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
My word is LIGHT. Thank you for this lovely process! A few other words flirted with me then LIGHT showed up and stayed.
Balance…for 2018…exercise and stillness for example…
Content. May the content of my life leave me content. thank you for this class Christine!
Hospitality is my chosen word for 2018, to begin with myself then reach out to receive others
Joy
OK…here is my decision. After holding a bunch of words all beginning
with “P”, and thinking there must be a message here and when I ‘get it’
I’ll know which of these words will live with me for the year. I was
meditating on them the other day when “voice” drifted into my awareness
and I can’t seem to get rid of the “voice”. (Am I going crazy?). I know
my own voice is getting deeper as I age and it is my hope for my
practice (one of those ‘p’ words) along my writing path (another ‘p’
word). I don’t really know my voice and so I plan to take a year to
discover it…what it has to say and how it says it. I look forward to
the unfolding of my “voice” along with listening to other voices and to the one Voice.
Trust
This is my word too
It’s a good one. I hope it inspires and supports you well.
It seems the word for me is Simplicity. I’ve been drawn to it for some time, before I joined the Holy Disorder, but the Monk’s manifesto has brought my commitment into focus and aligned with other things in my heart. I look forward to the coming year as a process of considering what is essential, of essence, in my life, and pruning what smothers beauty, truth, and love. So here’s my acrostic poem:
Solitude and silence have birthed
Intention, deep in my soul a quiet
Momentum gathers, but I must be
Patient for the slow work of God and grace,
Living with an open heart, walking
In step with the Spirit,
Confident in the good-hearted companionship of the Trinity.
In returning and resting is your salvation, a
Tranquil consecration,
Yielding like Mary: “May it be unto me as You have said.”
My word this year is “Allow.” It actually is shorthand for the more specific directive: “Allow. Unfold. Resist nothing.” It is my radical response to a lifetime problem of attempting to manage the unmanageable, which has uniformly resulted in frustration, anxiety, and all manner of self abuse.
My word this year is “Curate.” I have had a long battle with the stuff in my life, a mind cluttered with unhelpful thoughts, and days filled with useless, unhealthy, or meaningless acts. This year I want to look at all aspects of my existence, paring away at things with an eye to true utility, meaning, and pleasure.
I share the same issue. In past I have chosen the words “simplicity,” “release,” and then “Focus.” I was thinking of “edit,” which could apply not only to my stuff but also to my actions, but it just didn’t shimmer, it was a thinking choice, not a word that sang to my being. I like your word, but so far the words that keep coming back to me are “order” (possibly another thinking choice) and “essence” or “essential.” Essential order, perhaps? That leads me immediately to another word, “design,” thinking of the the beautiful order underlying all of existence, the design of the universe. My problem is that I love words!