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
PERSEPHONE has been recurring in my life lately. In dreams, in overheard conversations, in books (including the page where I randomly opened my newly arrived copy of Christine’s A Midwinter God), etc. It’s unlike any other word I’ve received in years of doing this, but I’m interested to see what she has to teach me in 2025.
In the coming year, 2025, the word SOW is choosing me. I can’t wait to see what I will be called to SOW in the new year. As a gardener and writer and artist, the possibilities are many! What will I plant? And what will grow? In this sad, broken world, SOW sounds like a worthy word to travel with and explore.
Cycles- looking for the reminders that all of live is a series of cycles.
PAUSE is my word for 2025. It came to me while out walking this morning. It speaks to me of going slowly, calls for calm to bring focus to the challenges ahead. To make sense of today’s turmoil and to hold true to my values I feel remembering to pause will be a purposeful strategy for 2025.
Listen
OPEN – my word took a while to come this year, and when it did I knew it will have lots to offer me. Open my heart…….Be open….. to God….to surprises…. to new ideas…. show myself…..
Expansion.
This Word arrived one recent afternoon after a year of difficult, ongoing health issues and inner deepening.
I wait to see what “Expansion” will bring. Spiritual, mental, physical – perhaps all three, and perhaps something very surprising.
May I recognise it’s gifts when they come.
CONVEGENCE is my word for 2025. the coming together of divergent aspects, perspectives, beliefs, etc into a new reality within
Presence came the very first day and seems to be sticking around. Feeling the presence of my ancestors and the Holy Spirit. Being fully present to others and to the current moment.
SPACIOUSNESS Is my word for 2025. To have spaciousness in my soul, in my heart and my life to keep letting the Lord in.
Tooth! This is the word that gave itself to me last year. I am only now beginning to hear its message. Associated with the Hebrew letter Shin and the heart of Adam kadmon. But perhaps a message about my own physical heart ( I just failed a stress test). Also connected to Egyptian tarot arcanum 21, the Adept. And of course, taking a bite out of life. More pondering needed.