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
My immediate response was the word hear, and as a subtext, its sound alike, here. For me, these two words are about listening for God’s call in this time and in this place. But upon slower reflection a new word leapt into my soul. The word is DESIRE. At first glance this word made me uneasy, seeming selfish and too counter to my very nature. After contemplating and unpacking desire for a few days now, I am seeing it for what it really is, a listening mechanism. To truly hear God’s call, I will need to find out what my heart’s desire is, what am I passionate about, what are my wildest dreams. This year will be a wonderful year of exploring what it is that I want, and then finding how to turn that into something that richly blesses others in many more ways than I probably can even imagine now.
My word is ABUNDANCE. I have allowed myself recently to be driven by scarcity and fear; my spirit needs the opposite!
Christine, I really appreciated the reading on letting a word choose you. For the past few days I’ve been reflecting lectio fashion on this year (what a wonderful way to do lectio!). It’s been a big year–I retired early from being an Episcopal parish priest in order to pursue a vague call to something else. At the same time my spiritual director went on a six month sabbatical leaving me (I thought) bereft. It has been a year in which I’ve grown closer to my husband and children and to the earth via my garden, and in which I’ve intentionally opened myself to a deeper life of prayer. All of this leads me to what is for me almost a foreign word–TRUST, with its offshoot ENTRUST, as my word for next year.
I have been trying to simplify my life at this time and in searching for a breath prayer the word “relinquish” has come to me….relinquish, let go, give it up..to Christ. Relinquish the burdens, he will take them on for you.
I have been prayerfully pondering this for weeks, and my word is BLESSED. I am blessed, my children are blessed, and we are a blessing to others. I’m excited to see what the new year holds for each of us as we seek out the paths Spirit is leading us this year.
Blessings,
Gayle
My word is LIGHT. In 2011 I want to remember and practice honoring the Light in myself and in others.
I had to marinate on this one for a while, and it eventually became clear that a single word was not sufficient for this upcoming year. Christine said it could be a word, a phrase, or even an image. My phrase, if it can be called that, consists of three words: Work Play Pray. The Benedictine focuses are to “work and pray.” And to the definition of work, it seemed necessary to add a description; I long to engage daily in the kind of work that Madeleine L’Engle describes as “serious play,” the kind of play that a child works very hard at.
Thank you, Christine, for inviting us to think about this. While I’ve done a lot of year-end reflections, I’ve never considered a centering word or phrase before.
allowing…is the word that came to me as I enter into my 65th year and contemplate what that number should look like.
sixty-five is happy, wise, a few wrinkles etched into a face that is
comfortably lived in, a trace of pain only outsmarted by the laugh lines around the eyes that are bright with the knowledge that only comes with the years and a body that is firm with a suggestion of softness only allowed more recently……..
sixty-five is capricious, tender, strong in the way of a willow who can bend in the wind without breaking, resilient, eager to meet the gifts that come with living…………….
REFINE…I am surrendering to God’s refining process in my life..I pray for His will, above all…I pray that HE will lift me out of mediocrity in my walk with Him..that I will be ‘refined’ spiritually..which means a ‘separating’ of all that is a hindrance or unnecessary in my Christian walk.
befriend…
for days, i have held your invitation in my heart, out of consciousness.
~befriend~ came to me while creating a work of visual art, and the word became part of the art piece. it is my greeting for the new year, and my heart’s wish: to be truly a friend to the people in my life, to all beings, to the earth, and to myself ~ including the wounded places in my heart. as part of an art piece that i will share, it is also an invitation. let us befriend this life, and one another.
thank you for inviting us to bring forth words from the deep places within us, and for your companionship on this journey of the awakening heart.
with blessings for healing, and for a bright new year,
jeanne