Exploring My Word of the Year

 

Exploring My Word of the Year

Last week I mentioned that my word for 2021 is rhythm. At the start of a new year with a new word I generally go through the process of researching my word. I love doing research so I really enjoy this part of the journey with my word. This year, however, is not going as planned. My word came to me late so it hasn't had a lot of time to steep within me. My week between the holidays did not have the slow rhythm I had wanted (and needed) due to my mom getting the coronavirus and being hospitalized for six days. Thankfully she is home now and recovering. 

What does my word research look like?

• It always begins with the basics of looking up the word's definition in a variety of dictionaries. I follow that with finding synonyms.
• Next I start the process of looking for a Bible verse that will serve as an anchor/guide for the year. It may or may not contain my word.
• I then begin looking for quotes to use with my word.
• I also try to find a book or two (or five) that support what motivated me to pick my word. These will serve to help me grow in the direction I want to go for the year.
• From there the work of defining a vision for the year (the why) and determining intentions for my word (the how) begins.  We will explore these more throughout this month

In the book of Matthew we are told:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

This is my theme passage this year. In Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of the Bible, The Message, he puts Jesus' words in verse 29 like this:

"Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace."

This is what I want to be about this year, learning from Jesus.  Practicing sacred rhythms - the spiritual practices that help us grow in our faith and position us for the Spirit's work of transforming us to become like Jesus. I want to study His life and words and learn His rhythm of life. 

The word rhythm brings so much to mind for me: the natural rhythm of the seasons; the rhythmic flow of waves; the rhythm of the calendar year; the rhythms in nature, such as bird migration; rhythms of rest and work; the rhythms of faith seasons such as Advent, Lent and Easter. There's a lot to explore through the year. What I focus on will get narrowed down in the weeks ahead as I go through the practice of setting intentions for my word for the year ahead.

This word gives me the opportunity to re-read a favorite book, Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton.

"I cannot transform myself...What I can do is create the conditions in which spiritual transformation can take place, by developing and maintaining a rhythm of spiritual practices that keep me open and available to God." ~Ruth Haley Barton

 

Sacred Rhythms along with some of the art books I want to work through this year.

That's my exploration into my word of the year so far. How do you start the year with your word? What are you exploring?

We're having conversations about our word of the year and other word related practices in my Words Art & Faith Group on Facebook. Join us! 

Next week we'll look at the difference between intentions and goals. I also hope to have another post this week answering some of the journaling questions I have been asked recently.

 

Rhythms of Life

 

Happy New Year and welcome 2021! Nothing has changed from Thursday to today except the year on the calendar. Yet somehow just saying 2021 brings a sigh of relief. 2020 is done. It will be a year we remember and talk about for a long time into the future.

My word of the year for 2021 came to me quite a bit later than it has in past years. I have only been living with this new word for a week now and have not spent as much time with it as I would have liked to before jumping into the new year. 

My word for 2021 is "rhythm". This past year has been one where the rhythms of daily life have been in continual change. For months during the pandemic lockdown our normal rhythms stopped. For weeks back in March I found myself devouring the news and trying to learn as much as I could about the virus. I struggled to focus on reading or making art or the other things I usually did. I finally stopped and realized I needed refocus. I needed to get back to some of my regular habits at the beginning of the day. Those early morning rhythms - time spent reading God's Word, journaling, studying, praying - ground me. This past month connecting with the familiar rhythm of Advent reminded me that rhythms in life are the things we do to keep ourselves grounded. This year I need to connect with new rhythms and keep focused on the one that are familiar and healthy for me.

My plans this year center around words:

• My word of the year.
• Words faith and art challenges.
• Capturing the daily rhythms of my life through weekly spreads in a commonplace book.

For my word of the year practice I'm going to post what I'm doing with some of the methods I use and invite others to join me. I'm also joining Ali Edward's One Little Word as this year is the tenth anniversary. Ali's One Little Word got me started on selecting a word each year. Combining it with spiritual practices has made it a transformative practice each year.

My January weekly posts will focus on:

1/8 Researching my word of the year.

1/15 Setting intentions for my word. Looking at the difference between goals and intentions, and basing my intentions on personal values.

1/22 Setting a vision for my word and my year.

1/29 Making a vision board.

For the Words challenges we will take some time to practice word studies, some utilizing our word of the year. As much as I would like to do the full month-long words challenges more often, they are quite time consuming. I may fit some smaller challenges in at some point this year. I really enjoy using a book of the Bible for a summer Words challenge and plan to do so again this summer. I'm really drawn to 2 Corinthians right now. We'll  see if I stick with that by the time summer comes along.

