often name out loud. We laugh more than usual. Sometimes we cry. But more than anything, we are present to one another.

We see each other regularly in our everyday lives, but this time is different. It is marked by intention. We have chosen to step away from the noise—not only the noise of devices and news, but the quieter noise inside us: the pressure to be useful, to be efficient, to keep up. For a couple of days, we lay all of that down. Not to escape life, but to remember what it feels like to live it wholly.

Over time, I’ve come to realize that this weekend functions like a kind of trumpet blast. Not loud or jarring, but unmistakable. It calls me back to myself. Back to friendship. Back to the truth that life is meant to be shared, not managed. It wakes me up to how fragmented my days often become—and how easily I accept that fragmentation as normal.

We live under powerful forces that pull us apart. They fragment our attention, our relationships, and even our sense of self. These powers are not always obvious. Often, they present themselves as progress, efficiency, or success. They tell us that faster is better, bigger is wiser, and that worth can be measured by output or consumption. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, they train us to live divided lives—present nowhere for very long.

The Feast of Trumpets was meant to interrupt that kind of drift. A blast of sound rang out over the community, calling God’s people to attention. It was a wake-up call—an invitation to stop, to remember who they were, and to prepare their hearts for what was coming next. It reminded them that they belonged first to God, not to the surrounding powers or rhythms of the world.

We need that kind of interruption, too. Because we are constantly surrounded by forces—systems, corporations, technologies, programs—that promise connection, progress, and ease, but often leave us more distracted and divided. These forces aren’t always malicious. Some are even well-intentioned. But they are too large, too fast, too impersonal to hold what is tender and true. Whether it’s a global brand, a bureaucratic agency, or a religious program, they tend to prioritize efficiency over presence, control over care. They cannot do the slow, relational work of healing. That work happens in smaller spaces—around tables, in conversations, through friendship. The trumpet blast reminds us to wake up to these forces, not with fear, but with clarity. And to choose a different way.

These small acts refuse the lie that our value lies in what we produce or consume.

The work of repair does not begin with systems. It begins with people who are awake. People who notice what is pulling them apart. People who choose, again and again, to live differently—more attentively, more locally, more faithfully.

Soul friendship is one of those choices. In a fragmented world, simply being present to another person is a form of resistance. Listening without distraction. Sharing life without agenda. Walking alongside someone without trying to fix or optimize them. These small acts refuse the lie that our value lies in what we produce or consume. They create spaces of wholeness in the midst of a fractured culture. In a world where people are seen as audiences, consumers, or followers, soul friendship restores the dignity of being seen and known.

The Feast of Trumpets was a call to remember—to wake up from forgetfulness and return to what matters most. In the same way, we need practices that disrupt the numbness of modern life. We need reminders that the gospel is not primarily about building impressive structures or sustaining large programs, but about small, faithful communities embodying love in tangible ways.

So what might resistance look like for us? It might be as simple as turning off the noise—stepping away from the endless scroll and choosing to be fully present with the person in front of you. It might be investing more deeply in just a few relationships, rather than spreading yourself so thin that nothing has time to grow roots. It might mean choosing simplicity in a culture that constantly urges excess.

The blast of the trumpet was meant to cut through the ordinary noise and reorient God’s people toward what was true. Perhaps we need our own trumpet blasts—not dramatic or performative, but intentional pauses. Chosen interruptions. Moments when we step out of the rush and remember who we are, and who we belong to.

This week, consider what powers may be fragmenting your life right now. What is pulling your attention away from God, from your neighbors, from your own soul? Then take one small step toward resistance. Turn off what distracts. Say no to what drains. Say yes to what is small and faithful.

Because the world does not need louder noise or bigger systems. It needs people who are awake—people willing to resist fragmentation with the quiet, steady work of presence, friendship, and love. Sometimes the trumpet sounds not from a mountaintop, but from a friend’s voice, calling us back to what matters most.

Soul Friendship and the Sacred Rhythm of God’s Time

Posted on December 19, 2025February 11, 2026 by Jeremy Frye

by Jeremy Frye

The sacred rhythm of God’s time is not meant to burden us with more obligations.

For the last four years, I have lived across the street from someone who has become one of my dearest friends. I have had the privilege of meeting three of his four children within hours of their birth. We have shared meals, watched each other’s children, taken each other out for birthdays, introduced one another to books and movies we love, and walked with each other through joy and sorrow.

This summer, he and his family moved down the street. They aren’t far—I can walk to their new house in about five minutes; I’ve timed it. And yet our street is feeling the ache of their departure. One of the things I have been most grateful for over these years is the gift of their presence—not abstract presence, but real, tangible presence. The kind that happens on front lawns and sidewalks. The kind that lingers.

Nearly every day, I could look out my window and see neighbors gathered in their yard—parents talking while children played, conversations sparked simply because someone was outside and available. That unhurried presence has done more to knit our neighborhood together than any organized effort ever could. They didn’t set out to build community. They simply walked out the front door and paid attention.

The other person in our neighborhood who has this innate ability is my own son. From the time we moved to Nashville when he was four years old, he would sit in our front yard and ask to pet every dog that walked by. And so he came to know their owners. I can’t count how many times I’ve met someone new in the neighborhood only to hear, “Oh, I know your son—I met him one day when I was walking my dog.” Presence, it turns out, is contagious. And it is how places become home.

