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 for 2014 is kindness: kindness to myself, kindness to others in speech, action, etc kindness to the world.
I think this may be my most difficult word yet
2014 word(s)..Be Present NOW…I sit here now, look out from the hilltop to a small community covered in snow, illuminated by the noon sun and shivering in -35 cold.
I am so grateful for all of it’s still beauty and know that God is smiling and caring with the divine Presence also. Blessed wishes to all.
My word for 2014 is “Gratitude.” It was inspired by the work of Br. David Steindl-Rast and the many blessings in my life. Part of my daily practice this year will be to check-in with his web site’s (Gratefulness.org) Word of the Day.
My word is Ponder…
My word for 2014 is waiting.
My life is in transition and I find myself in a season of waiting. It is an active state with lessons to be learned in patience, loss of control, gratitude, compassion, humility, living in the present moment and trusting in God.
I had been feeling the word pause from the onset of the mini retreat but I sat with it and waited, yes I paused! I researched holy pause, a wonderful article by Christine came up! Pausing seemed too inactive to me and so like Alice falling down the rabbit hole I fell upon my word:
SELAH
It is a Hebrew word which appears over 70 times in the Book of Psalms, among other biblical scripture. While its definitive meaning is mysterious it is considered by many scholars to in Psalms its meaning is most likely a musical one intending a place in the psalm when the singer should pause and allow the meaning of the last phrase to hang there in the air and resonate before preceding to the next part of the psalm. My word and I had found each other! i also came upon a song called Selah by Lauryn Hill, an artist whose name I had heard of but whose work I am wholly unfamiliar with. the song is a lovely and heartfelt punctuation to my word’s arrival to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LBAbWdBWtA
This year my word just leapt out at me when I wasn’t even looking! Metanoia – the journey of changing one’s mind, heart, self, or way of life.
My heart, my mind, my soul
Every part of me
The road I travel
Always I seek to change
Never succeeding
Only you Father
In all your wisdom can
Alter my way.
I feel a deep longing to undergo metanoia and pray that God will change me this year.
Adventure is my word for 2014.
I am being welcomed into an Adventure. A journey that will offer me opportunities for art and friendship. Art and friendship encouraged through
the Abbey of the Arts and other gifts!
My word for 2014 is “Restoration”. Last year my word was “infusion” and I have to think that these two words are connected. Perhaps with my infusing from my inner self this past year, I may have let too much go – too much energy, too much involvement, too much expectation. This year I wonder what it is that needs to be restored – and to what state? Do I need to give back to myself energy, attention, actualization? Or can it mean that I need to return to the authentic self, the basic central being who is the “real” me and the one I need to let comeforth, not covered with the scars of caring for others at the expense of my own spirit. Needless to say, this word will be simmering and at times hammering to be heard, digested and understood and then acted upon (or not) as I learn to live with this word and listen to its wisdom.
REVITALIZE
Last year took a toll, and I feel as if the invitation for 2014 is to be recharged, connected to what is vital.