give me a word!

"give me a word" and abbey of the arts giveaway

I've already won one of Christine's prizes, but it's never only about awards and rewards but about the opportunities for becoming more fully alive Abbey of the Arts offers. As Christine explains:

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. ... 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. ... what is your word for the year ahead? A word which contains within it a seed of invitation to cross a new threshold? ...

My word for this new year 2010 and probably one of my words for the emerging new decade is open..."open the verb" and "open the adjective" and both in more than one direction. Openness to the people, events, circumstances, ideas and opportunities around me and openness to new things Spirit is enacting within me. Maybe even more challenging than those aspects of being open, by grace I hope to start claiming and making the huge risk of being open to others about my needs, experiences, expectations and pain so I'm writing this in green as a symbol of growth. I've observed how I love that green is the liturgical color for Ordinary Time and that during seemingly repetitive, apparently circular times and endeavors are exactly when our lives and our perceptions of our environment change and transform the most.

Christine cites The Desert; I named this blog "desert spirit's fire!" because of the gift the desert has been to me—the hot desert, the cold high desert and the coastal desert where I currently live. Regarding openness although God leads us with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, along the way gifting us with water from the rock and manna from the sky, we still need carefully to look carefully in order to find them and we need openness to surprise. You cannot survive in a sparse, deserted habitat without ongoing cooperation with one another so you not only need to "talk to each other" you need to interact with each other...