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
My word chose me a few weeks back. It is an image of reflecting the light and being content through times of waxing and waning: the moon
Affluent- is my word for 2024- how often I get in the way of my own good and do not receive it- this year I am stepping aside and letting the flow, the rhythm, of life’s blessings and energies enter into my bones and flow through so I may better contribute to the greater good.
Stirring up creative meals and magic alchemy. Pouring out sustenance and sacrifice. Ringing when empty with a sacred vibration calling me to fill again. My word, my container, for 2024 is:
Bowl
I have been contemplating God as a nursing mother & this image has helped me realize how much I long for nourishment- true, sustaining and healing nourishment. So this will be my word for 2024 “Nourish”.
Expand.
This word came to me last week as my word for 2024 and was confirmed during My Heart Feels Lean gathering on Friday with Melissa Layer. I have been and I will continue even more to open and expand and foster a spaciousness in my body, mind, spirit, my whole being, and extend it to others.
Restoration. I had begun pondering what the word would be for the year 2024. It revealed itself as I was passing by a shelf full of books and glanced over. The words illuminated were “a year of restoration.” My heart sang with hope after the numerous unrelenting trials and the loss of my dear mother in 2023. Could this be a year of restoration awaiting me?
I was walking and thinking about how I am always in a rush when the word “slow” came to me. 2024 will be about slowing down, enjoying and living in the moment.
My word for the new year is…
Commit
“Commit thy way unto the Lord; Trust also in him; And he shall bring it to pass.” Psalm 37:5-7
God alone suffices.
It is taken from one of my favorite prayers, written by Teresa of Avila. A friend who studied this saint with me led me to this site, and I am inspired by the encouraging and loving reflections that I have found here.
I was just thinking to myself that I feel I am often in a hurry, then the word “slow” came to me. So, for 2024, I am going to practice slowing down, enjoying and living in the moment. (: <3 Thank you!