Visit the Abbey of the Arts online retreat platform to access your programs:

Give Me a Word ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to the divine 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.

As in past years, we are 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, December 5th email and at the bottom of each Sunday following.)

WIN A PRIZE – RANDOM DRAWING GIVEAWAY ENTER BY JANUARY 6th!

Please share your word with us in the comments on this post (and it would be wonderful if you included a sentence about what it means for you).

Share the love with others and invite them to participate. We will announce the prize winners on January 9th.

Please join us tomorrow for our Contemplative Prayer Service to celebrate Advent. And join me next Saturday for a retreat on The Spiral Way: Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

PS – You can read three of my poems in the current issue of Impspired online: Corcomroe Abbey, I Stand at My Mother’s Grave, and I Dream of My Mother. 

You might also enjoy

The Path of Devotion ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, This Friday, February 14th, our Program Coordinator Melinda Thomas is leading a mini-retreat on Bhakti Yoga and the Inexpressible Delights of Love. Read on for her reflection on bhakti yoga and the path of devotion. There were times in my

Read More »

Holiness of Work ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Tomorrow Simon and I will be joined by guest musician and Wisdom Council member Jamie Marich for our monthly Contemplative Prayer Service. Our theme this month is the 5th principle of the Monk Manifesto. Here is an excerpt from our Monk in the World self-study retreat.

Read More »

12 Responses

  1. My word is surprise. Letting go of all expectations- own to surprise in all areas of my life.