These two ducks pictured are inseparable. I first noticed them a few days ago in the pond near the place we are staying. Then every day since, I never saw them apart. Always near each other, circling or side by side. I took this photo which has my shadow, which I don’t mind as it puts me right in the frame also.

There are times of solitude and seasons when we need to walk a path alone. But in most of life we need other people to be alongside us. Trying to do it alone will leave us isolated and often lonely and withdrawn in an unhealthy way. In my life I lean to the introverted side and love my own company. I love the silence and solitude. But I have learned over the course of my life how much I also need people in my life. My wife and daughters of course, but also close friends. Some of my friends I have known since childhood and still relate to them today. Others I have known in India and from all over the world.

But there are even closer friends that we all need. There will not be many of these. It may be one, or at most several. Some will be for a season, others for a lifetime. The Celt mission movement of Scotland and Ireland from the fourth century to the ninth had a strong commitment that every one of their missionaries would have an Anam Cara, the Gaelic word for ‘soul friend’. This would be at least one person, and could be several, that would walk with them (sometimes quite literally) in their service and life. They never believed they could do it alone. The leaders of the monastic training centers like Iona and Lindisfarne made sure that each person had someone else in their life.

This has been true throughout history in other movements like the Church of the East in Asia, the Moravians, the early Methodists, the early Salvation Army, the Jesuits, the Franciscans, and more. In each one under other names they have seen the need to have a ‘soul friend’. This is someone who can share joys and sorrows with you, share not only at the surface of your life but in the depths. Someone to encourage you, to warn you, to laugh with, or just be silent together.

The need for a soul friend is not just for those in Christian service, but for all of us. We all need someone to walk with us, to grieve with us, to stand with us. And us with them. The proximity may not always be as close as these two ducks, but it means someone who you can regularly talk to in some form. Due to our spending chunks of time in other parts of the world, my Anam Caras are spread out, and we often need to connect via zoom or phone. But others are more local, where we can meet face to face.

Who is your Anam Cara? Do you have even one? Can you name them? This is not someone we get together and talk about our favorite sports team with or go fishing. Nothing wrong with any of that or many other social activities. But this is a soul friend that you can share your deep places with. I don’t want to generalize, but I will. I see many men in our cultures today that do not have soul friends, often much less than women do. Many men become isolated in terms of the depth of their emotional lives. They do not share with their wives or certainly not with other men.

So how do we find an Anam Cara?

1. Look to someone you may already know: an old friend that you have recently connected again with, someone from your church or place of workshop, gym, reading group, school. Or a new friend that you may be drawn to through common interests. Take the first step of asking them for coffee or if in another physical place a zoom meeting. It may be someone on your mission team or a project you are working on. Then see what develops from there.
2. There are growing resources available now for life and its challenges: coaches, spiritual directors, peer mentors, counselors and therapists. Generally these relationships may not be soul friends in your life, though that can develop or morph into. A soul friend should be a two way relationship however it looks in practice. I have a ministry of spiritual direction and at times there can be quite an overlap especially when you may have group direction and discernment going on. A group of three, for example, may develop into a group of soul friends.
3. Be committed to the idea that you can’t do life alone. Pray specifically for an Anam Cara in your life. And don’t give up until you find one.
4. Soul friendship as practiced by the Celts and many groups through history was about being on mission, reaching out beyond their own comforts and securities. Who are you on mission with together?

So I will ask again, who are the Anam Caras in your life? Who walks with you in the deeper places of your soul? Offering not advice but companionship? Who rejoices with you, who suffers with you? They are gifts to your life, and you theirs. Please find them and cultivate them today.