We live, however, in a world ruled by the clock. Time is measured in deadlines, productivity, and efficiency. Days blur together, one rushing into the next, and we are left feeling fragmented and exhausted. In this rhythm, relationships suffer. Friendship becomes something we try to fit in, rather than something we shape our lives around.

But God’s time does not work that way. The sacred rhythms given in Scripture—Sabbath, feasts, seasons of rest and rejoicing—were meant to pull God’s people out of the tyranny of endless doing and back into the grace of being. They remind us that time is not simply something to manage or consume, but something to receive.

The Feast of Weeks, Shavuot, embodies this truth beautifully. Fifty days after Passover and the first fruits of spring, the people gathered to offer the early summer harvest with gratitude and to remember the gift of Torah—the shaping of a people in covenant with God and with one another. It was a feast of shared presence. A reminder that community, like the land, must be tended over time. That faithfulness unfolds slowly.

There is another feast that deepens this rhythm even further. At Christmas, we remember that God did not remain distant or abstract, but entered time itself. The eternal Word took on flesh and moved into the neighborhood. God chose proximity. Vulnerability. Presence.

Christmas and its twelve-day feast are not simply a celebration of God coming into the world; they are a declaration of how God comes—quietly, locally, relationally. The One who gave sacred rhythms steps fully inside them. God joins us in the ordinary texture of human life: family, place, hunger, rest, companionship. The Incarnation is the ultimate act of soul friendship.

This is the heart of sacred time. Grace—the kind that heals and sustains—does not grow in isolation. It takes root in shared life. We were never meant to carry the weight of existence alone. Healing, strength, and joy emerge when we slow down enough to be present to one another, when we choose to dwell rather than rush, when we allow our lives to overlap in meaningful ways. This kind of grace cannot be manufactured or forced. It is received. And it grows best at a human pace.

When we align our lives with God’s time, we begin to notice one another again. We make room for listening, for meals, for silence, for joy. Our relationships become more connected, more resilient. Soul friendship is no longer squeezed into the margins of our lives, but becomes one of the ways we recognize God’s presence among us.

The sacred rhythm of God’s time is not meant to burden us with more obligations. It is meant to free us—from the lie that time is scarce, from the pressure to prove our worth through productivity, from the assumption that bigger is always better. It teaches us that there is enough when we live attentively, that abundance often looks like shared life rather than accumulation.

What might this look like for us now? It doesn’t need to be elaborate. It could be lighting a candle at dinner and letting the meal linger. It could be walking your street without headphones and noticing who is there. It could be setting aside time to listen—to God, to your own soul, to the people you love. It might be choosing presence over efficiency, attention over achievement.

Soul friendship cannot be rushed. It grows in rhythms of rest, gratitude, and intentional presence. It takes time. And that time, when received rather than consumed, becomes holy.

As this season unfolds, consider what sacred rhythm might already be waiting beneath the surface of your days. Where are you rushing past the presence of God? Who have you been too busy to see? What might change if you trusted that time itself is a gift?

Because this is what Christmas ultimately tells us: love comes close. God chooses nearness. And the kingdom of God takes root not in spectacle or speed, but in the slow, faithful presence of lives shared together.

Living the Gospel at Human Scale

Posted on November 18, 2025March 16, 2026 by Jeremy Frye

by Jeremy Frye

When we live at human scale, we slow down enough to notice the faces in front of us.

For as long as I can remember, my favorite holiday has always been Thanksgiving. My earliest holiday memories are not of being gathered around a tree or a birthday cake but a table. In my family, Thanksgiving was the one holiday whose sole focus was presence; being together. No gifts, no spectacle, no performance—just the simple act of gathering around a table, remembering that we belonged to one another, and giving thanks for the gift of being alive together. Whatever else the world demanded of us, Thanksgiving felt like a return to the human scale. A day made up of shared food, shared conversation, and shared life.

In my adulthood, Thanksgiving continues to be the holiday that I cherish the most. It has become a day when friends gather as family. People who might otherwise be alone, find a place at our table. And we continue to give thanks for the gifts that we have received, namely, each other.

I understand that the way Thanksgiving is often remembered in our cultural imagination—particularly the Pilgrim story—is far more complicated, and in many ways, damaging. The myth can obscure the real history of colonial violence and the ongoing grief of Indigenous peoples. Yet it is possible, and even necessary, to tell the truth about that history while still receiving the feast itself as a gift. Because the holiday we now celebrate here in the United States was not actually founded on the Pilgrim myth, but on a longing for healing.

In 1863, in the midst of civil war, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving—not as a celebration of triumph, but as a call to communal tenderness and mercy. He invited the nation to remember “those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers,” and to allow gratitude to soften our grief. Thanksgiving, as a national holiday, was born not out of conquest but out of the need for healing, humility, and shared humanity.

When I look at Thanksgiving through that frame, I recognize its deep kinship with Sukkot, the biblical feast in which the people dwelt in temporary shelters to remember that life itself is gift. Both feasts remind us that we are not self-made. That we are held. That our flourishing depends on shared life, shared resources, shared joy. Both return us to a scale where the holy can be encountered: the scale of table, shelter, neighbor, friend.