As I wrote in my last post, I have re-connected with a practice of doing a weekly spread capturing the rhythms of my daily life in a commonplace book. And I have re-connected with the Life Documented group which spun off the original Documented Life project.

I invite you to join me in exploring words in many forms this year. You can participate and share in my Words Art & Faith Group on Facebook or on Instagram #wordsart&faithgroup.

You can find out more about Life Documented here.

Find out more about Ali Edwards One Little Word here.

I also encourage you to visit my co-leaders from the Living Your Word group and see what they have planned for 2021. The Living Your Word group is now archived.

Visit Bernice Hopper at her blog newlycreative.com 

Visit Valerie Sjodin at her website visualblessings.com

Change

Change

Living with a pandemic these past few months has changed so much about our lives. I imagine for many of us it may have changed how we have interacted with our word of the year and the intentions or goals we set at the beginning of the year. That is what we are exploring this month in our Living Your Word of the Year group. This week we are specifically going to explore the intentions or goals we set early on and see if they are still relevant in our "new normal". My original post about my intentions can be found here.

A while back I read a quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that has become the basis for my prayers lately. Bonhoeffer said,

"May God in His mercy lead us through these times; but above all, may He lead us to Himself."

Times like these can test us. They can test the depths of our faith and may force us to ask deep questions about our walk with Christ. Has fear of the virus or the economic changes it has brought caused fear to shake our trust in Jesus? Or have you been surprised to find your faith is greater than you had previously thought; that the years of time in God's Word and prayer, of faithfully walking with Him day-by-day have resulted in a foundation of trust that is not being shaken? Or maybe you're somewhere in between. As Bonhoeffer said, we can make a choice at any point in life to ask God to "lead us to Himself" and filter how we see life and our current circumstances through His lens of faith. We can ask God to "lead us to Himself for the first time or for a mid-course correction at any time.

I want to encourage you to spend some time reviewing the intentions or goals you set for your word. Reflect and pray. Our question/prompt this week is:

Has my connection with my word or my intentions changed as a result of current situations?

Here are a few more questions to help in reflection: 

• In light of the changes we have experienced over the past few months, do I feel God moving me away from any of the intentions I originally set for the year? 
• Do I feel Him moving me deeper into any of my intentions?
• Do I need to make any mid-course corrections to my intentions for the year?
• What do I want for my word in the last half of the year?

My word is fruit. I started out the year wanting to focus on the fact that fruit is a by-product of something else. Spiritually, fruit is the result of walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. Fruit, such as those listed in Galatians 5:22-23, is not something we can produce ourselves. It comes as a result of positioning ourselves under Christ and practicing spiritual disciplines such as Bible study, sacred reading, prayer, meditation, solitude, journaling, etc., in order to live a life that is led by God's Spirit.

But fruit is also something that can be borne through our lives into the lives of others as we live that Spirit-led life. As we love and serve and have a heart that seeks good for others  prompted by the call of Jesus through His words throughout Scripture. As I reflected on the changes in life brought about by the pandemic over the past few months, and more recently by issues of racial injustice, I found a resolve in me to continue serving in the community as I have been. To be wise in how I practiced in order to stay healthy, but to not back down on serving or being generous, and in this way to continue to bear fruit even though serving looks different in many ways now. And so, I feel just as connected, and maybe even a little more connected, to my word and my intentions. I find encouragement in the stories of our Christian heritage in centuries past of how Christ-followers acted and served in times of plague and famine, or in times of war and injustice as in Bonhoeffer's days. They are the "great cloud of witnesses" as Hebrews 12:1 calls the lives of those before us who lived by faith. So, while many things are different, and the ways in which we are able to do them have changed, for me, I find that I am to press on. My intentions of positioning myself before God and practicing spiritual disciplines that tend my soul and produce the fruit of faith within still serve to lead me through the rest of the year. As well as diligently serving that resolve I feel to bear fruit by serving in the community and using what God has planted in me and blessed me with to be used as an instrument of His blessing to others.

How about you? Where are you at right now? We are all at different phases in our spiritual journey and in our life situations, and it's fine wherever you're at.

"May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word." 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

Living Your Word 2020 Opportunity!

My friends Bernice Hopper, and Valerie Sjodin, and I share insights through blog posts for creatively living a word of the year. In our Facebook group, we encourage one another by posting questions and prompts to inspire living out a word focus, keeping a journal etc. It is a safe place to ask for prayer and support. If you would like to connect with others in creative ways about living your word, you can ask to join our Living Your Word of the Year 2020 by clicking on the link below.

