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Give Me a Word 2025

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!

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!

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201 Responses

  1. Providence
    Years ago when I studied the letters of St Mary MacKillop I thought that is quite fine for a Saint to have absolute faith in Providence, but for a mere ‘mortal’ like me its a bit too much. The word ‘Providence’ dithered away in the background, but this year reading C.Myss book on Prayer the word Providence made its way into my life again. I would like to explore what Providence in my life means not as a ‘mental’ theory but as a lived experience.

  2. My word is UNITY — inspired by a Thomas Merton quote and the antithesis of Merriam-Webster’s 2024 word of the year which is polarization.

  3. Intentional

    In 2024, I began a simple yet not easy practice of making sure I read one book a week and watched one film a week. I did this because my obligations and hours spent outside of home were so great that I knew I needed balance. To my amazement, I kept up the practice and it became a recharging, replenishing, and nurturing thing for me. It supported me in ways I had not anticipated and it allowed me to support others. What I gave up to be able to do it are things I cannot even remember as I write this 2 weeks before the end of the year, with two books and two films to go! I would like to continue being this intentional with my time and energy in 2025. It’s a wonderful feeling.

  4. My word is Savor. I intend to savor every minute of the winter solstice and bring that peace and quiet into the new year. 🙏❤️

  5. Intentional is my word for 2025.

    This word is so often used that it risks losing meaning; to me, though, it acts as compass for staying on purpose. In 2024, I resolved to read one book and watch one movie every week. And I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it. I just wrote down each week the book title and film watched.

    This simple practice transformed my year and relationship to myself. Even with a tight schedule and lots of obligations, staying silently with storytelling in these formats every week showed me where my life held fulfillment and joy. It reassured me that I was more than a human doing. And it told me that this is how I find replenishing, nourishment, rest, and rejoicing.

    I write this in week 50 of 2024 and am two books and movies away from being richer from 52 books and films this year! This practice showed me the power of being intentional, and I intend to be even more so across more areas of my life. This isn’t “goal-setting,” but full-filling my own cup with what brings joy and nourishment.

  6. Savor
    My word for the year. I have had many hard turns in life the last 2.5 years since my husband died. God is asking me to savor the days. The “good” and the “bad”. In savoring May I find the treasures in darkness as well as in light.

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