SHARE YOUR WORD FOR 2017
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, 2017 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 the Sunday email).
WIN A PRIZE – RANDOM DRAWING GIVEAWAY ON JANUARY 6TH!
We are delighted to offer some wonderful gifts from the Abbey:
- One space in our upcoming New Year’s online retreat – Spiraling Inward: Seven Celtic Spiritual Practices
- One signed copy each of Illuminating the Way, Soul of a Pilgrim, Eyes of the Heart, The Artist’s Rule, and Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire.
- One space in our online program Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year
- 4 people will win their choice of our self-study online retreats
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!
316 Responses
My word is blossom…
The word that arrived is courage– to step out of my comfort, and maybe
complacency, to be love and light in the world.
My word is FREEDOM. Exciting and scary, at the same time. I’m ready to explore what it might mean to me. Thank you Christine!
The word that has been offered to me is “settling.” Not “settling for less” but instead, “settling in” – into myself, into this new place, into my body, into the newness of marriage, into what is, into God’s immense love… settling.
Seek calm, clear spaces.
Embrace abundance.
Tell yourself a new story of
Tenderness and enough.
Let go.
Invite in and
Notice
God’s abundance
here.
As soon as I opened the latest e-mail from the Abbey, before I read a word, instantly flashed through my brain:
SETTLE.
I moved into a new place a couple months ago and this word has the positive meaning of monastic stability, but also the negative connotation of getting, and making do with, less than one wanted.
Looks like I’ll be living with ambiguity in 2017, but that’s nothing new.
Be New, taking the next steps. Small or big take them.
My word is Strength. It just presented itself fully to me last night, after darting in and out of my thoughts over the past few weeks and slowly growing more clear until it became obvious that Strength was my word, beyond doubt. It initially presented in the Phil. 4:13 sense, that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and that it is not my own strength but the strength of Christ that sustains me. But I feel like God is also telling me that this is my year to rebuild my strength, physically and emotionally, after dealing with the repercussions of the diagnosis and treatment of several chronic illnesses over the past 2 years that have stolen away much of my physical strength.
My word is Awake. Awake to the present, to hear and see more clearly
My word is Rest. I will resolve to practice a weekly Sabbath in order to counter the culture of busyness that has been destroying me.
BELONG has been rising in me for some time – awaiting the invitation to recognize and welcome and claim it as my own. And so it is. Receiving “BELONG” as my word for 2017 begins a year of intention to recognize, welcome and claim the belonging that is already mine.