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Practicing Presence

Posted on by Jeremy Frye

by Jeremy Frye

Learning to Notice the Life Already Around Us

Each morning, I try to begin the day the same way, sitting quietly in the living room with a cup of coffee, looking out the window and allowing the day to arrive before I rush out to meet it. Last fall my son and I built a small birdhouse and hung it in the yard outside that window. For months it stood empty. But one morning this spring I noticed a flash of blue moving through the branches. A pair of bluebirds had found the little house. I watched them return again and again, inspecting it carefully, until finally one slipped inside. It occurred to me then that if I had not been sitting there, paying attention, I might never have known they had come.

It was a small moment, easily missed. But it reminded me how much of life reveals itself only to those who are willing to notice.

One of the simplest, and most difficult, practices of soul friendship is learning to pay attention.

Most of us move through our days in a state of partial presence. Our bodies are here, but our minds are somewhere else. We are thinking about what just happened, what needs to happen next, what we forgot to do, or what we hope will change tomorrow. Life becomes a blur of obligations and transitions. We rush from one thing to another without ever quite arriving.

And in that hurry, we miss the very things that give life its meaning.

We miss the neighbor walking past our house.
 We miss the subtle shift of seasons in the trees outside our window.
 We miss the quiet invitation of God present in the ordinary moments of the day.

Soul friendship begins with something much simpler than we often imagine. It begins with attention.

To be an anam cara—a soul friend—is first to become someone who is willing to notice. To see what is already here. To be present enough that another person, another creature, or even the land itself can come fully into view.

Jesus seemed to live this way.

He noticed people others overlooked. A tax collector sitting in a tree. A woman quietly reaching for the edge of his garment. Children who were being pushed aside by the disciples. A blind man calling out from the roadside.

Again and again in the gospels, Jesus stops. He turns. He sees.

And in that moment of attention, something changes. The person in front of him is no longer invisible. They are known. They are welcomed. They are restored to the circle of belonging.

I have experienced the power of that kind of attention in my own life. There have been seasons when I moved through the world carrying more than I knew how to name, and most of the people around me were simply too busy to notice. Life was moving quickly for everyone. Conversations stayed on the surface. Nothing seemed obviously wrong, but something inside me felt unseen.

But once, in the middle of one of those seasons, a friend paused long enough to look a little closer. They noticed what others had missed. They asked a question that opened a door I hadn’t realized was closed. In that moment something shifted—not because the problem was solved, but because someone had seen me.

And sometimes being seen is the beginning of healing.

We often think love requires extraordinary effort. But very often it begins with something far more ordinary: the willingness to stop and see.

This kind of attention is not easy in the world we inhabit. Our lives are filled with distractions designed to capture and hold our focus. Devices vibrate in our pockets. Screens glow late into the night. News cycles and social media compete constantly for our attention.

Over time, we begin to live as though our attention belongs to everything except the people and places nearest to us.

But attention is one of the most sacred gifts we possess. What we attend to shapes who we become. When we give our attention to the small circle of life around us—to our neighbors, our communities, the land beneath our feet—we begin to rediscover the world as gift.

This kind of presence cannot be forced. It must be practiced.

It may begin with something as simple as taking a walk through your neighborhood without headphones, allowing your senses to open to what is around you. The sound of a dog barking in the distance. The smell of damp soil after rain. The unplanned exchange of a greeting with someone tending their yard.

Or perhaps it begins by lingering a little longer in conversation with a friend instead of glancing at your phone.

Or by sitting in silence for a few moments at the beginning of the day, allowing your soul to settle before the noise begins.

These are small practices. But over time they begin to reshape the way we move through the world.

We begin to notice things we once overlooked. The subtle beauty of ordinary life. The quiet needs of people around us. The presence of God woven through the fabric of the everyday.

And once we begin to notice, love has somewhere to land.

This is how soul friendship begins to grow—not through grand gestures, but through the patient work of paying attention.

When we learn to notice one another, we create space for trust. When we notice the land, we begin to care for it. When we notice our own souls, we begin to understand what we carry and what we need.

Attention gathers what the world has scattered.

It brings us back to the present moment, where love is actually possible.

This week, try a small experiment.

Choose one ordinary moment each day to practice presence. Perhaps it is a walk through your neighborhood, a meal shared with someone you love, or a few quiet minutes at the start of the morning.

Slow down.

Look around.

Notice who and what has been placed in your life.

You may discover that the life you were searching for somewhere else has been quietly waiting for you right here the whole time you’ve been looking.

And perhaps one morning, while sitting quietly with a cup of coffee and watching the world outside your window, you will notice something you might have missed before—a small flash of life returning, like a pair of bluebirds discovering a little house that had been patiently waiting for their arrival.

Because the practice of presence does not transport us to another world.

It simply allows us to see this one more clearly.

And when we begin to see clearly, we discover that love has been waiting for our attention all along.

A Community of Soul Friends

Posted on by Tara Owens

by Jeremy Frye

 

Soul friendship can become an echo of that same rhythm—a space of belonging where what has been torn apart begins slowly to be re-woven.

