Share your Word for 2014
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. The word which chooses us has the potential to transform us.
- What is your word for the year ahead? A word which contains within it a seed of invitation to cross a new threshold in your life?
Share your word in the comments section below by Monday, January 6, 2014 and you are automatically entered for the prize drawing (prizes listed below). Last year we had 840 people share!
A free 12-day online mini-retreat to help your word choose you. . .
This year I am offering all Abbey newsletter subscribers a gift: a free 12-day online mini-retreat with a suggested practice for each day to help your word choose you and to deepen into your word once it has found you.
Sign up here and you can start your mini-retreat today. Once you subscribe you will receive a confirmation email with access to the mini-retreat content (and you are free to unsubscribe at any time). If you are already a subscriber, the invitation will be in this week’s email newsletter.
Win a Prize – Random Drawing Giveaway on January 6th!
I am delighted to offer some wonderful gifts from the Abbey:
- 4 people will win a signed copy of Eyes of the Heart: Photography as Christian Contemplative Practice (mailed directly from me in Ireland to you, anywhere in the world)
- 4 people will win a copy of Naked and You Clothed Me: Homilies and Reflections for Cycle A with two reflections by Christine, plus also Richard Rohr, Rob Bell, Jan Richardson, Fr. James Martin, SJ, and many more!
- 4 people will win their choice of self-study online classes from following: Creative Flourishing in the Heart of the Desert: A Self-Study Online Retreat with St. Hildegard of Bingen, Soul of a Pilgrim: An Online Art Retreat, Seasons of the Soul, Lectio Divina: The Sacred Art of Reading the World, or Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Contemplative Practice.
So please share your word (and it would be wonderful to include a sentence about what it means for you) with us below. Subscribe to the Abbey newsletter for your free gift. Share the love with others and invite them to participate. Then stay tuned – on January 6th I will announce the prize winners!
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680 Responses
Trust is the word that kept coming up every time I read one of you offerings. I have sent an image of one of my paintings entitled “Thresholds – Bless the Space Between Us” ( hope you receive it)so you can see that I express myself best in paint, rather than words. Always when reading the Bible the words “Doors, Windows, Vistas, Openings, Gates” and etc., come to me as places of transition. As I move through life I must always trust God’s presence with me.
“Shine” is the word printed on a stone I chose from a basket at a Pilgrimage of Peace Retreat with Stefan Andre Waligur this past summer. I would add, “Glow” and “Tender Mercy”. I am spreading my wings into the world again, in Expressive Healing Arts as I continue healing myself from a neck injury and trauma. I am so grateful for my special healing helpers and the healing arts people I have been in community with.
This watercolor, 11″x14″, is entitled “Kuan Yin Comforting the Nervous Monkeys with Bananas”
:) thank you!
“Change” (as in, “expansion”) is my word for 2014, which is quite interesting since my word for 2013 had been “surge”. I do believe that I “surged” forward in various ways this past year, but probably the most significant was spiritual development. My theology had been based on the need to be correct in my doctrinal beliefs; now it springs from my relationship with my Lord Himself. “Change” seems to be a very fitting theme to follow up on “surge”. I wonder where He’s taking me now?!
Listening…
My word for 2014 : Open
Whenever I slowly say or think the word “open”, the message goes straight to my heart and it finds a thin place where I respond with feeling and compassion. Since the upcoming year is sure to be one of great change, I want to be open to the pain of loss, the joy of birth, and the flow of life.
Wonderful, rich, powerful verbs and adjectives revealing themselves here!
Still being open and receptive for my ‘Word’. I have had a number of important phrases that have been given to me and reinforced over the last two months, but somehow those do not seem to be the directive for the year so much as they were spiritual lessons for that season: ‘light and shadow’, ‘day by day’, and ‘stay present’, for example. Each of those have personal and direct significance for me but are not yet the ‘word’ calling me.
Waiting,
Judith
The word(s) that came to me for 2014 is “Home” (find the way home).
It is more of a need than a certainty, to discover my gifts, where do I belong, where I´m appreciated, what can I do for others, who can I support, what is my purpose…
Pursuit
The word calling me this year is RESONATE: “to be filled with a deep, clear, full, reverberating sound; to evoke or suggest images, memories, and emotions.” I long to experience its transforming power in my life and relationships and work.
my word for 2014 is CLEANSE ~
includes ritual cleaning/clearing….purging, restoring, refining, healing….of my body, my surroundings, my heart, my “stuff”
somehow this feels rather daunting…yet, i imagine this word has come for a purpose!