What Is a Soul Friend?

"Where you are understood, you are at home."
-John O'Donohue

Our hearts long to be understood and connected with the hearts of others. Friends are needed and desired by everyone. However, only a few are blessed enough to have an Anam Cara—a Celtic word for soul friend: one with whom our souls are knit together.

In the spring of 2022, I signed up for an online Celtic Studies course, an exciting and intriguing course with a fantastic reading list. It was during these months of study that I first heard the term "anamchara" (also, anam cara or anamcara).

The word dates back nearly 2000 years, originating from the Desert Mothers and Fathers of Africa. They were early Christians who desired the solace and safety of the desert in order to press into the presence of God. Spiritual pilgrims sought out these spiritual mentors in the desert, eventually forming close, lifelong bonds. These spiritual friends came to be known as an "anamchara".

Anam=soul Cara=friend

The anamchara was more than a friend; it was, and is, a friend of your soul. That person with whom you are understood as you are without mask or pretense; a person with whom you always feel at home in your soul.

While the relationship usually starts as a casual friendship or mentorship, it includes one who is a spiritual director/mother/father/mentor. The friendship grows in understanding between two souls with the connection, support, and leaning into each other flowing both ways. In other words, it is not a one-way mentor relationship. Rather, a spiritual bond forms, and you find a unity and belonging.

The anam cara relationship can be seen between David and Jonathan as recorded in the Old Testament, whose "souls were knit together." The book of Titus also gives encouragement for Believers in Christ to form these close relationships of the older leading (coming alongside) the younger, I believe, as a nod to these close-knit and powerful relationships soon to be called anamchara by the desert Mothers and Fathers, just 200 years later.

The Holy Spirit, given to us as Friend and Counselor, is the ultimate Anam Cara.

To Celtic Christians, life was about fellowship and community. In his book, Restoring The Woven Cord, Michael Mitton says, "Each person in a community was responsible to an anamchara." These early Christians understood that to live successfully as part of the Body of Christ, it was essential to be connected with someone in a way that the anamchara relationship was a resource for healing hurts and divisions, as well as having spiritual direction and accountability.