18th March 2026
This Lent we have seen the world plunge further into darkness and violence. It contributes to a sense of lament which affects us all. As part of my Lenten practice, I have been reading Walter Brueggemann’s small volume on the Spirituality of the Psalms. The Psalms are often dark and difficult to read, and they do not skirt around the reality of our lives and world. They challenge us, says Brueggemann, that “there is an untamed darkness in our life that must be embraced”. This untamed darkness is in our world as well as within ourselves. But, in our personal and communal lament of this darkness we are not left without hope. Speaking of the crucified Incarnate One, Brueggemann writes,   
 
                Because this One has promised to be in the darkness with us,
                           we find the darkness strangely transformed,
                                       not by the power of easy light,
                            but by the power of relentless solidarity.
                 Out of the “fear not” of that One spoken in the darkness,
                               we are marvelously given new life,
                                          we know not how.

As I sit this Lent with the overwhelming sense of lament, I am comforted by the “relentless solidarity” of the crucified Incarnate God. I listen to the “fear not”, and, although I “know not how”, I wait in hope for the marvellous gift of new life. May you, and our world this week, also be held in the “relentless solidarity” of the crucified Incarnate One, and may we together wait in hope, though we “know not how”, for the grace of the marvellous gift of new life.

Brian Holliday  
Anam Cara for the Guiding Committee  
                                                                                                    Photo by Getty Images for Unsplash

4th March 2026

During Lent I have been tidying up my office, and reading some letters and papers long buried in my filing system. They reminded me of some quite painful times in my past.  As I read them, I felt the sharp pain of their legacy. However, as I sat with the uncomfortable feelings, I recalled the words of Josef Pieper in Happiness and Contemplation. He wrote,
 
                      The happiness of contemplation is a true happiness,
                                         indeed the supreme happiness;
                                          but it is founded upon sorrow.


Contemplation is about looking at things as they really are, including the face of the suffering God, the suffering world, and my own painful past. I realized that lament is a gift, for it allowed me to contemplate the painful and hold it in my heart without being overwhelmed by it. It allowed me to see how those painful times have contributed to the person I am today. That person is the one who is loved and embraced by God. May you, this week in Lent, have a renewed appreciation for lament, as you contemplate the reality of the suffering God, the suffering world, and the sorrows of your own heart.


Brian Holliday  
Anam Cara for the Guiding Committee  
                                                                                               Photo by Marko Lengyel on Unsplash

18th February 2026

This week we begin the journey through Lent. To me, Lent is a significant marker on the unfolding of the year. It calls me to reflection, to remembering, and to refocussing. Usually, I try to give up something to help me in the process of reflection, remembering, and refocussing. This year, I have decided on a different course, for I recently came across a quote by the German philosopher, Josef Pieper. He says,
                     It’s not having which brings great joy, but appreciating.
The quote caught my attention, and as I have pondered on it, it has drawn me to reflect on many areas of my life. So, I would like to focus this Lent on appreciating, and not on having. For me, this brings a sense of letting go, of letting be, and appreciating all that I have and even what I don’t have; appreciating people, appreciating gifts, and time, and gardens, and life, and all that I encounter each day. May you this week, also find great joy in appreciating. May you as well, in your journey through Lent, find your own focus which draws you to reflect, to remember, and to nurture your soul.


Brian Holliday  
Anam Cara for the Guiding Committee  
                                                                                                                          Photo by John Clapton

3rd February 2026

As the new year has begun to unfold, I trust you are journeying well in your inner self. On my morning walks in our neighbourhood, I have been pondering on a thought from last year, that all creation is a song, a symphony of praise to God. This has led me to think about God as a symphony as well. The Trinity, in many ways, is an amazing symphony of relationships. In creation as well, God is felt, heard, and encountered in a complex and infinite variety of ways. There is a fleeting recognition of intimacy and insight when we see through the created world to meet the gaze of God. Teresa of Avila puts it this way in in Daniel Ladinky’s Love Poems from God,


                                           Eternally amazed is the soul before God,
                                                      watching God expand.


                                    Witnessing God reveal God’s self to God’s self –
                                                      that divine intimacy
                                                                I know.
                                                                                    (adapted from “The Divine Intimacy”)


Creation, in this sense, not only praises God, but is a self-manifestation of God. All of Creation, seen and unseen, witnessed and unwitnessed, joins together in this intimate, divine symphony of God revealing God’s self to God’s self. When we stop to notice, we are drawn into this intimacy of divine expression as witnesses of the joy of God’s creative self-expression and self-manifestation. Can you hear the music? May you this week, in your neighbourhood, be aware of the joyous symphony of God around you.


