Last year I offered the invitation to my readers to consider a word shimmering for them that might carry them throughout the year. There were 140 beautiful postings and I later created a Wordle from the entries as a celebration of the prayers gathered. I offer the same invitation this year and again some prizes to give away:
In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to God and to their own inner struggles at work within them. The desert became a place to enter into the refiner’s fire and be stripped down to one’s holy essence. The desert was a threshold place where you emerged different than when you entered.
Many people followed these ammas and abbas, seeking their wisdom and guidance for a meaningful life. One tradition was to ask for a word – this word or phrase would be something on which to ponder for many days, weeks, months, sometimes a whole lifetime. This practice is connected to lectio divina, where we approach the sacred texts with the same request – “give me a word” we ask – something to nourish me, challenge me, a word I can wrestle with and grow into.
Last year my word for the year was sovereignty and it ripened in me as the year unfolded leading me to new discoveries about myself. I resisted the word at first, as I didn’t like the sound of it. But I knew in all the internal energy it stirred up that I needed to pay attention. When I allowed my heart to soften, the word began to shimmer in me, rang long and clear like a chime (hint: sometimes the word which creates resistance in us is the one we most need to pay attention to).
This year my word is sanctuary. This past week I had to go to the emergency room while alone in a foreign country because of leg pain and shortness of breath. I was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism and a blood clot in my leg and admitted to the hospital for two nights of treatment and observation. I am being medically supervised now and will be fine, but the experience was dis-orienting in many ways (in the sense of calling me to a new orientation). I have much to process in the coming weeks, but for now I remember as I lay there in the midst of unknowing, that my thoughts were aligned to home, to my husband, to my friends, to my heart-expanding work, to a longing for the refuge of the familiar, but also a profound sense of sanctuary right in the midst of where I was. The sanctuary in a church is the place where the holy of holies dwells, but we also create sanctuaries for animals needing protection or for persons fleeing persecution. The layers to this word and how it seems to reach out to me prompts me to choose it as my word for the year to see what else it has to reveal to me.
- What is your word for the year ahead? A word which contains within it a seed of invitation to cross a new threshold?
- What word, phrase, or image is shimmering before you right now inviting you to dwell with it until it ripens fully inside of you?
Share your word in the comments below before Monday, January 3rd.
Leave your word for the year ahead in the comments below plus a couple of sentences describing your choice. Please note that I have my comments moderated (meaning I need to manually approve them) so it may not show up immediately, but should within 24 hours.
343 Responses
Dear Christina,
I had a dear friend who shared with me her practice of spending a few days on retreat at the end of each year to choose a word for the coming year. It was a beautiful and meaningful practice. I didn’t realize it had ancient roots.
Thank you for your wonderful website and inspirational writing. I wish you well in the recovery from your embolism. I will send you my word when I have a sense of what it it for 2011.
Blessings, Jamie
Creation. A renewal of the innocence of spirit of the original creation – in myself and the world. A need to connect more with the natural world – to garden and to shovel snow more joyfully, as pleasure not work. A desire to expand my own efforts in the creation of art and poetry. This word holds many opportunities, challenges and gifts.
When I read through the post, I wondered what my word might be. I considered several options, but nothing was settling. Then, as I scrolled further down the post, I came to the image of the bare tree silhouetted against the sky and felt a shock of recognition. I have been seeing that image repeatedly over the past two months or so, and in my experience, repetition means ‘pay attention.’ My word, I believe, is actually going to be a short phrase: “like a tree planted” (see Psalm 1:3).
What a wonderful idea, especially for those of us who have been in the desert for a long time.
I think my word is “confluence” – a flowing together of two or more streams, or a coming together of people or things. I am thinking about the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers, which I have seen from the air en route to visiting my daughter in college in Oregon, and of the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, which I have seen from a ledge high above them both. I am thinking of all the fragments into which my life shattered after my son’s death and of how they are gradually merging into a life which looks in some ways as I had imagined it and in others vastly different. More detail in a blog post, perhaps later today.
Thank you for this idea.
This year, my word is “release.” I am having to let go of negative people in my life, I’ve had several friends die, and in general, I am learning to let go of my desire to control the world around me rather than experience it.
David,
“Release” was my chosen word this past year; being mindful of it has brought rich and rewarding results — some quite unexpected and surprising. May this word bless you in 2011!
My word is water. I live in a place surrounded by water. I watch the many changes in the surface; color, texture, reflection. I listen to the sounds; tranquil, angry, pounding. It is much like my life. I go through all of these changes. However, I want to concentrate on the reflective, tranquil aspects of water – while acknowledging that all of the other components are just a part of life. I plan to sit, be still, and let the water teach me.
My word will be “solace.” In this Autumn of the Ax (so named because we’ve lost entire departments at work, and so many of the people that I know have either lost loved ones or are dealing with trauma that loved ones suffer), I have felt more like a hospice chaplain than the head of an academic department. I feel the need for solace and comfort, the need to get back to a place of stability and away from the feeling that the world tilts terrribly.
I feel very much for you for having watched our own daughter in your situation last year. The human tragedies are palpable and weigh heavily on the soul. I pray you find ‘solace.’
I think mine will have to be “welcome”–thank you, Rumi! :)
Harmonious :)
Acceptance is my word for 2011. here ~ http://frizzytalksinhersleep.blogspot.com/2010/12/word-for-2011-acceptance.html ~ is my blog post about it.