 

About a year after I moved to Nashville, one of my closest friends—someone I had known for nearly 20 years—was involved in an accident that resulted in a traumatic brain injury. I spent most of the next 45 days in the hospital with him. His wife and I took turns sitting with him in the Neuro ICU, watching his intracranial pressure continue to rise even after a partial craniectomy. At one point, we met with both the palliative care doctor and the organ donation team because it didn’t look like he was going to survive the night.

 

Everything else in my life went on hold. By the time I came home each evening, I was physically and emotionally exhausted, unable to tend even to the ordinary responsibilities of daily life. It was a dark season. A heavy season. We didn’t know if he would live. I kept thinking about his four boys and the possibility that they might grow up without their dad. And even if he did survive, the road ahead would be long. The friend I had known for 20 years might never quite be the same.

 

It was too much for one soul to carry.

 

But as I look back now, I see clearly that I was never carrying it alone.

 

Friends stepped in to support me in ways both practical and tender. People brought meals to my family. Others sent money to help cover the cost of the constant driving back and forth to the hospital. One friend even paid their lawn service to take care of my yard. Some called just to check in—sometimes to listen while I wept, sometimes to offer a few minutes of distraction. One friend asked if I wanted to go to a soccer match, just a few hours to step away from the hospital and breathe, to feel normal again.

 

In their own quiet ways, they held my grief with me. In the midst of having nothing left to give, my community gathered around me and held me up. I would not have made it through that season without them, and I remain deeply grateful for each one.

 

That experience has stayed with me—not only because of the crisis itself, but because of the friendship that sustained me through it. It reminded me of something simple and profound: there comes a point in every journey when we reach the limits of what we can carry on our own.

 

There is a point in every journey—whether of faith, friendship, or healing—when we come to the end of our own strength. We’ve read the books, prayed the prayers, done the work. But something in us knows we cannot go much further on our own. Not because we have failed, but because we were never meant to walk alone.

 

Soul friendship is deeply personal, but it is not private. The presence we offer to another becomes a gift not only to them, but to ourselves, to the community, and—somehow—to the world.

 

This is why the Irish monastics never sought solitude as an end in itself. Even the desert hermits eventually came together to share their burdens, confess their sins, pray, sing, and break bread. They understood something we often forget: we are not whole without one another.

 

Yet we live in a culture that prizes independence above almost everything else. We are taught to manage our own lives, carry our own burdens, and solve our own problems. But the way of Jesus points us in a different direction. Writing to the Galatians, the apostle Paul says, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

 

Not fix.
Not rescue.
Simply carry.

 

Walk with one another. Share the weight. Hold the corner of the mat.

 

That is soul friendship.

 

And when it takes root within small, committed circles of people, it becomes more than comfort. It becomes a quiet force of renewal.

 

Think of the friends who have stood beside you when life came undone. The ones who showed up—not with solutions, but with presence. The ones who continued loving you even when you had nothing to offer. Or perhaps you have had the privilege of holding someone else in the same way.

 

Moments like these rarely make headlines. They are almost always unseen and uncelebrated. But they are holy. They are where community is born.

 

The rhythm of Jubilee in the sacred calendar reminds us that restoration is always communal. In the fiftieth year, debts were released, land was returned, and those who had been pushed to the margins were brought back into the center of belonging. Jubilee was never an individual reward; it was a shared renewal. The whole community participated in healing. The circle widened. The story began again.

 

Soul friendship can become a small echo of that same rhythm—a space of belonging where what has been torn apart begins slowly to be re-woven.

 

It is not flashy.
It does not scale easily.
But it is one of the ways the kingdom of God takes root in the world.

 

Slowly.
Locally.
Through friendship.

 

So what might it look like to nurture a small circle of soul friends?

 

It could be as simple as reaching out to two or three people you already trust and saying, “Can we walk together in this way? Can we hold space for one another—not only when life becomes difficult, but as a rhythm of life?”

 

You do not need a program.

 

Only a shared commitment to presence.

 

Maybe it begins with a monthly meal, or a walk together, or a lingering conversation over coffee. Perhaps you create a simple rhythm of checking in with one another: What feels heavy right now? What has brought you life? Where have you noticed God? In my home we ask, “What was your rose, your thorn, and your bud?” (Something beautiful, something hard, something you are looking forward to).

 

Or maybe the first step is simply naming the desire: I don’t want to live alone in this way anymore. Would you walk with me?

 

You were not made to live this life alone.

 

The work of healing is too heavy for one set of hands. But when we carry one another’s burdens, something shifts. The weight becomes lighter. The road becomes bearable. And the gospel begins to take root—not as an idea, but as a way of life lived together.

 

This week, consider who you might invite into deeper friendship. Not for advice. Not for accountability. Simply for presence.

 

Who are the two or three people who could become companions along the road?

 

Reach out.
Begin small.
Create a rhythm.

 

Let your soul friendship become the seed of something that grows.

 

Because community rarely appears by accident. It is formed slowly, through ordinary acts of love, when people say yes to one another again and again.

 

And in that quiet yes, the world begins to mend.

Resisting the Powers that Fragment

Posted on 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.