Brian Holliday  
Anam Cara for the Guiding Committee  
                                                                                                      Photo by Tiểu Bảo Trương: Pexels

This last fortnight, I have found great joy in sitting with another insightful expression from Christopher Bamford’s, The Voice of the Eagle, an exposition on Erigena’s homilies on the Prologue to John’s Gospel. Speaking of our relationship to the Word, who lovingly calls forth and underpins all creation, Bamford expounds,
                        Above all, the Word is where I take my stand
                         when I stand at the centre and origin of all.
                       The Word is where I am when I am who I am.
How deeply centring that flowing, lyrical sentence is for me. “The Word is where I am when I am who I am”. To me, it truly feels like home-ground. “The Word”, who is from the beginning and was with God and was God, “is where I am when I am who I am!"
May you, this week, have a sense of standing in the Word, who is your home-ground, and may you sense, too, that the Word is where you are when you are who you are.


Brian Holliday
Anam Cara for the Guiding Committee  
                                                                                 Photo of Karri Tree at Donnelly River - B Holliday

Over this last while as Lent has moved into Holy Week, God has continued to seem more absent than present to me, and an inner sense of flatness has persisted. So I was taken by surprise when the words of a poem by Mark Jarman jumped out at me, and they have been resonating with me ever since. Jarman’s poem, “Unholy Sonnet 4”, ends with the words,

This love shows
Itself in absence, which the stars adore.

It has been comforting to me that God’s love can show itself in absence, or in “loving emptiness” as Jarman’s poem says in an earlier stanza. It is also comforting that the timeless, countless stars which surround me in the night sky adore the love which shows itself in the absence, the blackness, the emptiness which surrounds them. If they can accept and adore such love, then maybe I can too. As you travel with Christ’s passion through Holy Week, may you also be aware and comforted by the love that “shows itself in absence”.


Brian Holliday
Anam Cara for the Guiding Committee  
Photo from OpenABC

Sometimes, for no apparent reason, I feel quite melancholy. I feel like I am weeping inside, and any depressing news, even if it is from friends or the Bible readings for the day, makes me feel more melancholy. I try to find the gift in feeling flat; the fact that it allows me downtime after a period of sickness or stress reminds me of the mysterious depth of my soul. It can, I reflect, be an appropriate mood for Lent. To find wisdom in my times of melancholy, I often turn to the gift of the poets. This week, words from a poem by Mechthild of Magdeburg spoke to me,

I cannot dance, O Lord,
Unless You lead me.
If you wish me to leap joyfully,
Let me see You dance and sing.
So, Mechthild’s prayer has become my prayer this week. I cannot find the energy and joy to dance, so may the Lord of the Dance, the Lord of Love, lead me in the dance. If you are feeling flat, finding it difficult to pray, and difficult to engage with God and yourself, then may Mechthild’s prayer be your prayer too.


Brian Holliday
Anam Cara for the Guiding Committee  

This past week I have been at a coursework residential where we focussed on the topic of apophatic theology, or the unspeakable mystery of God. It is theology which tries to talk about what is beyond our comprehension, when all language and metaphors about God break down and are stripped away. This is a space of darkness and mystery where we can feel the absence of God, where we find ourselves bereft of God as we have known God in the past. It raises the question of “How can I love God who is beyond my comprehension?”, and “How can I love God when I feel the darkness of being bereft of God?” Dag Hammarskjold asks this same question in his journal, Markings. He writes,
“But how, then, am I to love God?”
His answer is an attempt to express in words what goes beyond words,
​“You must love Him as if He were a non-God, a non-Spirit, a non-Person, a non-Substance: love Him simply as the One, the pure and absolute Unity in which there is no trace of duality. And into this One, we must let ourselves fall continually from being into non-being. God help us do this”. (110)
It is his phrase, “into this One, we must let ourselves fall continually”, which strikes me most deeply. For me, it is falling into the mystery of God, the darkness of the unknown and incomprehensible depth of God. My imagination takes me back to my childhood memories and the soothing, safe, and comforting feel of velvet. So, I imagine myself falling backwards into the dark velvet of God’s infinite, unknowable, loving depth. It’s a depth that embraces, welcomes and holds me, and yet I am continually falling. As we move into the season of Lent, entering a time of mystery, darkness and stripping away, may we allow ourselves to continually fall into the mystery and darkness of the One who loves us beyond comprehension.


Brian Holliday
Anam Cara for the Guiding Committee  
Photo by Andrew Neel: from Pixabay