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
Being present and noticing the quality of my presence
Community. It was actually a random word from a generator but it is so fitting. I am looking forward to a year of new and old connection and building community in several areas of life.
Flourish. Take all the things I’m learning and plant them in a garden…& flourish! Enjoy the growing, the process…the final product isn’t the point. May my garden be the wildest kind of English Garden. On the edges.
Gratefuness….. I seek to be grateful in all things regardless of life’s difficulties, joys and sorrows…I hope to stop looking everywhere for peace and happiness and find it in the everyday sacredness of life.
Love! The only way I can know myself and give service others is to fill my heart with the lifting Spirit of Love!!
Lightness –
This past year I have had so many intense, heavy things happening and my own demeanor has been more serious and closed off. I feel this new year is drawing me to a sense of lightness about my life – with more grace, with laughter, with dancing, with easy movement, with floating.
LIGHT. As in seek Light, be aware of Light, live in Light, be Light.
1/1/18 Surrender: “Surrender” – to surrender myself to God, surrender my fears, past pains and worries, surrender myself to the year ahead and God’s plans for me, surrender myself to love, including self-love, surrender myself to dreams, surrender myself to new opportunities , work, new learning and so much more.
SURRENDER
Risk