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
My word is decency as guidance on how to conduct myself in ways that honors God and respects others. I see decency as behavior that aligns with moral integrity, modesty, and respectability, and encompasses actions, and speech that reflects a life that brings me into a closeness with others and my God.
My word for 2025 is Ground. For me this is multifaceted. It calls me to be grounded, centered, present in the present moment, and it also calls me to live close to the earth, to be in the natural world frequently and intentionally. Likewise it calls me to be aware of God as the ground of my being.
The word given to me by my spirit team is PORTAL: the space where we’re in-between, both leaving and arriving, and ready for transformation.
JOY
My word for 2025 is LISTEN. I’m currently in an MFA program in poetry. We read a lot of poetry aloud. My goal is to listen more deeply to these words. Also to listen more intently to what the Earth and its beings sentient and non-sentient alike are saying to me.
My word is clarity.
I have been chosen by the word ‘rest,’ a small word that is full of challenge, resistance, invitation and mystery.
My word for 2025 is VERGE.
My husband and I are at the threshold, on the verge of a new way of living, having newly “rewired” and
having recently become grandparents. It’s a time of being about to step forward and onward. But we don’t really know what the shape of this “third third” (into our 60s and beyond) of our lives will be; we know it will become clearer as we take each step. Other contenders for my word were transition and pilgrimage, but verge captures a little more of the feeling of being poised for something, anticipating something, rather than of a change that is readily discernible and rather than our already being well along in this journey into our new phase of life.
I really like your word ‘Verge’ and your telling ” it captures a little more of the feeling of being poised for something, anticipating something’
My husband and I are in our 60’s and today he begins a new job after a year in retirement… While. Am happy for him – I have been thinking about me and all the negatives, the expectations, the taking for granted feelings it brings for me… Your word VERGE put a different spin – a little ‘God nudge’ thanks Bless you and the unfolding for us draw us closer to one that is ‘all knowing’
Wholeness – In my life there is much that I am thankful for – awareness and insights of God’s presence but there are fractured places within – opening my heart, mind and body to acknowledge and accept my unique emotions, ideas and experiences as God’s invitation for me! Or ?
Wholeness – In my life there is much that I am thankful for – awareness & insights of God’s presence. There are also fractured places within – opening my heart, mind and body to acknowledge and accept my unique emotions and experiences – God’s invitation for me! Or ?