The Feast of Booths—Sukkot—was a celebration of God’s provision. For seven days, the people of Israel left their permanent homes and lived in temporary shelters, reminding themselves that they were once wanderers and that all they had came from the gracious hand of God. It was a time of rejoicing, of shared meals and laughter, of remembering that life is a gift, not something we possess.

Sukkot points us to something we easily forget: God meets us at the human scale

Sukkot points us to something we easily forget: God meets us at the human scale. Not in grandeur or spectacle, but in small, ordinary places. The gospel was never meant to be an abstract theory or a program managed by distant systems. It is meant to be lived in bodies and neighborhoods, around tables and in conversations, in the rhythms of ordinary days.

We live in a world that glorifies what is big—big ideas, big platforms, big solutions. But the problem with “big” is that it often loses touch with what is truly human. Large-scale efforts can be impressive, but they can also become impersonal, disconnected from the simple act of knowing and caring for one another.

Wendell Berry reminds us that the real work of planet-saving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) it will be joyous and kind and done together. Soul friendship is exactly that kind of work. It is small, humble, and deeply human. It doesn’t fix everything, but it creates ripples of healing and hope that grow in ways we cannot measure.

When we live at human scale, we slow down enough to notice the faces in front of us. We share meals, plant gardens, tell stories, and pray together. We stop trying to control outcomes and instead tend what has been entrusted to us—the relationships and places within our reach. We begin to see that loving the few people God has given us is not less meaningful than trying to change the whole world. In fact, it might be the only way the world truly changes.

The Feast of Booths was a reminder that the people of God were always dependent—on God, on one another, on the land. To dwell in temporary shelters was to remember vulnerability, to be reacquainted with the truth that we are held by grace, not control. It was a practice of grounding—a way of returning to what is essential: shared life, mutual care, and the holy that gathers around tables and in circles of belonging.

In our own time, living the gospel at a human scale offers a similar invitation. Not toward achievement or grandeur, but toward presence. It might look like choosing to stay close to your people rather than chasing the next ambition. It might mean tending to your block, your neighborhood, your ordinary corner of the world—offering a meal, a listening ear, or even just silence shared with someone who needs it.

To live this way is not to abandon the pain or complexity of the larger world—it is to face it honestly, and still choose love. To say: I will begin with what I’ve been given. I will tend what is mine to tend. I will not turn away from suffering, but I will not wait for a perfect solution before I offer what I can.

So, perhaps this week, you might begin with gratitude. Not the kind that glosses over grief, but the kind that makes space for both joy and sorrow. Reflect on the gifts hidden in your daily life. Notice who has sat at your table, or who might need an invitation. Consider what small act of care might carry the weight of healing.

Because this is how we mend the world—not in sweeping gestures, but in the quiet practice of faithfulness. One moment. One neighbor. One shared loaf at a time.

Perhaps this is why I have always loved Thanksgiving. Like the Feast of Booths, it invites us back to what is most basic and most true: we are dependent creatures, held by grace, sustained by one another. At its best, Thanksgiving is not a performance of abundance, but a remembering of dependence. It is a feast lived at human scale—a table around which we pause, notice who is here, and give thanks for the gift of belonging. We do not need to romanticize its history to receive its invitation. We simply practice the shared life it calls us to: gathering, blessing, offering, and being present. In doing so, we live the gospel in the only place it can truly take flesh—in the small, ordinary spaces of our lives.

Because the kingdom of God often comes not in dramatic displays of power, but in small, unnoticed acts of love that grow quietly, like seeds in the soil.

Loving The Neighbor Who Is Near

Posted on October 20, 2025February 11, 2026 by Jeremy Frye

by Jeremy Frye

We live in a time of unprecedented connection and yet unprecedented loneliness.

With the exception of a brief look in the morning, I am fairly disconnected from the news of the world.

I don’t watch news on television, I rarely listen to news on the radio and I don’t engage in social media very often. My morning brief keeps my apprised of major world events but I’ve found over the years that, mostly, the news serves as a tool that sends me into an often hopeless spiral of despair. And so, I made a decision long ago to not invest much time in world events.

This has resulted in both awe and ire from various people in my life. Awe from those who wish they too were less connected, and ire from those who feel that my lack of engagement means a lack of care.

I recognize that there are significant things happening in the world. This is always true. My struggle is that, for most of those issues, I am unable to do anything about them. I can be frustrated. I may even be moved to lend support either through words or finances. But regardless of how much I ‘care’ about these global issues, I am not actually able to make a significant difference with them.

Perhaps this statement has added you to the ire category, but please allow me to explain myself more clearly before you pass judgement.

At issue for me is a question of both capacity and attention. I have come to realize that I only have a certain amount of energy and attention to offer. This limitation has required me to prioritize how I use my energy and where I focus my attention. I am unable to ‘care’ for all of the issues that the world is faced with. I have come to realize that I am no good at loving in the abstract. I’m not sure that any of us are. Because we live in a globally interconnected world, I believe that we all feel pressure to be attentive to all that is happening in it. This is what I mean by loving in the abstract. I may “care” about global issues, but I cannot effectively love the people facing those world issues because they are not near me.

