Give Me a Word: An Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year
Nov 30, 2025 – Jan 6, 2026 @ 4:00 pm GMT – 5:30 pm GMT –
with Christine Valters Paintner and Guest Teachers
Since 2008 we have posted an annual invitation to listen for a word to guide them in the year ahead. We would share a few short and simple practices with hundreds of people participating. Now Christine has published a book about the process and this retreat is a companion to it, providing additional guidance and support to 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.
Give Me a Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year
Pre-Order Now Early Reviews “VERDICT An excellent book for readers interested in finding a new meditation technique or nonsectarian spiritual practice or who simply want to slow down and give more depth to their lives.” – Marjorie Mann, Library Journal. Read the full review here. Description Purchase Options When you purchase books through the links […]
Give Me a Word 2019: Celebrating 10 Years!
SHARE YOUR WORD FOR 2019 In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to God 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 […]
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To the New Year With what stillness at last you appear in the valley your first sunlight reaching down to touch the tips of a few high leaves that do not stir as though they had not noticed and did not know you at all then the voice of a dove calls from far away […]
Give Me a Word (and second annual Abbey New Year Giveaway)
Last year I offered the invitation to my readers to consider a word shimmering for them that might carry them throughout the year. There were 140 beautiful postings and I later created a Wordle from the entries as a celebration of the prayers gathered. I offer the same invitation this year and again some prizes […]
Give Me a Word Reviewed by Library Journal!
Christine’s forthcoming book Give Me a Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year was reviewed by Marjorie Mann at Library Journal. “The tradition of asking “Give me a word” is a spiritual and meditation practice rooted in early third-century Christianity, which Paintner (Journey to Joy: A Fairy Tale for Thresholds and […]
Community + Give Me a Word ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
A Blessing for Friendship and Community*God of friendshipI come to know your love and carethrough the embodied presence of others.Weave me together with kindred spirits,knit me more closely with friends of the soul,cultivate in me a kinship with humanityso that I recognize my struggles and joys in others.In my loneliness reveal to me this communionand […]
