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 for 2025: LISTEN To listen deeply and fully- not only to others, but to my Soul as well.
JOURNEY
I choose a yearly theme for myself every year. Its something I want to cultivate or Im interested in. For next year the theme is “Journey Within”. I want to get to know myself better and learn more about my own innate body wisdom and intuition. I wish for myself to cultivate a inner guidiance system and trust in myself/life/god.
For 2025 ABUNDANCE has chosen me.
I unexpectedly was gifted the word FLOURISH at the end of last year which I have carried through 2024. I will continue to carry this word into this next year unless another word “shimmers” into my spirit.
Usually, discernment feels difficult to me. However, this word has enabled me to more easily determine what to say “yes” to and what opportunities to decline. It has enabled me to choose things that felt like they might help me flourish, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It was such a love gift from the divine. 💝
My word for 2025 is balance.
Resist
I am heartbroken for the United States as we’ve elected a cruel leader. I am coping by stepping up my involvement with refugees and undocumented people who will most likely suffer the most in the coming year. I will resist his words of hatred by sharing love and kindness and being present with those who are ‘the least of these’. And as necessary, I will join in with protests to combat the inhumane policies.
I have been chosen by the word RADIANT for next year. It speaks of receiving and being open to the Divine, then reflecting /sharing that with all that is around me. It is a word of giving after first receiving. I relate this word to the verse which says “And we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” 2 Cor 3:18 I plan to do lectio on that verse also during the year.
My word for 2025 is newness.
It came when my dear friend and spiritual guide died this year at age 67. She was always inviting me (and others) to see and seek newness in whatever circumstance we found ourselves. And so, as an honouring of my beloved Maureen, I will seek newness this year.
Horizon, the mysterious word that chose me, a word which contains within it a seed of invitation to cross a new threshold in my life in 2025. May it be so.
Threshold. It’s been a season of unknowing and waiting in liminal space; awaiting a birthing as I stand over the “threshold” of the doorway.