SHARE YOUR WORD FOR 2018
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 5, 2018 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 – The Wisdom of the Body
- One space in our Lent retreat – Watershed Moments in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures
- 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!
433 Responses
Community: I keep coming to a place where I’ve had to face the need for community both in my life and in the people around me. I have lived most of life in an sort of isolation (even among many people) and now see the need for interaction and inclusion into the world around me. This has been an exciting time of discovery and I have begun talking about “community” so much my friends now make reference to me when ever they see or hear the word
Welcome, Kevin
Susan did you get my response? I am not good with technology…
Intimate. Noun and verb. Personally, as I feel myself aging, I sense that attaining greater intimacy and immediacy with the people and places around me will provide a firmer foundation than analyzing and planning who, what, where, when, and why. Socially, I feel awash in an American society of men in power who lack intimacy, out of touch with the true power of the feminine, both in the mother nature that sustains them and the women who nourish them. As in my last course with the Abbey, I notice the predominant gender taking time here to stay in touch.
The word that has chosen me is “trust”. Trust in myself. Trust in the mystery. Trust in our Holy Divine Mother. Trust in the process. Trust…I feel that Trust is the next step for me to take in my unfolding and a most necessary one for me to live in my power. There are so many more doors to open and walk through and I can only do it with Trust. Trust will reveal itself as this coming year will unfold. Thank you Christine, I am grateful.
Deep. Deep peace, deep healing, deep meaning. Not staying in the superficial but finding the deeper layers….
I choose the word Truth! To speak my truth and live my truth.
Shadow. I chose this word because this is what is most present in our world right now. We must work with our own Shadow and our collective Shadow if we are to awaken ourselves.
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.”
— Carl Jung
Amen.
My word JOY chose me. When I envision my dream life free from constraints I am filled with JOY.
My word is HOME. I have come to know that for me that feeling of being home and knowing as the Celtic saints would say, my place of Resurrection, that being home is also who God is for me.
My word this year is “emergence.” It’s been of year of trying to heal from the past; I feel I’ve been cocooning myself in a sort of chrysalis. I hope this next year I’ll feel ready to emerge and start again.
The word that has been given to me is Reclaim. I’ve spent the past seven years deconstructing a rigid belief system. I now want to begin again from a new place the work I once did. I turn 60 this coming year and I feel the call of the elder in my life. I am very interested in your Sacred Seasons program.
Sandy–I too am turning 60 next year and am feeling called to embrace this new season of life in a freedom and in claiming my wisdom. Blessings as you celebrate your new season!
Blessing to you as well as you discover the depths of HOME in your life.