In one of the Pharisees’ many attempts to entrap Jesus, they questioned him on the greatest commandment. After giving the “right” answer from Leviticus—that they were to “love your neighbor as yourself” the Pharisee asked Jesus a question that might seem obvious to us, but was an issue of hot debate at the time: “Who is my neighbor?”

As was so often the case, Jesus responded not with a quick reply but with an infuriatingly story. It’s a story that many people, even those with no familiarity with the Scriptural text, know. And because of that, it has lost some of it’s infuriating and unending power.

Consider what Jesus says anew:

A man is sat upon by robbers and left for dead in a ditch. Two different men of a religious order see the man as they are passing and cross over to the other side of the road, too concerned for their own safety, status, schedule, or purity to help. Then another man comes by. This man might, in other situations, be considered an enemy to the man in the ditch. But he only sees someone in need and has the means to help him. So he stops, cares for the man, takes him to the nearest town and puts him up in a hotel where he can recover.

Jesus concludes this story by asking the Pharisee; “who was the neighbor to the wounded man?”

To which he could only reply; “The one who helped him.”

This parable of the Good Samaritan is probably one of the best known and widely told stories in all of Scripture. And many a scholar has waxed eloquent as to what Jesus is trying to say. But I don’t believe that it’s a hard story to interpret. Who is my neighbor? — Anyone who is nearby.

Loving your neighbor is not the end of the journey of soul friendship, but it is where it always begins.

When we think about loving the world, it’s tempting to imagine something distant or heroic—traveling across the world, making a grand sacrifice, doing something “big” for God. But the call to love our neighbor is often far more ordinary—and, perhaps, more challenging. It begins with the people right in front of us: the family we share a home with, the coworker whose habits annoy us, the literal neighbor whose name we still don’t know. And in-so-much as we are actively engaged in loving our neighbor, we are in-fact loving the world.

The Feast of Passover reminds us that God rescues His people from the systems that enslave and dehumanize. It’s not just deliverance from something; it’s deliverance into a new way of life. And that new way begins with the simplest and most demanding command: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). During Passover and the days of Unleavened Bread, God told God’s people to clear their homes of leaven—symbolizing the removal of pride, greed, and distraction. Loving our neighbor always requires a kind of clearing out, a making space within ourselves to see and care for someone else.

We live in a time of unprecedented connection and yet unprecedented loneliness. Our lives are cluttered with noise and hurry. We rush past the people who live closest to us while pouring out energy on things far away. We text acquaintances across the country but don’t know the name of the person across the street. And in that gap, the gospel gets lost.

The health of our lives depends on those nearest us—our upstream and downstream neighbors. If we harm them, we harm ourselves. If we bless them, we bless the place we live. This echoes the teaching of Jesus: the love of God is revealed most clearly in the love of those around us, not in vague sentiment or abstract causes.

To love the neighbor who is near is not glamorous. It’s showing up for someone who is sick. It’s pausing to listen when someone is lonely. It’s offering kindness without expecting anything in return. It’s being faithful in small, unseen ways. This is what makes it so difficult—and so transformative.

When we love the person in front of us, we begin to see them as God sees them. We begin to notice their story, their joys and sorrows, the hidden beauty of their life. And something in us changes too. Love given in the small, ordinary moments shapes our souls far more deeply than any grand gesture ever could.

So what would it look like to take this call seriously? Maybe it’s learning the name of the person who lives next door. Maybe it’s texting a friend you’ve lost touch with just to say, “I was thinking about you.” Maybe it’s sitting down for a real conversation with a spouse or child you’ve been too busy to truly hear.

Passover and Unleavened Bread are about leaving behind what enslaves—our hurry, our self-absorption, our endless distractions. They invite us into a new way of living, where we create space for love to take root.

The work of loving your neighbor will not make headlines. It won’t feel urgent or impressive. But it is the kind of love that heals the world from the inside out.

This week, try something small: slow down. Pay attention. Ask God, “Who have You already placed in my life to love?” Then do one simple act of kindness for that person—not because it’s efficient or strategic, but because it’s the way of Jesus.

Loving your neighbor is not the end of the journey of soul friendship, but it is where it always begins.

The Invitation to Soul Friendship

Posted on September 15, 2025December 19, 2025 by Jeremy Frye

by Jeremy Frye

What might it look like to live as a soul friend?

Celtic Christians used the term Anam Cara—literally “soul friend”—to describe a relationship marked by deep spiritual companionship, a mutual seeing that reveals the presence of God in the other. It was not casual friendship, nor was it hierarchical like teacher and student. It was a sacred trust: a willingness to walk with another in honesty, tenderness, and reverence. In a culture that measured worth by strength, honor, and achievement, Anam Cara friendship stood apart as a way of belonging rooted not in what one could do, but in who one was.

We live in a time not unlike theirs. Noise, speed, and the constant pressure to prove our value through productivity surround us. Relationships—even good ones—often get reduced to transactions: what can this person do for me? What can I offer them? In such a world, the invitation to be a soul friend feels both radical and strangely simple. It is the decision to be present—to really see another human being and hold space for them as they are, without judgment or agenda.

