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 3, 2025 and you are automatically entered for the prize drawing (prizes listed below).
Join our Give Me a Word Self-Study Retreat for guidance and inspiration.
This retreat is designed to help you contemplate what holiness is birthing within your soul. Each day there will be a different practice offered to inspire, challenge, and support you in listening for the word that wants to be spoken to your heart.
The practices are not about resolutions or goal setting, they are not about achieving more in the new year or accomplishing tasks or goals. They are about listening for what is calling to you in a particular season of life. They ask us to trust a greater wisdom at work in the world than our own egos.
Through this retreat, you will be invited to release your thinking mind and enter into a space of receiving.
Learn more here. Use code GMAW20 to take 20% off through December 31st.
WIN A PRIZE – RANDOM DRAWING GIVEAWAY ENTER BY JANUARY 5th!
- One person wins a space in the mini-retreat Holding Paradox: A Retreat with St. Brigid led by Simon de Voil
- Two people win a space in our upcoming A Midwinter God retreat
- Two people win a space each in their choice of Self-Study retreats
- Three people win a Dancing Monk Medallion
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 12th we will announce the prize winners!
201 Responses
Horizon
My word is “music.” This fall I almost died. I am grateful for health care. Although I was not ready to leave my loved ones, for myself the thing that I want is to make more time for music. Just talking about my love of fiddle and trad music, having found my way to it as an adult, has encouraged others to start or resume playing, and has brought me into some incredibly moving and personal conversations. Joy will bring us energy for our work in the world.
I already have my word for next year, FEAST. After an incredibly challenging period of 2 years when so much has changed, I feel that finally, I am moving into a time of joy and fulfilment of God’s promises to me.
My word is KIN. To remember the leap of recognition, the instinctive aliveness and love, as in the wombs of Mary and Elizabeth. To recognise it with both humans and more-than-humans, including in ways and places I might not expect… and to be that friend in the world.
My word is YES.
My children are grown now. I get so much more choice in who I want to be now again. The world feels fresh and exciting in a whole new way! I also want to hear and accept what the Lord is asking of me. So, “YES! I am open and eager to grow and to be guided.”
Playful: a very unexpected word that came to me this afternoon in an experience so powerful and intimate that it felt like a vision and pressed on me until I wrote a poem. You can read the poem here: https://vabutsy.com/2024/12/07/an-angel-for-2025/
Continue.
Continue to do what is asked of us every day – act with justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.
Embodiment
I want every cell in this body to know it is a sacred vessel and to sing glory. 🎶
My word for 2025 is QUIET. I feel a call into a quieting of fear, of attitude, of all that is unnecessary so that I may hear, see and know deep within and around me, God’s loving presence.
My word is perseverance. In this fraught political atmosphere in the US, this is going to be required in 2025. Not giving into despair, not giving in to hatred. Just keeping on keeping on and seeking guidance every step of the way.