SHARE YOUR WORD FOR 2016
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 January 6, 2016 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.
Subscribe to our email newsletter and you will receive a link to start your mini-retreat today. Your information will never be shared or sold. (If you are already subscribed to the newsletter, look for the link in today’s email).
WIN A PRIZE – RANDOM DRAWING GIVEAWAY ON JANUARY 6TH!
We are delighted to offer some wonderful gifts from the Abbey:
- One signed copy each of Soul of a Pilgrim, Eyes of the Heart, The Artist’s Rule, and Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire.
- One space in Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year
- 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 we will announce the prize winners!
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712 Responses
Staying Awake
NOW I am revealing New things to you
Things hidden and unknown to you
Created just NOW, this very moment .
Of these things you have heard nothing until NOW.
So that you cannot say, Oh yes, Iknew this.
Isaiah 48:6-7
The word that chose me is torchlight . I wrote the following poem
TO
Trusting
Our Godde of LOVE
Rich colors come forth as we pause
Centering in the Wholly.
Hearing a still small voice we
Learn new vision
In how to work and play.
Graced by One who gives us strength and courage,
Helping us to overcome prejudice, greed, and anxiety.
Together in the LIGHT.
My word for 2016 is ‘Secure’, which was given to me by my deepest soul friend who didn’t know that I was going through this process. As ever, I am in awe of the many layers of magic that we create and live within when we open to Spirit and to our own hearts. I look forward to my journey with this word. Thank you for the invitation and the opportunity.
My word is wholehearted. I feel blessed by it and what it stirs in me. Ive started a visual journal as a sacred space to guide and capture my journey. I am thrilled and grateful.
The word Flow has been chasing me for a while. Flow, in Csikszentmihalyi’s tradition is the sense of liberation that comes when we find ourselves lost in an activity. In flow, time, obligation, worry, anxiety and the likes fade away. I encounter flow in my study, in nature walks, in long conversations with dear ones. When I am lucky, flow happens in my meditation cushion as well.
My word for 2016 is SPACIOUSNESS. It chose me as I walked in Kew Gardens a few days ago. It is Spaciousness that I am yearning for when I seek to simplify my life, my home, my commitments, to make space in which to be fully present to what is most important, uncluttered by head-stuff, material stuff etc, breathing deeply and stretching freely, so that I can create and be more fully me.
My word is SPACE. I want to create an inner space for new life to grow inside me and also an outer space for new work to occur. Both of these involve letting go of things that are no longer working for me. Old ideas, assumptions, beliefs that are clogging up wellsprings inside me. I want to give away physical objects that I love in order to clear an actual space that will encourage art making. In the midst of physical suffering, I want to cross over a threshold and welcome a spacious freedom, what as yet I cannot imagine.
My word is ABIDE. 2015 was a very challenging time for me. I need to be able to abide in ‘unknowing’ , in the mystery of my life. To stay with the often difficult feelings that have been thrown up, to abide trustfully in these shadows and be alert to the still small voice which ever calls me to the light.
My word for 2016 is “diversity”
defined in Webster’s dictionary as – 1: the condition of being different : variety 2: an instance or a point of difference
To recognize and celebrate diversity opens the door to acceptance. We can begin to relate to each other through our likenesses and then celebrate the fullness of our humanity through our differences.
I also hope to study diversity as an addition to beauty rather than a detraction from beauty; as demonstrated in the Japanese word “wabi-sabi”, that nothing is perfect, nothing is permanent, and nothing is finished and that the “thing” that makes the object different is also the thing that makes it beautiful.
Thank you so much for this delightful word; “diversity” will be my word for 2016.
It took a long time for a word to reveal itself to me. At first I was overthinkng it and manufactured words out of my conscious mind. It was difficult for me to let the thought processes go and wait in unknowing. And then a word popped up when I was doing something quite other and I knew it