At Anam Cara, we often talk about being soul friends in the world. An Invitation to Soul Friendship is literally our tagline. Lately, I’ve been pondering what it would actually look like for someone to respond to that invitation. I’ve said this way of living is both radical and simple. But for most of us, I suspect it mostly feels radical. The decision to be present may be simple, but it is far from easy.

It’s my hope that the essays in this series will offer a vision of a way of being in the world that, if not easy, is at least compelling. I want to articulate a framework for how we might actually live out this invitation we extend so often here at Anam Cara. Because I truly believe the world needs more people choosing—day by day—to live as Anam Cara.

Jesus said to His closest friends, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). This is the heartbeat of soul friendship. It is rooted in the friendship God first extends to us—an openness, a sharing of life, a presence that does not demand but delights.

Living as Anam Cara in the world is radical because it runs counter to the logic of our culture. We live in an economy that sees people as commodities—measured by productivity, consumption, and profit. That economy shapes almost every decision we make: where we live, what we eat, how we work, even how we approach leisure and friendship. To live as a soul friend requires us to see this clearly. Until we recognize the forces that work against this way of life, we will remain frustrated by our inability to “make it work.”

This is why soul friendship feels radical—because it refuses the lie that we are only valuable insofar as we are useful.

Soul friendship operates outside the economy of the world because it plays by entirely different rules. It is not about gain. In fact, it threatens the powers of consumption because it draws us toward dependence on one another and away from dependence on “the system.” This is why it feels radical—because it refuses the lie that we are only valuable insofar as we are useful.

To paraphrase Wendell Berry, The smallest unit of health is the community. If the community is not healthy, then the members of it cannot be. I would add that the smallest unit of community is a friendship rooted in love. The health of the world begins with the health of our relationships. Soul friendship is how the gospel takes on flesh in the quiet corners of our lives. It is how healing begins—first within us, then between us, and eventually spilling outward into the world around us.

But here is the paradox: soul friendship begins with stillness. Before we can truly see and hold space for another, we must learn to stop. Sabbath teaches us this. It interrupts the endless cycle of doing and reminds us that our worth is not found in achievement but in being. When we practice Sabbath—not just as a day off, but as a conscious act of ceasing—we make room for friendship with God. And in doing so, we begin to make room for friendship with others.

So the invitation to soul friendship is not primarily about finding the “right” person or forcing a deeper relationship. It starts with a posture of rest and presence. It asks: Can I slow down long enough to notice the people already given to me? Can I listen without trying to fix? Can I sit with someone else’s joy or sorrow without rushing past it?

In a world that measures success in numbers and influence, we are reminded that transformation begins small. Not facilitated by large institutions or programs, but in the simple act of one person making space for another. The world will not ultimately be healed by governments or organizations—helpful as they sometimes are—but by people who choose to live as friends, quietly embodying the gospel in daily life.

To begin, we don’t need to go far. We start with God, who calls us friend. We start with the person nearest us—the family member at our table, the neighbor next door, the friend we’ve lost touch with. And we start with ourselves, daring to believe that God looks at us not with condemnation but with deep delight.

Perhaps this week you could take one small step. Stop for a moment of quiet—set aside the to-do list and the endless scrolling. Take a breath. Ask God to show you one person to truly see. It might be someone close to you, or someone you’ve overlooked. And then, with no agenda but love, reach out.

This where soul friendship begins. With one person. With one moment of stillness. With one simple act of presence.

Maundy Thursday

Posted on March 28, 2024April 17, 2025 by Jeremy Frye

This post is an Excerpt from Tara Owen’s Book: Embracing the Body

My jaw spasmed, clenching tight. Pain rippled through me.

Maundy Thursday. My favorite day of the year.

I had taken the driver’s seat on the way to service. We were late. I drove aggressively. Careless enough of the cares of others on the road that my jet-lagged husband mentioned it. I hate being late.

And so I speed walked my way to the chapel, trying to control the pace, refusing to reach out for my husband’s hand, he who I had been without for nearly two weeks, who I professed to missing more than anything in the world. I needed to be on time. I need to be in the right.

But we weren’t late. Not really. I had read the time wrong, and we were half an hour early instead, there in time for rehearsals. It was then the first pain shot through my jaw. I rubbed at it absently and went to help fill the tubs for the foot washing with hot, hot water. Hot was we could stand. It would cool as the service progressed.

And then, sitting in the pews, early and woefully unrepentant for my control, my need to be perfect, my desire to save myself by being at the right places at the right times, it was then she came and asked us:

When the time comes, will you help strip the altar?

She used our names. Bryan and Tara. Us, in particular. I hesitate even to add our names to the request, to make the sentence a reference to me, in the flesh. Tara, the daughter of Sally, the granddaughter of Francis, the great granddaughter of Reginald.

Bryan and Tara, will you help betray Jesus?

Yes, we nodded. Of course we will help.

When she left, I turned wild-eyed to look at my husband, the muscle in my cheek clenching hard, harder.

Maundy Thursday is my favorite service, my favorite day, because of all that happens in it. After a flurry of activity in Jerusalem, temple-clearing and hosannas and watching a widow give her all, Jesus settles in with his beloveds to something he himself says that he has “eagerly desired” (Luke 22:15, NRSV). We don’t get that anywhere else—the idea that the Son of God is looking forward to something. And it’s us, in this moment. It’s washing our feet, gently, tenderly. It’s taking the bread and breaking it, offering the cup and blessing it. Take, eat, he says.

