Share your Word for 2015
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 Tuesday, January 6, 2015 and you are automatically entered for the prize drawing (prizes listed below).
A free 12-day online mini-retreat to help your word choose you. . .
As in past years, 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. Even if you participated last year, you are more than welcome to register again.
Sign up here and you can start your mini-retreat today. Once you subscribe you will receive the first email within an hour and then one email each day for 12 days. Your information will never be shared or sold.
Win a Prize – Random Drawing Giveaway on January 6th!
I am delighted to offer some wonderful gifts from the Abbey and friends and supporters of the Abbey’s work:
- One space in the upcoming online Abbey retreat Illuminating the Way: Epiphany and New Year Retreat with Monks, Mystics, & Archetypes (a fabulous way to begin the year!)
- A copy of Dana Reynolds‘ fabulous gold medal winning novel Ink and Honey
- A 6-week self study course from Dana Reynolds: Your Sacred Life Artisan’s Book of Wonderment
- A New Year Sacred Reading from the Ronna Detrick (let a woman from scripture accompany you into the new year!)
- A copy Betsey Beckman’s fabulous dance of The Creation on DVD (be inspired to dance into the new year)
- A copy of As I Lay Pondering from Kayce Hughlett (a wonderful book of daily reflections to accompany you into the new year)
- A 2015 calendar from Stacy Wills featuring her alcohol ink paintings (be blessed with Stacy’s stunning images each month)
- A copy of Richard Bruxvoort Colligan’s new album Love Stands With, with songs based on justice-oriented Psalms (be moved by powerful music to inspire your heart to prophetic action in the coming year)
- 4 people will win a copy of Sick and You Cared for Me: Homilies and Reflections for Cycle B with one reflection by Christine, plus also Richard Rohr, Rob Bell, Jan Richardson, and many more!
- 4 people will win their choice of self-study online classes from the 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 to receive ongoing inspiration in your in-box. 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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804 Responses
‘Break me open’
I constantly need to be opened to what You have for me to learn, to hear, Beloved. Break me Open!
My word for this year is, in fact, Advent. The past year has been one of many losses. I was laid off from my job of 17 years, I moved, and two persons important to me are no longer in my life. It’s not felt lifesaving and often has been rather dark. Yet at the time, I am waiting a birth to much that will be new soon. Much as we do this season of Advent, a time of waiting for our Light to come…
My word is: FRACTAL
Exploring the sacred geometry.
Immediately I knew my word was ‘freedom’! Wow! Love that thought! Wonder how the Lord will be freeing me????
My word is GENTLING… a prayer that everything within me will breathe a GENTLING spirit into our world & cosmos,so that I contribute & give away this gentling.
I am asking to be gentled in body,mind & spirit…moment by moment in the everyday of my life.
I haven’t done this for a few years now, but a week or so ago when I was out walking a word found me.
Faith.
I have an underlying sense of tiredness at trying to figure things out, at remembering to be the way that I want to be, at holding something, though I don’t quite know what, together.
I would like to let go of some of this searching into – well I don’t know! (that’s why it’s faith…) into that which is bigger than me, and unknowable, into the mystery.
INHABIT…From an online legal dictionary, this verb has the following meanings: “to abide, be established in, be resident in, board, colonize, domicile, dwell in, dwell permanently, habitare, have quarters, keep house, live, lodge, occupy, remain, reside in, room, sojourn, squat, stay, take up residence, tenant, visit”
This photo is of wild bittersweet, growing three miles from our home, the only place I have been able to find it in ten years of living here.
I found it because I was paying attention–I was inhabiting my life one day, and happened to spot it as I was driving past.
A few days ago, I realized that a hawk I had seen repeatedly roosting in our hedgerow, actually comes and goes every morning just after dawn. As I look back, this one particular hawk has been seen there off and on for several years–apparently our permanent neighbor.
I’d like to know what else I’ve missed, for example what are the names of the wildflowers that grow in the ditch along our road? What is the date the hummingbirds first arrive at our feeder in the spring?
I feel invited to more fully inhabit my body, my home, my relationships, and my prayers.
The word that has chosen me for 2015 is inhabit.
Christine, I like this idea so much, I’d like to share it with my friends and clients on facebook. I would credit your page if it would be OK with you if I do a similar giveaway.
What do you think? https://www.facebook.com/julie.a.vesely
My word is Lunar. Having spent many years in Full Solar (transcendent, male, yang, light, hierarchical) religion, I am exploring Lunar (imminent, female, yin, dark, communal) spirituality, and the ultimate combining of them in non-dual awareness.
Edge.
Like a line framing possibility,
a border defining newness.
Look back, look ahead. Feel your location.
There’s something at stake to remain, and something at stake to move.
Fringe, Verge, Brink.
This line is where breath is fresh,
where catalysts are received,
where growth occurs.
It’s a quick jump
or years-in-the-crossing liminal.
If and when I test this limit, will it feel like In or Out? Or maybe Through?
The word reminds me of Egg, Dodge, Gee, Ledge, Budge, Hedge, Fetch.
Thank you, Edge. Here we go into 2015.
“This line is where breath is fresh,
where catalysts are received,
where growth occurs.”
Thanks for sharng, Richard. Isn’t it the edges that frighten us the most? That moment before dropping over for a new beginning…