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
I am new to this process. Thank you Sheila Conner for introducing me to this opportunity. I am only on the 2nd day reading the emails that may help me receive my word but I think it is CLIMB
My word is Feel! I have spent too many years numbing my feelings and not allowing myself space to experience my emotions. I want to welcome my emotions and all feelings to the table this year! I want to be able to sit with them and not fear them.
This is always such an interesting process. Receiving a word, then watching where the resistance comes up. Developing “word envy” (other words always sound more fun or more fruitful). And then experiencing the persistence of the word, how it suddenly shows up in unexpected places and won’t leave me alone.
My word this year is HOPE – and it’s been showing up everywhere. Inscribed on an unexpected gift, as graffiti on the sidewalk, in daily meditations. Still, I resisted. It seemed too simple, even sort of bland. And I was a little scared – what’s going to happen this year that’s going to test it or require it?!
Finally, exhausted from thinking about it and looking for some distraction, I clicked on a link to another website to read about that blogger’s chosen word and found a beautiful blessing. From a book titled…
Hope Will Find You.
Apparently, I can run, but I can’t hide! :)
So here’s to HOPE – whatever she may bring.
(And with thanks to Elaine for her lovely post.)
Mine is story. As someone who is a writer, reader, listener, minister, social worker, counselor, and helper, it brings together all the different facets of my life. I’m not going off track as long as this is my guiding word for all I do.
My word is “womanly”-as a tom boy who has four sons, I feel that I am at an age where I am starting to accept my whole self-and I have found myself exploring my feminine self.
BELIEVE ~
Glinda: You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn’t you tell her before?
Glinda: She wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.
Scarecrow: What have you learned, Dorothy?
Dorothy: Well, I—I think that it, that it wasn’t enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em — and it’s that — if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?
Glinda: That’s all it is!
My word is “examine” or “examen.” I’m drawn to Ignatian spirituality, and the examen keeps returning to me as something I’m called to.
My word this year is
BELOVED
as He calls me/us to BE-LOVED.
<3
for the above post… i mean busyness ….
My word is FOCUS. I tend to invite alot of businessand distractions into my days and I don’t focus on the ” big picture”. It’s funny too, that i am a photographer and have made lots of fuzzy images lately !! This word is an obvious one for me… in so many ways.