And I do. I receive.

My husband, who I had rejected only hours before in my need to prove my own righteousness, kneels down before me. The water is still hot, hotter than it’s ever been before, and I wince in surprise and sorrow. It has to be hot to wash my cold soul clean, to wake me physically to what is to come. He kneads my toes, my arch, my heel, and I remember Christ’s words about the serpent and the bruising. It’s been a long season of bruising, and suddenly the hands on my feet are Christ’s hands, rubbing the ache away. I look into Christ’s eyes, as he kneels before me. Oh, how often I betray you, I think. You are Christ made flesh.

Bare-footed, I return to my seat and in the silence, I watch our community knit together in humility. Newlyweds, whose first service together as a couple last year was this service, who married two months ago in this very church, approach the water. She washes him, and as he in turn serves her, I imagine his tears mingling with the water. He washes her clean, and they stand together, embracing.

A new father washes his infant daughter’s feet, dangling her above the basin as she is so often held above and away from the cares of this world. I know he would always hold her, if he could. Protecting, guarding, loving. Across from him, his wife kneels to wash the feet of a man without a home. Someone on whom the cares of the world weigh heavy and dark. Her mother heart tenderly embraces him.

Another mother’s eyes brim with tears as she watches her husband wash her son’s feet, strong hands serving a son grown strong in God. And then the son turns, and the tears spill as he washes his own son’s feet, her grandson, who is scooped close in his arms, carried again as she once carried him, all of his questions held tight in the embrace of a father.

After this, I watch the arms of the priests and deacons—brown and white, male and female, bearing on themselves disease and desperation, forgiveness and fear, hope and hosanna—rise in worship. I sing with my whole heart, May I never lose the wonder, the wonder of the cross. May I see it as the first time, standing as a sinner lost. I remember hearing these words first sung in a cathedral in England, as I stood by my best friend, ourselves both once lost but now found. I remember the moment that He found me, and the tears spill again.

And again my jaw spasms.

The pain dogs me up to the altar. The hands of the priest wrap warmly around mine, and his eyes smile as he hands me the broken bread. The body of Christ, he says. His joy repeats Jesus’s words to His disciples, I have eagerly anticipated this moment, I have eagerly anticipated serving you.

I bow my head. I can feel the weight of my coming betrayal. My jaw throbs. I open my mouth only wide enough to slip the bread in through the pain. The wine stings as it slides down my throat. My feet chill on the stone floor.

He knows I will betray him, and yet he loves, and loves me to the end.

The music swells as the Communion line thins.

Holy God, you are love.

It is normally a triumphant song, but the throb and beat is the throb and beat of the soldiers coming to take him away. I can feel it beating in my own blood, knowing that I am the one that will strip him bare. I want to say no, to give back the shiny silver of service that I so eagerly received before this all began. But it has already begun, and he has promised to love me ’til the end.

In the end, it’s the pain that propels me forward. I just want to get this over with.

The priest snuffs the candles with the palms of his hands, and I imagine the dark marks on his palms as he hands me the candle sticks. I walk away quickly with the silver heavy enough to bruise my bare heels once again, my steps on the stone resounding as I retreat.

Next, the stoles, already red with blood. I am handed both and I think, I have stripped him. I have taken his glory for my own. I lay them down over the offering baskets, hidden away, as if I could offer it back to him.

Finally, the white over the altar, all innocence and silk. Crumpled, I receive it, and as I walk away I hear the crash that years before I have only watched—the altar tipped over, defiled. It vibrates through me, this sound, and I almost don’t want to return to see what was once a table of celebration knocked over with my help.

Still, I return, and watch from a place away, to the side. I want to cry out as the cross is covered in black. As I hear the hammer of stake on wood, my soul screams. But my jaw clenches tight again, the stabs of pain keeping me silent. I cannot open my mouth.

And then, it is over. The priest who so warmly embraced me runs, stripped, from the church, fleeing Gethsemane. We who have served and celebrated sidle away silently.

The muscles in my cheek spasm again as I reach for my husband’s hand. It’s different, I tell him. It’s different when it’s me stripping the altar, when I take the actions myself, betraying him. On other nights like this, I have felt lost. Unsure of where they have taken this man who is everything to me. Unable to return home, we have wandered the city without purpose. Tonight, I feel my complicity. I am not lost. Instead, I want to trail after those who are, haunting them with a warning not to forget, not to fall asleep, not to leave him as I have. As I did. I am living the story—all the pain and the promise—in my own hands and feet.

My jaw spasms, and I stay silent.

This morning, I wake up, and the day is shrouded in fog. I ache all over, my body reflecting what my soul knows to be true. My knees feel pulled out of joint, my neck bearing a yoke of pain.

I stay inside, not wanting to be with the crowd. I know my spasming jaw will keep me silent when they yell out, Crucify Him!

But he has already been betrayed.

Instead, I take more ibuprofen than I should, to numb the pain. And I wait.

I wait because he has promised more, he has promised to love me to the end. I wait because this body of betrayal has the possibility of being a body of glory and wonder.

