A few years ago, I became aware of the practice of prayerfully discerning a word of the year (or phrase) that could be used as a touchstone for the upcoming year. This word is not a charm nor an omen, but rather it is a reminder of some spiritual concept or truth that I wish to contemplate this year. It is a word to be used as an anthem and a call.
One year when we were in a time of chaos and were reeling from some great losses, we felt called to open our home to others without thought of inconvenience or cost. We felt that we were being called to radical hospitality. That year God sent so many people into our home for coffee dates, dinners, and fellowship that we were overwhelmed with grace and were blessed by so many new or deepened relationships.
The next year, we entered into a season of great turmoil. A very many things were happening and we felt like we had little control over any of it. That year we practiced radical surrender remembering who loved us beyond measure and who has counted every hair on our heads. Instead of trying to exert control that year, we simply accepted what was happening and consciously surrendered to the Holy Spirit at every turn.
The next year was one of the hardest of our lives as so many things were uncertain and our anxiety was crippling us and peace felt elusive. That year, we practiced radical trust. Instead of looking at every new challenge as a threat, we chose to look at each one as an opportunity to learn to trust God better. We actively chose to trust Him when all we wanted to do was run away and hide.
Some years have been less memorable. I remember loving the words those years, but for some reason, they don’t stand out in my memory. That is ok. They were a consolation and a battle cry in their time.
But, in November 2022, I wrote this in my mass Journal:
Hive:
noun
- a beehive – a colony of bees
- a place where people are busily occupied.
Verb
- to enter and take possession of a hive
- to reside in a close location
- to store up as if in a hive
That year, bees had been following me everywhere I went. Real bees and decorative bees – on decor, on stickers, on cards and clothes. In fact, that year, people kept giving me raw honey! Somehow, I knew that the bee was always pointing me to the hive. But what was a hive?
Nonetheless, I embraced the word and thought often of St. Ambrose,whose preaching was said to be sweet as honey.
In thinking of Ambrose, I could not overlook his most famous contribution to the Church: his pastoring of Augustine from arrogant playboy and scholar to beloved Doctor of the Church. Ambrose who consoled Monica, the mother of so many tears. St. Ambrose debated with Augustine, prayed for him, and ultimately baptized him. And St. Augustine tells us in his Confessions that his conversion began with the child chanting “tolle lege” – take up and read. Somehow these doctors of the church, hives, and reading were connected.
I always choose my word at the end of the Catholic liturgical year – November. By late December that year, I began to see what hive really meant. I was being called to turn my personal library into a lending library. Like St. Ambrose, I was supposed to assist in creating an environment wherein students could tolle lege – take up and read. I was calling the bees together and I was bringing them into my hive of books and programs. And, I was to let my words be sweet as honey as I walked with and talked with world-weary mamas of many tears who needed encouragement, community, and fellowship.
This year, my word was message. I am writing this on the Solemnity of Christ the King – the last Sunday in the Catholic liturgical year. I have wrestled with this word all year and still do not feel entirely comfortable with it. I am certain that there is something to this that is important. I can sense it but, like St. Paul says, like looking through a glass darkly. I suspect that I wrote so many book reviews this year because of this word.
Normally, I begin to have a sense of my new word in September or October at the latest. This year, I have been so completely overwhelmed with the library, my son’s senior year in high school, my commitments at church, and our work at Plumfield and The Card Catalog. I am stumbling into a new liturgical year, harried, tired, distracted, discombobulated, and frankly, spiritually dry. For weeks I have been praying for discernment and have felt nothing. Truly, felt nothing. Like being dead.
And then, today, something changed. I have my word. I don’t like my word. I don’t want to see what it means. (Yes, you read that right.) I just don’t like this word at all. But, as I spent the afternoon reading Amos Fortune, Free Man, I fell asleep. I never nap. But I slept. Within seconds of curling up with my book, I was out. For an hour! And when I awoke and started reading again, this is what I read:
“Amos looked straight ahead of him, along the horse’s back. His vision narrowed to the road between the horse’s pointed ears. He knew that it was a big step that he was taking, this move to a new part of the land, far from the familiar, the known, the safe and secure. Yet he was going far, too, from the memory of being another’s chattel. From the indignity and privation and the long years of servitude. He no longer had his youth nor the stout strength of his early manhood. But, he still had his vision. A compound of words read by a little Quaker girl in a clear voice. Words that had burned themselves in his mind and had burned away the shackles hate had put to his lips: ‘unto him that loved us and hath made us kings and priests unto God.’ In his memory, he knew that he had been born a king, but it was the little Roxanna reading from the Bible who had shown him the only way he could become a king. So he had lived his life thereafter and so he would continue to live it so long as strength and manhood lasted.”
This passage cut through me like a hot knife.
This morning, my pastor preached on the very same thing. In Christ the King, we see Christ who has two thrones. The throne of the cross which teaches us self-sacrifice and obedience. And, the throne of glory in Heaven, which teaches us the power of intercessory prayer. We are called to unite with Christ and imitate him in both of those thrones. Additionally, as the baptized, we are made new and we share in the Old Testament anointing of priest, prophet, and king. Like Amos, we are called to live as good kings who live like Christ.
Being American and a woman, the idea of being a “king” has always been surreal and strange to me. Honestly, I have mostly ignored it. But, apparently, this is the year when I am going to meet this truth face to face.
My word for this year is kingship. And, as I so often say, I cannot wait to see what God has planned for that! I cannot wait to see how this is going to impact my work, my vocation, our library, and my life.