URL for Facebook group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/livingyourwordoftheyear/ 

Hashtag for Instagram:  #livingyourword2020

Check out their blogs:

Bernice: https://newlycreative.com

Valerie: https://valeriesjodin.com/blog/ 

2020 Vision Board & Moving Forward

2020 Vision Board & Moving Forward

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."                   Soren Kierkegaard

Generally I make a vision board for my word of the year earlier in the season, usually in February or March. It's a way of visualizing my intentions for my word through the year. But this has not been anything like a normal year. So, instead of just a board looking at the year ahead, I am both looking back  to see how I have lived out my word, and then looking ahead at where I feel called to go in the rest of the year. This is our theme this month in our Living Your Word of the Year Facebook Group, looking back in order to move forward. This is a regular practice for me. A few times a year at least, I will read back through my written journals and my art journals to see where I am in this journey of spiritual transformation. And generally, God will use this time of looking back as a time for me to reflect and evaluate where I need to focus. I wrote about the start of this looking back process in my post two weeks ago, which you can read here. 

I have made a vision board for my word of the year for quite a few years. In fact, it's one of my favorite practices of the year. I usually put them on an artist canvas and display them in my home studio/office. They are visual reminders of my journey.

I begin by going through my collection of magazine pages and other ephemera that I have torn out and saved because the image or words stood out. I enjoy going through my magazines every few months and tearing out the pages, and the bonus is it keeps my magazine baskets from overflowing! Even though I read a lot online these days, I have not lost the enjoyment of holding a magazine in my hand and leafing through it.

Next I like to cover the edges of my canvas with gesso covered book pages. I do this in part because I don't frame the canvases and the papers add a subtle decoration to the edges.

Over the past few weeks I have looked back over the beginning of the year, and especially the months since we began experiencing the crisis of the coronavirus pandemic. In recent weeks the horrifying events of racial injustice that have taken place have been added to my time of reflection. All of this is in my heart and mind as I began to think about what the future may look like. There is so much to think about right now and so much that is unknown about how life will be lived in the months, and maybe even years, ahead of us. Below I have some reflection questions that helped me and that may be of use for you as well.

• Re-connect with your "why" for selecting your word for this year. Have the circumstances of the past few months changed your "why" at all?
• How have your life values led you through this time?
• What have you held onto? What have you had to let go of?
• As you look ahead, what are you sensing God calling you to? What might He be calling you to leave behind as you move forward? What might He be calling you to keep in your future life from these days?
• What have you been thankful for?
• What has brought joy? What has caused fear or disappointment?
• What do you need more of? What do you need less of?
• Are there areas in your life right now that require more trust in God and His promises?
• How has your faith been? On shaky ground? On a firm foundation? What has this time of crisis shown you about your relationship with God?

Let me also offer two great questions I read recently. The first was in a newsletter from Shelly Miller. She is an author and has an online group called The Sabbath Society. Here is her question for reflection:

"If the previous chapters of your life prepare you for what lies ahead, how might God be using your right now circumstances as preparation for what comes next?"

The other question was posted in our Facebook group last week and comes from Suzi Stringfield Denis.

"How is God using this time to transform me?" 

This week our prompt in our Living Your Word of the Year group is to spend some time reflecting on the past few months and thinking about where God may be leading you now with your word. Try making a vision board from that time of reflection. This project may take some time to work through. In the next few weeks we will offer more reflection questions that will help us evaluate the goals and intentions we set at the beginning of the year, and seeking God, will help us move forward in the second half of the year.

My vision board process surprises me each time. As I go through the process of cutting out letters and leafing through magazine pages I don't immediately see how they will come together. But once I start laying things out on the canvas the pieces start to fall nicely into place.

I hope you'll give a vision board for your word of the year a try. If you do, please share it in our Facebook group and/or on Instagram with the hashtag #livingyourword2020.

Join us in the Living Your Word Community

My friends Bernice Hopper, and Valerie Sjodin, and I share insights through blog posts for creatively living a word of the year. In our Facebook group, we encourage one another by posting questions and prompts to inspire living out a word focus, keeping a journal etc. It is a safe place to ask for prayer and support. If you would like to connect with others in creative ways about living your word, you can ask to join our Living Your Word of the Year 2020 by clicking on the link below.