And it is not over yet.

Not yet.

Creed

Posted on March 28, 2024July 1, 2024 by Jeremy Frye

Creed by Abigail Carroll

I believe in the life of the word,
the diplomacy of food. I believe in salt-thick
ancient seas and the absoluteness of blue.
A poem is an ark, a suitcase in which to pack
the universe—I believe in the universality
of art, of human thirst

for a place. I believe in Adam’s work
of naming breath and weather—all manner
of wind and stillness, humidity
and heat. I believe in the audacity
of light, the patience of cedars,
the innocence of weeds. I believe

in apologies, soliloquies, speaking
in tongues; the underwater
operas of whales, the secret
prayer rituals of bees. As for miracles—
the perfection of cells, the integrity
of wings—I believe. Bones

know the dust from which they come;
all music spins through space on just
a breath. I believe in that grand economy
of love that counts the tiny death
of every fern and white-tailed fox.
I believe in the healing ministry

of phlox, the holy brokenness of saints,
the fortuity of faults—of making
and then redeeming mistakes. Who dares
brush off the auguries of a storm, disdain
the lilting eulogies of the moon? To dance
is nothing less than an act of faith

in what the prophets sang. I believe
in the genius of children and the goodness
of sleep, the eternal impulse to create. For love
of God and the human race, I believe
in the elegance of insects, the imminence
of winter, the free enterprise of grace.”

As if There Were Only One

Posted on March 28, 2024July 1, 2024 by Jeremy Frye

As if There Were Only One

Martha Serpas

In the morning God pulled me onto the porch,
a rain-washed gray and brilliant shore.
I sat in my orange pajamas and waited.
God said, “look at the tree.” And I did.
Its leaves were newly yellow and green,
slick and bright, and so alive it hurt
to take the colors in. My pupils grew
hungry and wide against my will.
God said, “listen to the tree.”
And i did. it said, “live!”
And it opened itself wider, not with desire,
but the way i imagine a surgeon spreads
the ribs of a patient in distress and rubs
her paralyzed heart, only this tree parted
its own limbs toward the sky – i was the light in that sky.
I reached in to the thick, sweet core
and i lifted it to my mouth and held it there
for a long time until i tasted the word
tree (because i had forgotten its name).
Then I said my own name twice softly.
Augustine said, God loves each one of us as if
there were only one of us, but i hadn’t believed him.
And God put me down on the steps with my coffee
and my cigarettes. And, although I still
could not eat nor sleep, that evening
and that morning were my first day back.

Place ✝ Time

Posted on September 1, 2023February 11, 2024 by Jeremy Frye

by Ivy Clark

Place and time characterize our story’s historical meanings and social and cultural coherence. They whisper our sense of belonging and hold the continuity of our identity. As much as time feels finite, tangible, measurable and chronological, and the world relates, measures, and controls it through a numeric currency of tik-tok tik-tok tik-tok, I find time’s cadence, movements, and capacity much more fluid, circular and uncertain, as it synchronizes with the heartbeat of the Holy One, who authors time and dwells in and outside it.

As a spiritual director offering holy listening with a non-anxious presence for directees, I am drawn to place and time’s ever-changing geometry and autonomy. First is the directee’s cerebral embodiment of the physicalities of their place and time that is finite. Second, paralleled by an indissolvable dimension unbridled from the metaphysics of place and time, where the past, present and future are wholly and eternally present, open for Spiritual orientation and transcendence. These two dimensions of place and time interact and correspond continuously to each other, transmitting and interpreting, renewing and reviving meanings for the directee’s identity and story sealed in God.

Witnessing my directees’ sacred stories has been a holy ground for me. In my silence, I pray for “a listening ear that can see” (Howard Thurman). I sense that the deep in God calls me to cross the boundaries of my place and time, orienting my wholeness and sensitivity toward my directee’s journey, their identity, lived experiences and worldviews, etc. Spiritual direction, in many ways, feels like a repeated voyage of crossing over to the directee and returning to myself. God’s “shamar*”is offered and received each time I return with a deeper seeing of myself, yielding a deeper seeing of the directee. I have been on a journey of patient trust, holding my directee in the unbridled Spirit, the host that shows the way. Ivy Clark Reflection Journal Entry – Aug. 2023 2 of 2

This circular, grace-filled, emancipating and expanding experience with the parallel dimensions of space and time that ground us, and liberate us, enable us to encounter the trustworthy God, impregnated with wonder, love and action for Her children, makes spiritual direction a spacious and wildly God-centered journey for those who pilgrim it.

(*Hebrew “shamar”: to exercise great care of, to guard, observe, preserve …)

Books I am deeply savouring this summer:

• Kaleidoscope – Broadening the Palette in the Art of Spiritual Direction (I am rereading it for the second time)

• Our Unforming – De-Westernizing Spiritual Formation (by Cindy Lee) (I am rereading it for the second time)

• The Land – Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith

• The Promised End – Eschatology in Theology and Literature (by Paul S. Fiddes)

• Inklings of Heaven – C.S. Lewis and Eschatology (by Sean Connolly)

• Shakespeare’s Shakespeare – How the Plays Were Made (by John C. Meagher)

• The Tempest (I studied it in junior high school. Now re-reading it with my deep curiosity about the illusive concept of space, time and the last things.)

