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
From Carolyn Roberts – Presence
The wildness of God’s mercy
My 2024 word is “Possible” – I enter Advent and the year ahead with expectation. Leaving a blessing here for peace and clarity – to you all!
WILD… wildscape and forms of the word WILD keep circling around me. This year my husband & I, both of us keen walkers, began doing/training for longer distance walking with future intentions/goals in mind. We walk a lot, and often. And we walk in some beautiful nature where we live here in Norway. I find myself craving even more & more time outdoors. The call of the wild sinks into me deep. My response to that call is as necessary as breathing. My inner child seeks to play, to remember how to play, and nature is part of that. I’m 50, and the past two years have been some of the hardest of my life. Among many things—dealing with illness, long Covid, the interesting changes of perimenopause, dealing with elderly parents/in-laws and their health challenges & passings, finding inner peace when the peace of the wider world at large becomes ever more fragile… 2024… my year of Wild, I will be a Wildling… Many BLESSINGS to ALL in the new year! 🙏🏻💜
My word for this coming year is HOPE. I heard a beautiful sermon yesterday, the first Sunday of Advent. Minister was describing the “soul weariness” of Elizabeth’s and Zachariah’s experience of being baron and denied a child for most of their marriage. Yet God broke that pattern once again, giving them great hope of his continued presence in the world. This is hugely significant for own times as the weariness of world events, political struggle, illness, famine, and personal struggles weigh us down. So my new “practice” this coming year will be to explore “the practice of Hope.”
I am leaning into the word reflection for 2024. I go through life at a fast pace. In the last few weeks the question; where have I met Jesus has come up more than once. I would like to slow down and become more aware of where Christ is reflected to me. Also, if I am
or could be a reflection of Christ in my community.
I wish to be “carried oñ the wind,” the wind being Ruah, the breath of God or his spirit. I’d hope to suŕender to it and lèt the wind carty me where it will, without resistance on my part but with joy snd eager anticipation.
My word for 2024 is ‘reconnect’. I’m recovering from the the loss of my life partner to Alzheimer’s dementia after sharing a decade-long struggle with the illness as her primary caregiver. That ‘one flesh’ thing is not simply a metaphor, and I am relearning how to walk after the amputation imposed by my spouse’s death. So: reconnect with God, reconnect with the natural, social and spiritual contexts around me, and reconnect with myself as I am now, along the Way Home.
Heart-lens
I am committing to working at being in a way in which I respond to the world through the lens of my heart vision. I hope to see my inward self through the lens of my heart with compassion and courage and also to see others and the world through the same lens.
My word for 2024 is play. I’m almost fully retired and I need to stop working and focus on playing and doing things that feed my passions and interests outside of my professional life. My hope is that if I take time I’ll have an idea of what is the next chapter for me.