URL for Facebook group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/livingyourwordoftheyear/ 

Hashtag for Instagram:  #livingyourword2020

Check out their blogs:

Bernice: https://newlycreative.com

Valerie: https://valeriesjodin.com/blog/ 

The Fruit of Self-Care

The Fruit of Self-Care

In our Living Your Word of the Year group we have been pondering weekly questions to help us connect with our word of the year in order to make it an active part of our lives. This week our question is:

How can you nurture your word with self-care this week?

We can thank Valerie Sjodin for these great weekly questions.  :)

My word for 2020 is fruit. The quote that describes my intention for selecting this word is by Dallas Willard:

"If you tend to the tree, the fruit will take care of itself."

For me, a large part of "tending to the tree" is about self-care practices. Fruit is the by-product of something else. Spiritually, it is the by-product of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives. He enables us to position ourselves before the Father for transformation. Spiritual practices or disciplines help us in this positioning, they help us live the life of the Spirit.

Self-care can be a loaded term in some circles. Some may see it as selfish or being self-indulgent. Others may have the view that it is a time waster, something only those who have a lot of extra time on their hands can indulge in. Whatever your view of self-care may be, I hope you'll indulge me in sharing my thoughts on the subject. 

In my own journey, embracing self-care came out of a time in my life when I was experiencing burn-out. I had worked in ministry for quite a few years - the same ministry I work in now - and I was struggling with feeling worn out, having no energy, constantly emotional, and not seeing how I could continue to pour out myself in outreach ministry for much longer. I was running on empty and it felt like the only solution to my problem was to quit my job. I am not going to go too much into the details here, but I ended up not quitting my job, and over the course of a few years of reading, studying the Bible, and talking with a few trusted friends, I found the answer to my burn-out issues was in self-care.

One of my foundational passages of Scripture for self-care is Mark 12:28-31.

"One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” "

Jesus says that loving God and loving our neighbor/others are the most important commandments. Yet this verse also makes an assumption: that you are already loving yourself. Not loving yourself in an unhealthy manner that is self-absorbent or verges on narcissism, but in a manner that is healthy and good, and that out of that place you will love your neighbor/others in the same manner. To me loving yourself is about self-care. It's about taking care of yourself in ways that keep you healthy emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually so that you can be your best for others. Jesus modeled this when he withdrew and sought solitude, rest and time for prayer. He even did this at the expense of not serving others needs at times. He taught it and modeled it to His disciples. He was so in tune with His Father and the Father's will that he was able to discern when it was time for self-care and when it was time for caring for others. 

Over the past years I have used this verse as a guideline when determining my intentions or goals with my word for the year. Jesus is calling us to love God with our whole being:

• With all our heart - this is our emotional health. Often burn-out has more to do with a loss of emotional energy than physical. So what habits and activities help restore my emotional energy? How can I make time for these activities in order to fill up what has been drained?
• With all our soul - this is our spiritual health. How am I regularly drawing closer to God? What practices can I put into place that deepen my relationship with Him and that help create spiritual health?
• With all my mind - this is our mental health. What am I doing to keep my brain healthy? How can I keep learning and growing? What practices need to be in place?
• With all my strength - this is our physical health. Being physically healthy helps all of the other areas of our health. What practices do I need to put into place to eat well, to exercise, to insure good sleep? What practices do I need to eliminate that cause my body to be unhealthy?

The other passage for self-care that is important to me offers Jesus' prescription:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Self-care is about resting in Jesus and learning from Him. But that's a message for another day!

This week think about your intentions and goals for your word of the year and ponder this:

What am I doing to care for my heart? For my soul? For my mind? For my strength? What am I doing to grow healthier in these areas, so that I may love God with my whole being and love my neighbor/others well? 

(Complete with a pen slip-up!)

"When I stop and rest, I can fill up and that enables me to pour out." ~Sunshyne Gray

Join us in the Living Your Word Community

My friends Bernice Hopper, and Valerie Sjodin, and I share insights through blog posts for creatively living a word of the year. In our Facebook group, we encourage one another by posting questions and prompts to inspire living out a word focus, keeping a journal etc. It is a safe place to ask for prayer and support. If you would like to connect with others in creative ways about living your word, you can ask to join our Living Your Word of the Year 2020 by clicking on the link below.

