Two years ago I began what has now become an annual tradition at Abbey of the Arts during this time of new year reflection. I offer the same invitation this year, again with some prizes to give away on January 6th, and this time with a free gift for everyone who participates.
*Everyone* who shares their word for the year and a brief description in the comments below also gets a *free guided meditation recording* from the Abbey with an *Embodied Examen Prayer for the New Year.* It is a great way to reflect on the past year and tend your dreams for the next. To claim your free gift, read through the instructions below and when your word for 2012 emerges, share it in the comments (scroll to the bottom of the page) and then email Eveline, the fabulous Abbey admin at admin@abbeyofthearts.com and request the link.
Then share this invitation with others! Help spread the love and opportunity for reflection!
Read on for more inspiration:
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 was sanctuary. Sanctuary has multiple meanings: 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 shimmered throughout my year, but especially the sense of finding sanctuary within my own heart, to feel at home in the world. This was the grace of this past year, its fierce lesson for me. This year my word is *savor* (click the link if you want to read more about its meaning for me). It came to me in a moment of silent prayer as I reflected on the call I am feeling these days to deeply savor each moment of my life, to immerse myself even more in the present moment. I am eager to discover what the word holds for me this coming year.
If you want help in letting a word choose you, scroll down for several suggestions.
- 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 Friday, January 6th
Leave your word for the year ahead in the comments below plus a couple of sentences describing your choice.
Letting a Word Choose You
For some of you the word may have come right away, but for some you may desire a word to ripen within your soul these coming weeks and months, but one doesn’t seem to be coming. So here are some suggestions for allowing a word to choose you:
- Release your thinking mind in this process, this isn’t about figuring out just the right word to improve yourself this coming year. The word comes as gift, often your sense of it being “right” is more intuitive, a more embodied sense of yes. The word (or phrase) is one that will work in you (rather than you working on it). Remember that a word that creates a sense of inner resistance is as important to pay attention to as one that has a great deal of resonance.
- Lectio divina is one of the primary practices we have in Christian monastic tradition for listening for a word or phrase that shimmers or calls to our hearts. Lectio is traditionally applied to scripture, but can also be engaged to pray with life experience. Allow some time for prayer and in your imagination review this last year, honoring it as a sacred text. As you walk through your experiences notice which ones stand out, call to you for more attention, or shimmer forth. There may be more than one, but for this time of prayer select one of them (and you can return to others in future times of prayer). Enter into it with all of your senses. Remember it in all of its detail. Experience it from this place you are in now. Notice if there is a word or phrase which rises up. Then allow that word to unfold in your imagination and welcome in images, feelings, and memories which stir in you. After a time of making space for these, begin to ask what is the invitation or call rising up from these noticings? Where is God calling you to a new awareness or action in your life? Close with some time of silence.
- Approach a soul friend, a spiritual director, or a wise elder for your word, as in the desert tradition. They might need some time to ponder this with you. It is always wise to consult with a soul companion or community when testing the fruits of prayer.
- Create a time of retreat for this holy time of year. A couple of hours is enough. Make space to sink into silence, journal, reflect on your experiences of the year past. Write about your dreams and deep desires for the year ahead. In the space of contemplation and stillness, notice if there is a word, image, or phrase which rises up.
- Go for a contemplative walk where you aren’t trying to get anywhere. Your sole purpose is to be as present as possible to each footfall. Listen for how your inner life is calling you forward with each step. Be present to the gifts of creation around you (even if it is the city pigeons and trees planted down the sidewalk). Listen if they might have a word to offer to you.
- Listen to your dreams in these coming days. As you go to sleep, lay a piece of paper and pen by your bed as a sign of your willingness to receive the wisdom that comes in dreams. Consider strong dream images as possible words calling to you. Pay attention to synchronicities through the day. Are there images or words which seem to repeat themselves? If so, take note.
- Allow time for the word to ripen. This may be a slow process. If you hear a word calling, sit with it for a couple of days. Listen attentively to the stirrings of your heart in response. Eventually there will be a tugging inside of you, where you feel yourself drawn again and again to this word. Allow yourself to be in a space of unknowing with this and practice being present to your anticipation knowing that things of the soul unfold in their own time. This is a journey of transformation and the word may not make immediate sense to you, but trust that over time more of its meaning will be revealed.
When the word emerges, please share it with me and others in the comments section below. I am truly blessed by the sharings offered there – it is such a gift of hope in this time of holy darkness (and if you share by Friday, January 6th you are entered into a random drawing for a chance to win one of several prizes!)
If you want to be notified of more Abbey gifts and offerings, consider subscribing to our email newsletter (which includes another free gift just for signing up!)
