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
My word is momentum. I was transformed in 2022 and now in 2023 I am led forward with momentum to do, learn, be with who I am and what I am on this earth to offer.
My “word” is my Motto, Totus Tuus, “Totally Thine” in consecration to The Beloved Lord.
He is my Beloved and I strive daily to be His, Totus Tuus.
Saint Louis de Montfort used Totus Tuus in Marian Consecration, as did John Paul II.
Albeit, I appreciate this and in fact recently did Saint Louis de Montfort’s Thirty-Three Day
Consecration to Holy Mother Mary, The Lord is my Beloved and I am His, Totus Tuus.
Aware.
All new learning and leaning begins with being aware.
COMMUNION is the word calling to me at the threshold of this new year. Very grateful for this practice🙏
Healing for myself and my husband
My word is: Hallelujah in praise of the “Breathing life of all” and in honor of a very old cedar who lifts her many branches high into the air and is named the Hallelujah Tree.
Savor
In the now, awash in You. I bathe. Now, now, now and…now. Soaked.
This was a very in-depth way to delve into a new word/way of being. Initially, I thought the word might be “increase” as that encompasses so much. But then in the midst of my studies here I came across the idea of “beyond” and it really spoke to me. I want to go beyond increase. In other words, yes, I may increase my spirit walk, for example, but I want more – I want to go beyond “mere” increase into a place of allowing that which is beyond to envelop my soul and change me.
As I let “beyond” sit, it grew on me and exceeded the feeling of “increase.” I have listened to Chemali a couple of times a few months ago and when you invited us to follow a new author, she is who came to mind. She took me beyond where I am, stretched me, and fed me. At your suggestion, I have committed to spending more time in nature. In fact, it occurs to me that I had already begun moving toward that commitment when I purchased a membership to the Gardens in December.
My acrostic poem reads:
Beyond worry
Embracing presence
Yielding to what is
Open to love
Now is the time
Daring to flow
Joy
Trust: I have come to realize that trust embodies love, surrender, and intimate relationship. At this time of my life, probably the last decade or so of it, with so many unknowns concentrated in a narrowing time frame, this is the word, the activity, that I need this year.