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.
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, 2023 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, 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 11th email and at the bottom of each Sunday following).
WIN A PRIZE – RANDOM DRAWING GIVEAWAY ENTER BY JANUARY 5th!
- One person wins a space in our Lent retreat on A Different Kind of Fast
- Three people win a space each in their choice of self-study retreats
- Five people win their choice of one of our digital albums
- Seven people win one of our Dancing Monk Medallions
Please share your word with us in the comments below
(and it would be wonderful if you included a sentence about what it means for you)
Subscribe to the Abbey of the Arts newsletter to receive ongoing inspiration in your in-box. You can choose daily, weekly, or monthly. Share the love with others and invite them to participate. Then stay tuned – on January 8th we will announce the prize winners!
475 Responses
Tones of grace – a photographic and spiritual practice to shape life and work
My word is EMBRACING
As I recall what has been learned and as I continue to learn, I embrace each spiritual learning opportunity as a message from the Divine. I must watch and listen if I am to continue to EMBRACE all that the Mystery is gifting me.
Resilience. “The capacity to withstand or recover from difficulties…”
My word is Breathe. Exploring all that this means, but it is both physical (including healing from asthma) and spiritual.
My word is FIAT … “Let it be.” A challenge, for sure; but maybe that’s the point.
Persevere
Mercy
My word for 2023 is WONDER.
I would like to grow old with WONDER. As I stand at the threshold of this New Year and of my own “old age”, I feel pulled to cultivate and nurture a sense of wonder: the wonder I felt as a child, standing outside with my father on cold Winter nights as he watered the backyard skating rink he built every year and we would look up at the blackness, studded with stars, and he would point out and name the constellations. My first glimmering of the Divine, of the “deep magic”, as C.S. Lewis called it, that runs through everything.
Sacred
Every step.
Every breath
Every moment
Sacred
INTEGRATION – movement toward wholeness.