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
What a wonderful way to start the New Year. My word for the year is “presence”. I have worked with this word in the past but feel I have wandered from it over the past year or so. It’s time for me to return to this word and the power of focusing on it. I have two small children. This year, more than any other, I have no desire to make resolutions. Only to get up every day and be present to my children, to my husband, to myself…. To breathe the air, to feel the beauty, to hear my children, and to be PRESENT to the ordinary miracles opening up to me every day, every moment.
Here.
Paying attention, listening, awareness, presence, being (even “Kythe”–love that word!)–all of those things are wrapped up in “here.”
“Here” beckons me to be fully present where I am at each moment with whomever is there with me.
I’ve been pondering for a few days on a word, and have come to “be”. I recently read “Traveling with Pomegranates” by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor. In it they visit Mary’s House in Ephesus standing by the hearth. Sue Monk Kidd comments about the conversation by Mary and the Angel during the annunciation…”Let it be” and how that process of “being” has been a large part of her life as she moves through her 50’s. It started the Beatles tune in my mind….but also made be return to the verses in Luke. This last year (2010) finding and hearing God’s direction for my life seemed to be the unanswered challenge. This year, I am wanting to live Mary’s words…I am the Lord’s Servant, let it be with me as you have said.
Let it Be.
Lorette
My word is ‘Edgy/Risk’ in don’t get too comfortable! It is sometimes in the very awkwardness that I need to believe, to act, to live. Safety is important but what do I miss by being too safe? Maybe 2011 is a time of movement. I want to participate! Live Well. Laught often. Love Much.
I’ve been listening for several days and finally, my word spoke tome. Or sang to me. My word is “sing” ~ I think it’s a much about music as it is about claiming my voice.
As a Spiritual Director, I invite others to think of a word that sums up a particular situation or feeling. Today I have been invited to share my word for the coming days. I would like to sit with Grace. I’ve lived through Hope, and I’ve found Reinvention. But now I must learn about her…the Grace that will see me through my 53rd year, as I adjust to an empty nest, and endure unknown health issues. Yes. Grace and I shall become very good friends in 2011.
Lucid is my word to begin 2011. With clarity of vision, the sanity of a balanced mind, and internal illumination.
breathe
My word for the new year is NOW. I just finished reading -The Sacrament of the Present Moment- and it truly brought home to me how important it is to live in the moment and pay attention to what is happening around me and inside me right NOW.
I’ve been wrestling with this one a bit, but I keep coming back to UNCHARTED.
There are some big, necessary changes to be made this year and I don’t have a clear plan or map to follow for any of them yet. In some ways, it’s freeing to give up feeling like I have to know everything in advance (as if that’s even possible!). And it opens the door to all sorts of new possibilities. But it’s a little terrifying, too. I do love a good map!
My resistance to this has actually gotten a little comical. I’ve come up with lots of alternatives but whoever is calling this just isn’t buying them. No doubt I’ll have a chance to work with all of my “better” suggestions (faith, trust, courage, acceptance, etc.) along the way, but I think 2011 is simply going to be “uncharted.”
“And now let us welcome the New Year
Full of things that have never been.” (Rilke)
Yikes! :)
….check out Jan Richardson’s blog The Painted Prayerbook: first post for the new year is ‘Where the Map Begins’ – she’s also written a lovely poem by the same name…and, happy trails, wherever, however they take you!!
Thank you, Carolyn! That poem is so beautiful and so perfect for where I am right now. It brought both tears and goosebumps!