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
Rooting!
I clearly bit off more than I could chew within the timeframe of this retreat, but my word did find me, and I’m looking forward to sitting with it for the year. The practices I did get to were helpful, and then there are more of them waiting for me to deepen into. Rooting can be plant-like, even tree-like, or bumbling around as many humans do. But I’m thinking about the person in Psalm 1, digging deep.
I simply enjoy the useful details you provide in your writings.
My word for the year is Leichtigkeit. Facility, ease. Related to favor and grace. But there is also some connection to the spiritual gift for the Enneagram One, which Richard Rohr calls heitere Gelassenheit in the German translation. Not sure what his original wording was. Maybe cheerful Serenity? So I’m looking forward to a year of facility, favor and serenity.
My word(s) for 2024 is SHAPESHIFT – written as Shape/Shift. The diagonal slash is an important “shape” and “shift” in the equation with how I will be choosing to lean forward into my life this year, to loosely quote author Mary Anne Radmacher.
Several words emerged as possibilities, yet none of them ever felt quite right. I waited and finally the word “Love” landed in my heart. My acrostic poem explains it best.
Life loves you so much
Open your heart to receive it
Volunteer to share it others
Expect it and embrace it
My word is Holy. It came to me early in the Advent retreat and has deepened through the explorations. Holy is a reminder to live in the present moment with grace, love, and light shimmering in and around my being and doing. It has already spoken to me during disturbing, annoying, or boring moments, reminding me to be present to the holiness there.
My word is “edges”. It is where I have lived my many years-culturally, politically, religiously, in much of my life work, as well as in my ADHD. My voice and activity level can sometimes be disturbing but my sense of humor and energy are gifts passed on to my children and grands. It is always exciting to be on the edges.
Malama (take care of, protect) Hoano (awe,holy)
Malama Hoano take care of awe, protect the holy
My word is “Grace” … grace in everything.
My word is Love, I realise I’ve never really dug into that word seriously I’ve just taken it at face value, I want to really know it.