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
Presence.
My word for 2018 is Yes! (include the exclamation point).
I contribute the word Dare. Having confidence and courage in God and His providence, protection, care and sense of humor, dare to seek when all seems chaos, dare to obey when the command was just a whisper and we’re not sure, dare to be vulnerable and honest in a world that celebrates winning and cleverness. Just dare.
…..While writing this Christmas Poem I discovered my Word. God heard/hears us and now I must listen to HEAR more deeply Him and others. Below I offer this Community the poem.
Blessings,
Diantha
I was listening to a homily by Bishop Robert Barron and he talked about how there is a
deep part of us the cries out to God and he said that the French have an expression that seems to capture the depth of this feeling more than the English does Cri du Coeur. This caught hold of me and has been echoing around in my soul since then, all during this Advent.
Cri du Coeur (Cry of the Heart)
Longings, strung out and flapping In the wind
like clothes on a clothesline blown dry.
All the moisture of our dreams seems
to have disappeared till we embrace them again,
find the fragrance of hope still clinging to them,
close our eyes and breathe in the fresh scent of promise.
Wonder, that inhale of breath when we see
the fog hovering over the fields,
the sun barely shooting shafts of light through it.
Or the warm contented feel of an infant
nestled asleep on our chest,
love swelling up past bursting inside of us.
Confusion that wraps itself around our spirit
like sheets do after a restless night,
entangling, entrapping us till we throw them back,
break free not of the questions but of the panic.
Prayer, a sunrise, the word, a smile blankets us with warmth
dispelling the chill of uncertainty.
Questions, the whys, what’s and how’s
whirling around in our heads
can swamp us or launch us.
For the very same words can be spoken
in derision and doubt like Zacharias
or in questing and faith like Mary,
“How can this be?”
Jesus our baby/god knows what it is like to
cry out for comfort and succor,
from need and pain,
in agony and ecstasy.
From the wail of new life,
through the last gasp of Death.
He knows that sometimes they are one in the same.
Christmas reminds us that God heard
the cri du coeur of our hearts,
the laments and the exultations
and in response came
not in a superhero cape but
in swaddling clothes.
Jesus joining his voice to ours Emmanuel.
Diantha L. Zschoche Christmas 2017
Abstract – I have lived most of my life in a calculated, disciplined and guarded manner. This is true of my spiritual life and my art making (mostly acrylic painting and colored pencil drawings). I have recently begun to paint with watercolor. I am letting myself experience freedom in my spiritual disciplines. I have experienced a shift on my spiritual journey. I want to embrace a more abstract way of experiencing God and my art in the coming year.
Beloved. I teach theology at a university where many of the students are . . . not quite prepared for college, and sometimes I get really down about their difficulties with writing, with reading, and with general background knowledge. But as I was reading their end-of-semester reflections this year, several students wrote that they learned in my class that they weren’t going to hell, that they were worth something, that God loved them. I was overwhelmed to realize (again; students have written about this before, and even talked about it in class) that *that’s* what’s important–yes, I can teach them how to write better sentences and lead them through a step-by-step explanation of difficult theological concepts, but all that is so much less important than learning of their goodness and dignity and beauty. I wrote in my journal, “The most important word they can hear in my class is BELOVED.” And I think I forget all the time that that’s what my classes are ultimately about because I forget all the time that that’s what our lives are about. So BELOVED is my word this year to remind me not to lose this idea again. It’s too important; it’s come up so many times . . .
I love your post! Beautiful!
Strong.
open …. as a stance; a heart repeatedly broken and finally held open; as a hand held open without agenda; poised, prepared, ready… open
FUN
Mystery