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
My word is “love.” Gerald May says (in Care of Mind; Care of Spirit), “In short, efficiency is the how of life; love is the why. These are not the same things and there is danger of confusing them.”
I have confused them. . . . and I am wooed by this word.
“Why!” is dancing with “Why?” Questions are held in the ANSWER. I would like for the answer . . . . love . . . to seep deep into my soul. We shall see!!! The “Y’s” have been dancing all around me, in the crooks of tree limbs. The answer surrounds! I will spend this year . . . with the answer . . . love. . .the “why” of life . . .
My word is epiphany. This is my feastday. Reminds me to be more conscious of those subtle aha moments that lead to greater awareness suvh as the moment recently when the pastor spoke of us as misfits and I heard mystics. This caused me to wonder what would happen if I could meet everyone as if they are a mystic? Blessings.
Thank you for the online retreat. On day 12, the suggestion to write an acrostic poem, helped me to embrace the word and a year of devoting.
Dare to awake: wash away the teary crust of sleep so I may live into the dream.
Everyone, everything belongs: the dawn of my unsheltered always-at-home woman, the dark red and yellow eventide bowing gratitude for this day.
Vital gasps: draw in the morning glow of an alpha African coffee; sip, savor the omega burnt wine bedtime story.
Oasis for thirsty Christmas cacti: I call each one by name; whisper with and shout-out for my dripping wet evergreen sisters.
Today is the terrible untold truth: a time to set the oak table one silver fork, knife and spoon at a time; the key, word—hopes—then promises communion.
I am terminal: mere bones, blood and brains; writing, my crown of thorns even in the dead of night, raises softly scented rose buds through the meridian until I am—
No more: a muscled fleshy human being; I am a soul surrendering to the peace of
Goodness and Grace gifting me, all willing to receive, with the unearthing of eternal spirit-beings—world spirit willing—Co-creating roses.
My word for 2014 is “Simplicity.”
My word for 2014 is Dance. I intend to dance in 2014, physically, emotionally, spiritually.
Blessings to you, Paul. Dance strikes me as a brave word. I hope that dancing through 2014 brings you joy, release and wonder.
My word for 2014 is EMBRACE.
EMBRACE
1. To take, clasp or enclose in the arms; to press to the bosom, in token of affection.
2. To seize eagerly; to lay hold on; to receive or take with willingness that which is offered
3. To comprehend; to include or take in
4. To comprise; to enclose; to encompass; to contain; to encircle.
5. To receive; to admit.
6. To find; to take; to accept.
(from Webster’s 1828 dictionary)
I believe it is my year to wholeheartedly embrace the gifts given me, to embrace who and what I am, and to embrace others with His love.
Blessings,
Catherine
My word for 2014 is Revelation. I’m feeling the call to pierce through the veils of illusion and I suspect this will be a year where much is revealed to me, but equally one in which I’m revealing much as well.
I pray for the light and gift of discernment to guide my every step, every dicision throughout this New Year…
(in Christian contexts) perception in the absence of judgment with a view to obtaining spiritual direction and understanding: without providing for a time of healing and discernment, there will be no hope of living through this present moment without a shattering of our common life.
My word for 2014 is “PRESENCE.” My prayer is to be more awake this year to God’s presence in my life. I desire to be able to point to and remember “God moments” each day of this new year. Being awake in the moment, aware of God in my life and how God is using me to bring love and peace into the world.
My word for 2014 is SEE. This word chose me on Dec. 11. I was reading from an Advent booklet the following line :
“Lift up your eyes on high and SEE who has created these” -Isaiah 40-26. As I meditated on that line the word SEE jumped out to me.
Then later that morning I received in my e-mail the DGO daily mass readings and a commentary from Pope Francis accompanied it.
“Faith does not merely gaze at Jesus, but SEES things as Jesus himself SEES them, with his own eyes: it is a participation in his way of SEEING………. Our faith in the Son of God made man in Jesus of Nazareth enables us to grasp reality’s deepest meaning and to SEE how much God loves this world and is constantly guiding it towards himself. “
-Pope Francis
Encyclical « Lumen fidei / The Light of Faith », §18 (trans. © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
This really spoke to me as I have been struggling with putting my faith and trust in Him. My prayer is that I can sees as Jesus sees,that I can believe and trust in Him, that I can hope in Him and realize His love for me as He guides me toward himself.