Journal of Sacred Work

Today's meditation was written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice President for the Baptist Healing Trust.

 John O'Donohue, in his work titled "Anam Cara" suggests that when two people come together "an ancient circle closes between them. They also come to each other," he writes, "not with empty hands, but with hands full of gifts for each other. Often these are wounded gifts; this awakens the dimension of healing within love." [italics added].

In the Celtic tradition, the understanding of love and friendship is captured in an old Gaelic term – anam ċara. Anam is the Celtic word for soul and ċara is the word for friend. In the early Celtic church, a person who acted as a spiritual guide or teacher was called an anam ċara. It was in this relationship that the deepest sharing, recognition, and belonging was experienced. O'Donohue wonders if many of us are graced with an anam ċara of whom we are simply not truly aware. A friend or companion whose presence is cloaked by a lack of awareness from within us, and so distance and absence becomes the experience. It is the sadness of loss that seems to awaken that awareness, and all too late.

When we love deeply and truly, the light of our soul shines on the beloved. This love is ours to send to those who are in desperate pain, to the hungry, the imprisioned, those lying on death's bed, or living lives of quiet desperation going to the grave "with the song still in them" (Henry David Thoreau). These are the people that O'Donohue described as having been "pushed to the very edge of life." Even though our hands may be filled with wounded gifts, we nonetheless awaken the dimension of "healing within love" in each other when we open ourselves to Love. For some, an anam ċara will appear for only a few hours or maybe a few days in the form of a caregiver. As caregivers, we need an anam ċara as well.

The Celtic tradition further gives us a Blessing for Friendship, which I share here with you today. May you each find in Love your truest anam ċara.

May you be blessed with good friends.

May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.

May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where

     there  is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.

May this change you.

May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold

     in you.

May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and

     affinity of belonging.

May you treasure your friends.

May you be good to them and may you be there for them;

may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth,

and light that you need for your journey,

May you never be isolated.

May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your

anam ċara.