Spiritual Friendship Archives - Anam Cara Ministries

A Community of Soul Friends

Posted on March 16, 2026 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 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.

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.)

Stories from Sabbatical

Posted on October 7, 2022 by Tara Owens

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Tara and her daughter Seren on the Hill of Tara, Ireland, during sabbatical

Even as a writer, I find it hard to put the experience of sabbatical into words. In truth, it would be easy enough to tell you chronological stories of what happened, when, and where. But one of the things I experienced is that time inside of sabbatical isn’t exactly chronological.

So, let’s start with the end, then.

Discovering What I Missed

As September began, my calendar filled again with the work I love and get to do: Scripture Circles, spiritual direction, supervision, apprenticing, teaching. Some of you wondered if that experience was difficult for me, wondered if it would feel heavy or tiring. What I found was that I’d missed something other than I’d expected—I hadn’t missed the work (especially the email part of it); I missed the with-ness with God and with people. That particular quality of sacred presence that runs as a golden thread through all the activities I get to do was what I missed the most, and what energizes me each and every day.

I had missed being anam cara, and discovering that “missing” was one of the many gifts of sabbatical for me.

Sacred Space, Sacred Time

One of the activities that emerged during the three-month window was the reorganization of my home office. With much-needed help, the prayed-over and well-used space of mess and meeting became a holy sanctuary. I gave away a lot of books. I moved retreat resources to storage. I kept only the books I would read again or the unread books. If we meet over Zoom, you almost wouldn’t see any difference in my bookshelf backdrop; however, what is behind me has massively changed. In some ways, I’ve created an antilibrary, a reminder of how much I do not know. Nassim Nicholas Taleb coined that term and writes about it this way:

“The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore, professore dottore Eco, what a library you have ! How many of these books have you read?” and the others — a very small minority — who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you don’t know as your financial means, mortgage rates and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menancingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.”― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

It seems to me that this, too, is a parable of sabbatical, this reorganization of space to make more room for unknowing, while also inviting in more deeply the mysterious relationship that underpins it all—my relationship with Christ.

While reclaiming my space (I hesitate to call it an office) during my sabbatical, I realized I have more than 10 pieces of completely original art on the walls, some commissioned pieces, some not. The one on the threshold, that circumscribes the sanctuary, is an original painting depicting Jesus asleep in the boat during the storm. Around him the lines of the painting swirl and intersect. In the small quarter of the image where his body touches the water, the lines still and create reflection. This, too, is an icon of sacred time.

Don’t Die By Inches

Sabbatical began with a lot of death. Spiritual, relational, physical death happened around me and to me in various ways. There was a moment when I found myself running at full speed into those frigid waters, almost as if by holy instinct. I know what it is to let go of things reluctantly, prying my fingers off one cramped movement after another. I made a decision that if this time was to be in some measure about dying, I didn’t want to do it in slow, agonizing inches. I wanted to be plunged in quickly and completely.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to stay there for a long while.

Become the ancestor of your future happiness – David Whyte

These are the words that formed and held me in the dying. The hope and reality is that whatever this journey was, whatever it now is, whatever it will be, I have said yes to becoming a good ancestor. To myself, yes. But also to the sacred future. There is a way in which entering into sabbatical is a kind of death to linear sequential time—at least in the ways you’ve known it up until that entry.

Practically speaking, that also meant a death to my dream of time away on the island of Iona, time with the community of Northumbria, and time on Holy Island. It also meant death to my expectations (one of the hardest deaths, sometimes) and to my timelines.

There’s been a lot of learning and healing unfolding from those deaths, and there is still more. But death is not something that often happens easily, which surely continues to be the case for me.

Welcome Forward

This leads me straight into the paradoxical reality into which I’m still living: my sabbatical may have ended in linear sequential time, but I haven’t left sabbatical. I’m coming to see that if you’ve really, truly entered into sabbatical time, it’s not something you ever leave.

This makes for awkward conversation, especially when the traditional greeting you offer after someone returns from a vacation or a trip or maternity leave or a hospital stay (all of which I’ve experienced) is, “Welcome back!”

There’s no such thing as “Welcome back” from sabbatical (and I still deeply appreciate the people who have said it to me because what else does one say, really?). The closest reality is “welcome forward,” which also makes for awkward greetings. (Not as awkward as the Joshua/Moses/God intersection at the Tent of Meeting in Exodus 33, but that’s a sacred story for another time.)

All of this is to say that I’ll keep having stories from sabbatical to share: here, in person, in prayer, in writing. I’m still living out of time in ways that God is teaching me about, and as hard as that is to put into words, I’m deeply, wildly, unaccountably grateful.

