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 Christine,
It has been awhile since I have visited and I was so happy to see your email on our personal “word.” I am sorry about your experience with the pulmonary emboli. I had the same experience twelve years ago which set off my pain disorder. I am so glad hear you are recovering. Please rest and take very good care of your dear self at this time.
My word for the year is “hope.” Jud, my dearly beloved, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer three weeks ago. Our world has been turned upside-down and we are going back and forth from Minneapolis to Stanford to get the best treatment possible. He has always been healthy and I pray that this strong body will help get him through. This is a nasty cancer but we are holding on to hope that he will have more time on this earth. Right now he is responding very well to chemotherapy which has greatly decreased his pain.
I am committing myself to live in hope when despair is strugging to take over. I believe that hope is the biggest gift I can give to myself and to my dear Jud.
Sending you love, Christine!
Suz
P.S. Jud has a Caring Bridge site which helps us be aware that we are surrounded by so many caring souls…
http://www.caringbridge.org
(write” jud reaney” in the name spot at the bottom right. he writes much more beautifully about the experience than I do!)
Oh, Suz,
I read all that Jud wrote on the Caring Bridge site. What a man! It sounds like you have both been surrounded by love and care, but I always think in these times, what can I do? The ideas will come. Be sure to invisibly write that word hope on your palm everyday, so that you can walk around with it in your hand. I have a poem about hope that I’d love to get to you. I’ll dig and see if I can find your e-mail address. We are lighting candles for your beloved.
Pam
The word that came to my mind as I read this was – RENEWAL. I image that represents renewal of dedication to my spirit – renewal of my energy – renewal of love of all things. I am thankful to have this time and opportunity for renewal.
My word for this year has to be FORGIVE. It is a very difficult thing for me to do (which makes it an extremely appropriate start to the New Year). I need to try to forgive the support worker who, when she had my daughter out for an afternoon’s outing at the end of June, through some sort of negligence, allowed my daughter to sustain a severe trauma to her eye, which has resulted in her having to have the eye surgically removed. I have to learn to forgive the worker 1) for the negligence which allowed the accident to happen, 2) for not even once calling to find out how my daughter was doing, and 3) for failing to return my calls or rely to my emails as I try to clarify exactly the events surrounding the accident and, so, to achieve some closure.
My word for this year is NOW. Whatever is the moment — waiting in line, washing dirty dishes, presenting to a huge group of people — each is a moment worthy of my full attention. And in each, “NOW is the greatest moment of my life.”
My word this year will be acceptance. I have been wrestling with many things this past year,and for the coming year I want to experience acceptance.
much love,
MB
My word is ‘kindness’. It will be the constant thing for me in all my thoughts and relationships. It will underpin everything I do. It is the thing I wish most for myself and the best gift I can make to others, and to this Earth on which we live.
Thank you for helping us do this! You opened a door for me.
My word is “acceptance”. I’ve been working with that word for years and have uncovered many layers…but I know there’s more. In Advent we are thinking of Mary’s acceptance of GOD’s will for her. It wasn’t what she planned. Her life didn’t go as she probably hoped. Yet she is always portrayed with a demeanor of trusting acceptance…doing what she could.
My word for this year is SAVOR. I am a part of a spiritual deepening program at our church. It is a nine month pilot program with 10 of us meeting with two ministers on a regular basis and with a spiritual director also. I have found that I am beginning to connect more deeply with the deep sacred within. This is a wonderful time for me to just savor this experience and to be totally present to my growing spiritual practices and myself.
The word that came to me, when thinking about your post, was ALLOW. I’m not sure why. I suspect that maybe a part of me is saying “quit trying to control everything”. It would be a nice change to save my energy for supporting what is happening in my life instead of always trying to change things. Sometimes I think I stand in the way of the good stuff as well as the bad. Thank you for your post.
Maybe focusing on this word will open up some doors I have closed to myself.
As soon as I saw Dylan’s expression of ‘beautiful mystery’, I knew, and knew that I knew, that like it or not, MYSTERY will be my word for 2011. I didn’t embrace it immediately, going instead to the Synonym Finder for an additional short list of words: yield, plunge, gratitude. It occurs to me now, that each of those may well be threads that serve to create my path into the ‘unexplored ground’ that each new year offers. – My companion every season, that I will acknowledge and prayerfully flesh out in the coming days: MYSTERY….