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| Image by Capt. Spaulding |
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Celtic Soul Friendship or Anam Cara
A GREETING
My heart is ready, O God,
my heart is ready;
I will sing and play for you.
(Psalm 57:7)
A READING
“And I, I was like a stream branching off a river,
like a waterway running through a field
I said, ‘I will water my garden,
soak my flower beds.’
And behold! My waterway became a stream
and my stream became a river.
Once again I will send forth my teachings, shining
like the dawn,
that its light may be viewed far and wide.
I will send forth my teaching like prohecy,
and will it to future generations.
Let it be known that I have not toiled just for myself,
but for all who thirst for wisdom.
(Sirach 24:28-33)
MUSIC
A MEDITATIVE VERSE
No matter how many promises God has made, they are “yes” in Christ.
(2 Corinthians 1:20)
A REFLECTION
The love in you—which is the Spirit in you—always somehow says yes. Love is not something you do; love is something you are. It is your True Self. Love is where you came from and love is where you’re going. It’s not something you can buy. It’s not something you can attain. It’s the presence of God within you, called the Holy Spirit or what some theologians name uncreated grace.
- from The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation
by Richard Rohr and Mike Morrell
PRAYER FOR THE DAY
Kindliness be in my gaze,
Gentleness be in my speech,
Humility be in my step,
Love be in my heart,
The Spirit of God be in my soul.
- Scottish Gaelic prayer from the West Highlands and Hebrides,
found in Charms of the Gaels: Hymns and Incantations,
collected and edited by Alexander Carmichael
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| "Young Girls," by Amrita Sher-Gill (1932) Sher-Gill was the first woman and first Asian person to be accepted into the Paris Salon in 1933. This painting won the gold medal for that year. |
Today's music may seem like an odd selection to find more than a week before the new year. But in its Scottish context, the song is sung at weddings and funerals all year long and anywhere that old relationships are missed and remembered and held up for the gifts they had offered.
An aspect of early Celtic Christian life was the soul friendship or anam cara. Soul friends upheld each other’s spiritual wellbeing, offering support and encouragement. The relationships were typically born out of mentorship and teaching but went on to become friendships that held up over decades and often through long separations. It was such an expected part of Celtic Christianity that St. Brigid (whom we will soon get to know) used to require her monastic sisters to "go forth and eat nothing until you get a soul friend." These partnerships were unlike any other: they were expected to last one's entire life, a kinship deeply felt even when apart. An essential aspect of these connections was freedom: each person lived their life according to their own journey - wherever it may take them. The connection survived long absences and geographic distance. They endured because they offered what no other kind of relationship could; they were thought to have their own innate holiness.
One such friendship has been already named in Saint Ita and Brendan the Navigator (see Days 23 and 29). St Columba (who founded the community at Iona) and St Baithéne mac Brénaind had such a connection. These relationships worked across gender and status and defied social classifications. At their heart they entwined prayer and mission, were outward focused in work but inwardly intimate. These friendships occupied a 'threshold,' a liminal space in which the profound love offered sought to enliven the spirit and affirm spiritual growth as a relational experience more than as the outcome of solitary piety.
Amrita Sher-Gill's Young Girls was painted when the artist was just nineteen. Born in Budapest in the early twentieth century to a Sikh aristocrat and an Hungarian-Jewish opera singer, she went to art school in Paris. There her mixed racial identity was a focus and tension in her work, which often represented relationships of intersectionality. In the painting above, a South Asian woman and a European woman sit in close connection. The relaxed engagement points to an intimacy as friends that defied the social norms of its time. In her short life (she died at 28), Sher-Gill painted many works that were of cross-cultural deep friendship among women.
As we take one final look at both Richard Rohr and Sirach 24, we can hear how much Wisdom is expressed through teaching, and through a love embodied as kindness. In the Celtic worldview, kindness is not just a gesture, it is a covenantal way of being.
With whom do you feel a deep kinship and covenantal commitment to kindness? How can you show your appreciation of that person today?
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| Image by Capt. Spaulding |
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Scripture passages are taken from The Inclusive Bible.
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LC† Vigil in Hope is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work.
Thank you and peace be with you!