So, thank you. For being part of the community that made and makes this countercultural reality possible. My hope and prayer is that you, too, will one day experience what crossing over into sabbatical will bring.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Present

Posted on September 28, 2022 by Jeremy Frye

When I was about 13 years old, I spent many of my Saturdays building fence with my grandfather. (Yes, I mean “building fence” and not “building fences”—it’s a Kansas farm boy thing, I guess). Because he had a shoulder injury that caused him to be permanently disabled, I did most of the hole digging, post driving, and wire stretching, but unless one of his friends stopped by to visit or he just got too cold to stay outside, he was with me for the work. It didn’t matter to me that most of the physical labor was mine to do. I didn’t care that he would occasionally bark orders when I wasn’t doing the job just right. I was just happy to be with my grandpa, earning a little money and learning important life skills.

The day usually began by him picking me up at 7:30 am or so. We would leave my house and then drive to The Red Maple, the local family restaurant in my hometown, for a hearty breakfast. Because, “You can’t build fence on an empty stomach.” Then we would drive out to my grandparent’s place in the country, gather supplies, my grandpa would have a cigarette (or two), and we’d get to work.

On particularly cold days, we would take more frequent breaks. We would sit in the shop where the wood stove was always burning while my grandpa smoked Kool kings and told stories. Sometimes he would reminisce about his childhood, the time he and his brothers built the dam for the old pond by hand; just a few boys with shovels. Or when he and his brother went to California for the summer to work on the railroad when they were fourteen and fifteen and lived in a tent in the front yard of the twelve year old girl that would eventually become my grandmother. Sometimes he would tell stories about hunting in the Sandhills (the local name of the area where he grew up and lived until he died). And nearly always, he would tell a story that I wasn’t sure was actually true but he would swear on his life happened just the way he told it to me. When one of his friends would stop by, the tales got taller and my work breaks sitting by the stove in the shop would last much longer.

It’s funny, as I try to remember some of the stories he told, the details are vague at best. I’m sure I’ve forgotten the vast majority of them, but the feeling those memories stir in me is as present as if I was sitting by that wood stove right now. I can smell his menthol cigarettes, the wood smoke and hot metal. His voice, his laugh, his gestures when he would get wound up telling a story, those are indelibly etched in my memory. I don’t remember much of what he said, but I remember him. And as I think back, I realize how significant it was to be a 13-year old boy whose grandpa picked him up on Saturday mornings and, more than the breakfasts or the stories or the work ethic or the life skills, gave him a safe place to become and belong.

That’s what being “with” does. When one offers the gift of presence to another, they are making a space where we can become and belong. We find groundedness there with them, even when the rest of our life may feel unmoored. To find a person who will hold this kind of space for us is indeed a rare gift.

In 1997, Fred Rogers received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 24th annual Daytime Emmys. During his acceptance speech he did something that must be etched in the minds of everyone who attended. I know that it is etched in mine. As he was accepting the award, he said; “All of us have had special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are . . . ten seconds of silence, I’ll watch the time.” Then he pulled up his coat sleeve and looked at his watch. There was a giggle that rippled across the audience. But as the camera began to pan across the room filled with television and film stars, people started to realize that he was serious. In that moment, tears began to fill people’s eyes. The room got very quiet as people began to remember those who had loved them into being.

Everytime I see that clip, (which you can watch here), my grandpa comes to my mind. His presence was a safe place for me to find my way. May you too find safe places to be loved into being, dear friends.

– Jeremy

photo credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/B7SUX_gx_7M?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

Is Your Spiritual Director Certified? Probably Not.

Posted on January 14, 2022 by Tara Owens

As I write this in the early days of 2022, the tragedy and tangle of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to shape our world in ways both seen and unseen. Homelife and safety, public life and how we form it, mental health and our care for one another, schooling and teaching—all have undergone radical shifts for ill and for good. Counselors, therapists, social workers, all find their schedules full with those seeking care. The same is true of spiritual directors.

One of the gifts of this time comes from the shift in accessibility that we’ve seen across the globe. Forced to move online, caregivers now have more secure, effective, and safe ways to meet with clients regardless of their location. This has opened up the practice of spiritual direction to so many who simply did not have access to it before, which is a huge grace and a stunning gift.