Sorting Our Desires In Spiritual Direction

Posted on September 1, 2023February 11, 2024 by Jeremy Frye

by Kate Laymon

“God writes his hopes into our desiring.” – Joseph Tetlow SJ, Choosing Christ in the World

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus said to the blind man, Bartimaeus, on his way out of Jericho. It can seem like the answer would be obvious. Here was a blind man, shouting out for mercy. And yet, Jesus asks him what it is he wants. He does not presume to know. He invites Bartimaeus to name his desire.

There is a vulnerability in the naming of our desires, even when they are obvious. Naming our desires opens us to the possibility of disappointment or even rejection. What if God says no? What if I do follow my desire and it leads me astray? We are more often prone to protect our hearts and bury our desires.

I learned very early to put others’ needs, desires, even preferences above my own. This was not only reinforced in my family, but in the Christian tradition I grew up in. I learned early on that Jesus served others and that I was supposed to be like Jesus. I never saw myself in the place of the blind man. I never knew that Jesus also desired to know what I wanted from him.

I remember vividly a time that I opened myself to desire and soon found myself at the bottom of a metaphorical ditch. I cried out to God for help. And he helped me. But I concluded afterwards that my desires could not be trusted. And I concluded that God’s desires for me, must be, had to be, so very different from my own. So, I set out to try to contort myself into someone I wasn’t, but someone who I thought God wanted me to be. Someone else.

Then, last year I journeyed through the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, a 9-month intensive prayer journey, accompanied by a spiritual director. Using Joseph Tetlow’s, Choosing Christ in the World as my guide, I came upon this line: “God writes his hopes into our desiring.” Read that line again. St. Ignatiaus of Loyola, a Christian mystic and saint, believed and taught in his Exercises that it’s in excavating our deepest desires that God’s heart and hopes for us will be found. That our desires are not something to be avoided, denied, or sacrificed, but that they are the very place to turn to find out who we are in Christ and what he hopes to do our in our lives. As we name our desires, we are witnessing the Christ in us. We are recognizing the Christ who lives in each of our own unique hearts and selves.

It’s been a long hard road back home to myself. And also, a beautiful homecoming. Like falling back into an old comfortable couch. A relief. A rest. There’s a way in which we can be prodigals to our own hearts and to Christ who dwells there, even in the name of religion or right living. As we come home to ourselves, to our hearts and our native desires, Christ runs out to meet us saying, “Welcome home! I’ve missed you so! Let’s throw a party!”

In listening to and naming our desires we can come home to ourselves and to God in the same fell swoop. Spiritual direction can be a place where we turn towards our desires and perhaps dig through a treasure chest that’s been long buried. There might be a lot of dust and debris on top, but there are beautiful jewels waiting to be discovered, if only we keep digging.

Even before I knew to begin naming my desires, my director began ushering me back home simply by sitting with and honoring the messy, flailing parts of my heart. This experience reassured me that God welcomes and embraces my beat up, broken, and bleeding heart and that it’s safe to bring my heart to God. This opened the way for me to receive the truth that God wants to know what I desire.

While Jeremiah’s words are often misused in chapter 17, it’s true enough, that our hearts can be deceitful, and our desires sometimes disordered. There are many desires that if followed may lead us somewhere we later wished we hadn’t gone. So how do we sort and discern what desires originate Christ?

Janet Ruffing, in her book, Beyond the Beginnings, says this about sorting our desires:

“As each thing we think we want emerges, it takes some time to test out whether we really do want it or not. This interior sorting through requires listening to ourselves at deeper levels than many of us are accustomed… Honest prayer, in fact, structures our desires… In allowing our desires room to be – to become conscious, intelligent, and available to us, even to become enlarged and expanded – and in the process of praying we find that we and our desires ‘get sorted out.’”

As I’ve been turning towards my soul, listening to Jesus’ invitation it to tell him what I want, a desire emerged that’s been stubbornly sticky over the years. I’ve learned to pay attention to desires that don’t seem to go away and so I brought this one to my spiritual director recently. I noticed that as I’ve turned towards it more fully, that it seemed to fade a bit, almost like it became shy, and I was tempted to dismiss it. Instead, she invited a deeper exploration. “What are the desires underneath this desire?” she asked. And I began to name things like agency (which is a desire to assert myself in my life), an enjoyment of continued learning, to use my voice and be heard, for healing of myself and others, and the enjoyment of adventure. Many of these are values and parts of me that make me, me. To see these deeper desires at work in me helped me see Christ’s own heart beating within mine. While I still don’t have a decision, I can now more clearly articulate to Jesus what it is I want and listen for how he may want to meet me in them and fulfill them in me.

Spiritual direction is a place where we can hear Jesus’ question to us personally: What do you want me to do for you? In my practice, I always begin a spiritual direction relationship asking some variation of this question: “What do you want in spiritual direction?” or even, “What do you want Jesus to do for you?” This is where we begin. With desire. And as we listen to desire, we begin to hear a faint but constant thumping: the heartbeat of God. Christ appears in our midst, beckoning us to get up and come. He’s calling.