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
Appreciative. First, I thought of appreciation or appreciate, but those are more passive. Appreciative gives more of the sense of showing appreciation which I am aiming at. I usually pick a word for Lent, so I resisted doing it early last year, but I’m ready to play this time. “Living” a word in Lent has brought tremendous fruits.
HOPE
All this year I have lived with the word “surrender” Ever since November things have change to HOPE. I find myself seeing this word all around me.
Here is something to ponder: I didn’t write “your comment is awaiting moderation” Perhaps the word for me should be MODERATION instead of hope.
Ever since I posted the word, and the comment of moderation showed up on the computer, I felt that the word chooses you and not the other way around. Maybe “hope” was what I wanted for the new year and I started to believed that. But when moderation came up so unexpectedly, I knew that was it.
It is a word that challenges me, it makes me pause and think, and it brings balance to my life. So the “Word” will find the way to communicate with you if we listen.
My word is Hope: hope in the Holy for the freeing of the cosmos from its tension and bitterness, hope for ore signs of the intended rule of God, hope for peace in communities of faith, hope for the compelling power of faith to take action against the despair and destruction.
I decided to try the old ‘close my eyes and pick a word at random out of the dictionary’ trick. The word my finger landed on was HEED. I didn’t like it one bit – it wasn’t very poetic + it sounded bossy and controlling. However, as I read through the synonyms (to follow, mind, yield to, take notice of, observe, listen to, pay attention to, take to heart), the more I realised it was my word. This year, I shall try to heed the voice within, even when parts of my would rather not.
Determination is my word for the coming year: to face fear and discover the keys to my true treasures. I will ponder the potentialities of light that lie within the darkness and explore the potentialities within my own soul
Temperance, has popped into my head. Not sure where it’s going to lead me but I’m willing to explore this word & meaning during 2011
SURRENDER
Surrender to necessity, that which needs to be done; surrender to where life is leading me; surrender to that which cannot be changed in me, in my milieu, in my world; surrender to circumstances which hold promise beneath their annoyance.
My word is “PILGRIMAGE” – life is a continual pilgrimage, often including highs and lows such as was experienced by the medieval pilgrim. In 2011 I shall be on the Camino de Santaigo in Spain, away from my family and undertaking my first solo backpacking journey and my first pilgrimage.
“Listening”
My pick for the word for the year is “majestic”, as in highly elevated.