URL for Facebook group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/livingyourwordoftheyear/ 

Hashtag for Instagram:  #livingyourword2020

Check out their blogs:

Bernice: https://newlycreative.com

Valerie: https://valeriesjodin.com/blog/ 

Playing With Lettering My Word

Playing With Lettering My Word

One way I explore my word of the year is by reading books that will help me live out my intentions for my word. At the end of last year as I was exploring my choice for my 2020 word, fruit, I ran across an article that quoted Dallas Willard. As I looked up the Dallas Willard quote in one of his books, I realized that he had a lot to say about the areas I'm trying to further explore and grow in. So I decided that I would re-read, or finish reading, a few of his books this year. So, for me, this is the year of Dallas Willard! I am starting with his book "Renovation of the Heart", which is all about how we grow spiritually and what spiritual transformation looks like. I highly recommend it!

One way to keep what I'm reading in my mind is to slow down and write quotes from the books in both my writing journal and in my art journal. I used a few quotes to play with some of my lettering styles this past week in preparation for this week's challenge in our Living Your Word group, which is to letter your word and to think of a color that reflects your word.

Cutting letters out of painted papers is one of my favorite ways to make words. Green seems to be the color I am gravitating to for my word this year, as green is a color that symbolizes growth. On my page spread I used painted paper cut letters and then I lettered my quotes with my hand lettering and filled it with color.

Since I was thinking about my lettering styles, I played around throughout the week writing one of my theme verses for the year in a variety of the lettering styles I use. It was a great way to play this week!

Pop over to our Living Your Word Facebook group and join us in exploring ways to live out your word of the year. There has been a lot of great conversations and examples form group members of how they are living out their word. Valerie Sjodin has also written a blog post today about lettering your word of the year. Read it here.

Living Your Word 2020 Opportunity!

My friends Bernice Hopper, and Valerie Sjodin, and I share insights through blog posts for creatively living a word of the year. In our Facebook group, we encourage one another by posting questions and prompts to inspire living out a word focus, keeping a journal etc. It is a safe place to ask for prayer and support. If you would like to connect with others in creative ways about living your word, you can ask to join our Living Your Word of the Year 2020 by clicking on the link below.

URL for Facebook group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/livingyourwordoftheyear/ 

Hashtag for Instagram:  #livingyourword2020

Check out their blogs:

Bernice: https://newlycreative.com

Valerie: https://valeriesjodin.com/blog/ 

Bullet Journal and Art Journal

Bullet Journal and Art Journal

This year I decided to return to a journaling format I used a few years back to record daily life as well as to keep a record of my word of the year. I am also intrigued with many of the aspects of bullet journaling as a means of documenting life and tracking some of your habits. As I said at the beginning of the year, I'm using a Leuchtturm 1917 journal with grid pages. My post about why I chose this journal is here.

In this journal this year I am working through how to live out my word of the year, fruit. Previous posts over the past few weeks have highlighted how I chose this word, how I do a word study for my word, doing a mind map for my intentions for my word, and then, this past Friday, about the difference between intentions and goals. You can access all of these posts by clicking on January in the blog archive column on the right side of this page.

Some of the other ways I'm using this journal is to record events through weekly page spreads:

I"m also tracking a few things this year:

My non-fiction reading list

Birds I spot on my walks and in my backyard 

And finally, I'm adding in pages as things happen or as I am inspired. Such as a page remembering our weekend in Traverse City, MI to celebrate my daughters 40th birthday with a girls road trip.

Then there is a page of some of the little phrases I say a lot. These little sayings or mantras tend to reflect what we value or things we've learned over time. They tend to reflect who we are and can serve as reminders when we need encouragement or motivation. This page also gave me an opportunity to play with the Staedtler Triplus Fineliner pen set I recently purchased.

So far, I am enjoying the Leuchtturm 1917 journal. At first I was concerned with shadowing - seeing the shadow of what your writing or the items you glued on the following page. But as I have gone along it hasn't bothered me too much. I love the grid paper and its a nice sturdy journal. But because I like making journals and binding books, and because I like a variety of journal and art styles, I have a second journal going. I made a junk journal out of an old book and I'm using it to play in and to do pages for different art challenges or groups I participate in.

#livingyourword2020 #junkjournaljanuary, #getmessyartjournal, #gmseasonofhome, #jan202020creativechallenge

If you choose a word of the year and are looking for ways to live it out through the year, I am a part of a faith-based Facebook Group: Living Your Word of the Year 2020. Join us!

Some of the art supplies used in this post:

Vintage paper packs, Dennison red border labels and tags can be found at Found On Brighton Etsy.

Disclosure:A note about Amazon links on my blog:

I am giving Amazon affiliation a try, which means I may receive a small percentage off sales made through clicking on the Amazon links found on my blog. There is no additional cost to you.