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
My word is “Rejoice” – to be aware of what is life giving and to step through the messy times, remembering who we are as one with the sacred.
RECONCILE is the word that has chosen me for the upcoming year. Daily I feel as if I have a greater need for harmony in my life and my spirit. A reconciliation with myself will hopefully restore my spirit to wholeness.
Reconciliation was my word for 2014… So much good, so much bridging and restoration from this word. it certainly wasn’t easy and I’m not done with that word yet but in it all there was tremendous healing and reconciliation, physically and spiritually. I hope it will be the same for you.
trust. though i cannot hear You as i could, i want to trust that i am still loved, guided, protected, and provided for. trust in myself, though i cannot function as i used to. trust that even when things look a mess, all is still well. i want lived trust.
AUDACIOUS TRUST!
Remembrance — Remembering who I really am on a soul level, remembering how I embodied it at a younger age, remembering my voice and my power.
Hope. I Peter 1:3. This word has been calling to me for some time now as my word for the last 2 years has been Present. Our son died in January of this year of colon cancer. It has been a hard journey. Yet Ps. 130:5, 6 speaks of a waiting, alert, expectant, watchful, armed, patient, with heightened senses – Hope. A living, vibrant Hope.
Everyone I meet this year will teach me about Love; Some will teach me what it is and some will teach me what it is not.
Embody – the moment, life, the Truth, Love. I sense the true fullness of the word revealing itself as the days, weeks and months of 2015 unfold.
BOLD.
Release from fear and timidity.
My word is rest. I am a single mom of three and I am serving as the senior pastor of a parish of five small congregations. Rest is something I crave, but it is something I really have to make an effort to receive. It is my goal to even more jealously guard time to rest every day. I can tell such a difference within myself and how I interact with others on days I do not carve out time to “rest in the word.”