458 Responses
My word just came to me today- last minute, of course! My word for 2012 is “Beloved”.
Life circumstances of 2011, along with mid-life wisdom, have brought me face to face with hurts of my childhood, guilt of a long-ago divorce, loss of relationships with changes in locations and life situations, and grieving the loss of a wonderful career. It has been quite a journey. God has been my healer and my comforter.
In 2012, my daughter will be married. This is a delight and joy, but she plans to have the entire family in a vacation home for a week, all together, including my former husband. No need to share details, but I’m feeling quite stressed about this already.
Yesterday, after a restless night, my new husband and I opened the Bible for our morning devotions, and it was our wedding passage: Colossians 3:12-17! I wept as we read it again, as we were reminded of how we are to live our lives as God’s beloved.
Despite my flaws and my failures, I am still a beloved child of God. I can live this new year in the knowledge that God continues to love even me. I am to remember that my former husband is also a beloved child of God. I hope to regard and treat everyone as God’s beloved! This is what I want to remember and to live- in 2012 and always.
“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.” (Colossians 3:12)
My word for 2012 is “Watch”. Recently I realized that God has been answering my prayers (particularly my prayers for our children) in very unexpected ways and that I didn’t realize it until after the fact. I want to WATCH for what God is doing in my life!
“Beloved” is my word for 2012. It is in knowing and living as a “beloved son” that I can receive Abba’s heart for me and in turn can love others freely without expecting anything in return.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7
My word is Courage.
I facilitate a weekly Monastery of The Heart community locally and that word kept popping out at me every time we read the closing prayer at the end of each meeting.
After reading your post I encouraged the group members to think about their word and told them what mine was.
It was very interesting to see how differently people may see us as compared to how we see ourselves. I saw myself as shrinking away from or avoiding the things I think I know will end up badly or cause pain. The others did not see me that way at all and so in the process of choosing and sharing our words we are learning a lot about each other. And we are learning how we can support each other.
Thank you for this reminder to look for our Words.
Happy New Year!
~ pilgrim ~
~ has been emerging for a while ~ and then recently, the qualities of inner and outer came forward ~
pilgriming within ~ being ~ listening ~ receiving ~ responding ~ pilgriming without
“Put yourselves on the ways of long ago
Inquire about ancient paths:
Which was the good way?
Take it then, and you shall find rest.”
~Jeremiah 6:16
with deep gratitude ~
The word that has chosen me is “restore,” and Joel 2:25 rings within me: “I will restore the years the locusts have eaten.” Much has been “eaten” in my life over the past few years–relationships, finances, hopes, and dreams. I sense the fulfillment of God’s promise in my word for 2012.
Christine ~ thanks for highlighting a lovely way to start the New Year! I’ve been choosing a word (or letting it choose me!) for several years now. It’s amazing what power a word (and the Word!) can have. Last year’s word was Recovery, and how much I needed to recover from! I’m still waiting for a word for 2012.
I linked back here in a post on my blog today.
http://dilectusmeusmihi.blogspot.com/2011/12/last-top-five-friday-of-2011-learning.html
Happy New Year and God bless you!
My word is GRATITUDE. I’m sure I’ve used it before, but it is so important. I think of it like a light switch in a dark room. If you can find the smallest thing to be grateful for, it opens a small light that can grow. But, we do have to remind ourselves to be grateful and to actively search for things that inspire our gratitude. Thanks for this idea of word selection. It gives me a head-start on Lent.
My word for 2012 is JOY. In reflecting on Song of Solomon 2:10 I was touched and invited by these words: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come.” My mantra for the coming 366 days will be: In this moment I reclaim my JOY!
My word for 2012 is “Godcidence.” I understand that it’s made up, but it came to me in a number of ways. First way is this: I chaplain in a senior home, and a woman spent a lot of time telling me small stories of how grace entered broke through all throughout her life. At the end she said, “everything is a Godcidence!” I just loved it.
The following week, I was standing in the chapel that hosts Portland, Maine’s regular Taize service, and a bird flew in. The sparrow flew around the room 3 times, then around my head 3 times, and then left. Someone in the back of the room said, “whoa, a bird!” Another said, “whoa, the Holy Spirit!” I also had the sensation of the Holy Spirit. The sparrow returned mid service and repeated the dance of before. I was touched. Grace broke through.
WOW!!! I just love your word. Thank you for sharing it with us. What a priviledge to be doing what you are doing. I think seniors cxan offer to us something of the same simplicity as children.
May you be blessed with your word throughout the year and although it will not be mine it will be part of what I sense is surfacing for me. I am still pondering with mine as there are two calling me. May see if I can be as creative as the person you were speaking with and make on up out of the two.
Blessings of deep peace on your year
Helen