Alongside that gift comes responsibility, and one of the ways that spiritual directors are charged with caring for their directees and the larger community is by the accurate representation of their training and credentials. As training in spiritual direction has proliferated, and spiritual direction becomes more and more known as a healing modality, I’ve begun to hear a certain kind of slippage in the language used to describe a spiritual director’s training and credentials. This is, I am completely sure, good-hearted, as most of our understanding of caring professions gets modeled after licensed professional therapy or social work. But it’s dangerous, unnecessary, and unkind to borrow language from one profession in order to bolster the distinctiveness of spiritual direction.

Spiritual directors, when presenting themselves to the public, preserve the integrity of spiritual direction by being in right relation with persons and organizations representing qualifications and affiliations accurately. —Spiritual Director’s International Guidelines for Ethical Conduct

In 2016, ESDA (Christ-Centered Spiritual Directors) published an article explaining to their members why representing themselves as a “certified spiritual director” is a problematic practice. In it author Monica Romig Green explains:

Generally, when someone uses the term “certified,” it communicates to the hearer that the person has been given a certification as opposed to just a certificate. It usually means that they possess an official designation from a qualifying professional organization that affirms they meet and uphold specific standards of their profession.

To become “certified,” one must show evidence to a certifying organization that they meet or exceed continuing professional standards. Additionally, as a professional designation, certification is usually something that can expire over time and must be renewed occasionally in order to affirm that someone is still practicing their work at a competent or high level of quality.

Contrastingly, receiving a certificate or diploma from a training program usually means that you have successfully completed your specific program’s educational requirements. It does not mean that you have met the practicing standards of a particular profession.

Regarding spiritual direction, there is, in fact, no specific and official standard for training/formation. That means that one person’s certificate of training could mean something completely different than someone else’s. For instance, I know of a program that gives a certificate after someone has spent 2 weeks studying spiritual direction, while other programs require that their students spend two to three years studying and complete hundreds of direction hours before they receive their certificate. With such variation in training, it’s easy to see why our training certificates would not automatically indicate meeting some kind of general standard.

If you’re a spiritual director or even someone exploring the practice of spiritual direction, the whole article is worth reading. As Green argues, and I concur, it isn’t just a splitting of hairs to insist that “completed a certificate in spiritual direction” is a more accurate and ethical way of representing training in spiritual direction than using the term “certified” (or, in several somewhat upsetting instances, I’ve heard spiritual directors refer to themselves as “licensed” which is both inaccurate and manipulative, as it creates a false sense of accountability and safety for the directee when the director has no such body of oversight).

As someone who also respects and honors the work that my colleagues in therapeutic and social work settings have done, I don’t want to water down the incredible amount of work and continuing education they have and continue to do, even if it appears to up my credibility.

There’s also an important tension to hold here, as there is a certifying body in spiritual direction and the supervision of spiritual directors (CCPC Global), through which I hold both certifications. This is an open organization, to which anyone globally can apply who meets the requirements of certification over and above having completed a certificate in spiritual direction. At the same time, the larger community of spiritual direction continues to hold a diversity of opinion about whether or not certification is necessary, beneficial, or an accurate measure of expertise in a field that holds so much Mystery. Spiritual Director’s International (SDI), for example, discourages the use of these credentials, while the professional spiritual direction associations of countries like Ireland or Australia have created even more rigorous standards and accountability structures for the practice within their borders.

As our push online since the emergence of COVID-19 has shown us, there is also great good to de-institutionalization of education. Seminary-level education is now available to those who would never be able to relocate in order to have access to educators of this quality. Systemic barriers historically operating in education because of sexism, ableism, or racism have been seriously (and thankfully) damaged by our ability to seek wisdom not just from “professionals” but from those with expertise and lived experience. Those whose voices have previously been silenced in these spaces and conversations have had the opportunity to create new and dynamic spaces for experience and education.

In the face of this wild, generative proliferation, it is nonetheless important to care for those seeking spiritual direction with an accurate and clear portrayal of education, experience, and expertise. As a practitioner, I’ve continued to sit in the “both/and” of the questions around the professionalization of spiritual direction. In churches and spiritual communities around the world, there are wisdom figures and those who listen on the margins who would never go to graduate school or seek the title of “spiritual director”—and I believe these faithful men and women are still doing the good work of spiritual direction in the world. I also believe that it is important for me and those I train in spiritual direction to continue to do the work of skills building, growth, and learning within the field and that when it is within the purview and possibility of a particular director, to seek to meet any professional standards that are helpful to their practice and serve their directees well.

The chances are that your spiritual director isn’t “certified.” How and whether that matters to a directee is in the hands of those seeking spiritual accompaniment. However, for ethical practice, spiritual directors need to represent their training, associations, and professional development in a clear, straightforward and well-thought-through manner.