Dear 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.
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 6, 2024 and you are automatically entered for the prize drawing (prizes listed below).
WIN A PRIZE – RANDOM DRAWING GIVEAWAY ENTER BY JANUARY 6th!
- One space in our Love of Thousands online companion retreat to the book
- One space in our online Lent retreat on A Different Kind of Fast
- Two people win a space each in their choice of self-study retreats
- Three people will win a digital album of their choice.
- Three 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)
Winners will be announced on Sunday, January 12th.
If you would love a retreat experience to support you in listening for your word, letting your word ripen, and carrying your word into the year ahead, please join us for our Give Me a Word Advent and Christmas season retreat which begins today! I am joined by many wonderful guest teachers and there is a suggested practice for each day from now until Epiphany!
Join us tomorrow for our Contemplative Prayer Service where I will be joined by Simon de Voil and Polly Paton-Brown to reflect on the gifts of Mary for our journey.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
P.S. We are delighted to announce the release of Birthing the Holy: Dancing with Mary and the Sacred Feminine! This digital collection of 12 dances and companion teaching videos by Betsey Beckman and guest artists offers another beautiful resource for engaging with the gifts of Mary.
Image paid license with Canva
233 Responses
RADICAL STILLNESS keeps running through my head- literally and so I am attempting to claim!
My word for 2024 is light – as in let my light shine. I believe it was Sojourner Truth who said “I will not allow my life’s light to be extinguished by the darkness around it.”
My word for 2024 is RESTORE – a return to an original state after depletion or loss. Rather than buy into the whole “new year, new you” quest to be someone different, I want to recover and restore what’s been lost and depleted.
I just began reviewing my ‘give me a word retreat’ and remembered being moved by a John O Donahue blessing on ‘beginnings’ and accompanying’endings’ – my pair of words I believe for 2024
Two weeks ago, a friend unexpectedly asked, “What brings you joy?” I took a deep breath, then a sip of tea, and then, uncomfortably and quietly said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what brings me joy.” My word for 2024 is JOY.
This year seems to hold out two words…The first, ALIGN… was offered in a dream. The second is FLY…I can see now that in order to fly, I must be still and align with God and new partners as a new ministry is launched. In this year of God’s favor, I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord in the fulfillment of His promises in Isaiah 61 in the lives of trafficked and traumatized women whom I am training to serve.
Two words, akin to the initials of my name: Simplicity and Courage – courageous enough to be simple, to let go and let live, to follow the river home. I envisage lots of discipline, which I pray will have to come from above.
My word is Embrace-to feel into how I am embraced by loving oneness, to reach out and embrace in connection and belonging, to embrace truth.
My guiding word for 2024 is choose. To choose needs over wants; to focus on what is right in my life; to choose simplicity; to choose self-care; to make choices which are caring for the earth. After deciding on my word each year, I also then go to a word art program, and create a guiding star with that word and some of the other key words on it to post where I can see it.
My word is Devotion, a word that calls me strongly and needs to be explored & practiced in 2024.