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 4, 2026 and you are automatically entered for the prize drawing (prizes listed below).
Read Christine’s book Give Me a Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year for guidance and inspiration.
This book is designed to help you contemplate what holiness is birthing within your soul. Each day there are different practices 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 book, you will be invited to release your thinking mind and enter into a space of receiving.
WIN A PRIZE – RANDOM DRAWING GIVEAWAY ENTER BY JANUARY 4th!
- One person wins a space in the mini-retreat Brigid’s Day (Imbolc) Deep Rest Retreat ~ Emergence with Christine Valters Paintner, Deirdre Ní Chinnéide, and Nóirín Ní Riain
- Two people win a space in our upcoming Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist 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 11th we will announce the prize winners!
270 Responses
Gentleness is the word that has come to me for the new year of 2026. Gentleness is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and I would like to embrace spiritual practices to nourish more gentleness in my life, towards others, creation, and myself.
Wishing everyone a gentle and joyous new year!
My word for 2026 is: RESTORE or RESTORATION. I am not sure if I want a noun or a verb just yet. I intend to practice and make choices aligned with my true, divine self.
Joining
My word for the new year of 2026 is:
REST
In the midst of a universe that is spiraling with chaos and uncertainty, I am comforted, as well as challenged to seek REST that can only come from a Divine Love.
I consciously close my eyes and seek inner REST when tested.
This spring will mark the end of my seventh year in retirement. I’ve continued to research, write, and teach-pursuing many topics I treasure with fellow learners, all as a volunteer. It’s an important way for me to help to make the world, at least my small section of it, a better place. But it is time to pause and assess, so I carefully worked through GMAW during Advent and discerned that my term for 2026 is Shabbat Shalom- the greeting for the weekly Sabbath as a wish for true rest and an all-encompassing peace. My word extends, though beyond one day a week. It will mark a sabbatical of sorts with mindful practices of meditation; more frequent, but graceful “no, thank you” responses; and by establishing my personal monk-artist rule of life by returning to many of the books in my CVP collection.
The word that keeps coming to me is “allow.” I want to allow God to be God in my life. Not constrain God to my image of what God should be. Not to strive and plan for what I think I should do. Just allow.
I have been sitting with this for a while and I believe my word for 2026 may be TRUE. Not “truth,” because I don’t want to focus on a thing or a concept, but “true” because I feel the need, more than at any other time in my life, to be true to myself. I want to be guided by what is true. I want to be a person whose words are true, and who lives in a way that is true to my calling, my values, and my “deep heart’s core,” as Yeats put it. I also see a nice easy slide from “true” to “trust.” To be true to myself, I will have to trust myself. May it be so!
The word that has joined with me in our process together is ‘Acceptance.’ I’ve been thoroughly joined at heart and mind with four people in my 80 years; two have been wives as well as heart-friends. The most recent of these four died precipitously from the effects of an untreatable cancer in May. All that is one wisp of the cloud I have been in most of this past year. ‘Reconnect’ was my Word (from G-d, as I believe) for most of the past seven years, and this Abbey of the Arts confluence has provided context for a next word. Acceptance is an intention, emblem of a verb with active and passive phases, initiating and responding lobes. In my solitude – not least during the season marked by Advent(ure) and Christmas, Solstice, Kwanzaa, Chanukkah, a New Year, and so on – I have time to be pregnant with all that Acceptance can be. Your remarks, sisters, brothers, friends, and the words that have oned with you, are blessing and enriching and healing my own heart and life. Grazie, gracias, gratia, grace to you and to us all.
My word for 2026 is “Trust” and I wonder the who, why, what, where, and why not of that word. Is it a trust in a higher power to bring about a conversion of sorts. Why now is that word thrusting into my life. Is this trust in myself, to know the path I am invited to take or to trust that all will indeed be well. There are times I cannot see what the Universe has in store for those I love, when bad things happen to good people; when certain individuals seem to get more than their share of rough times. Can I trust that I am living the life and walking the path I was meant to have, or can I trust my intuition to know what to do when I am challenged to tackle a difficult problem, even as I fear I cannot. Or is trust, what I need to believe in, in order to give myself wholly to the calls from the Universe to choose a different path than the one I usually take. I think I will be bumping up against this word many times in the year to come. I hope I am ready for that.
After a year of “healing” I found my word for 2026 to be PEACE .I was drawn to it after reading that peace is a quiet mind, calm actions, and a relaxed heartbeat. I want to have time to be quiet and calm. Time to focus on the beauty that surrounds me. Time to share the love of my family and friends. Time to pray to God and focus on the real meaning of life. Time to be Peaceful.