Greetings from the threshold of the new year. If you find yourself particularly out of sorts right now due to lack of structure, strained relationships, unmet expectations, or forces even further beyond your control, I offer that this is likely fertile soil in which you can plant an intention of the heart. There are a lot of memes about the debauchery and excess of this time of year, but I am more curious about, as poet Adam Maxwell Martin asks, who you are when no one is asking anything of you – or more likely, asking differently of you than they are normally allowed. Perhaps something more true can float to the surface when we are out of our typical time. (That is what retreats, music, labyrinths, and dreams, to name a few, are also partially about.)
We live in a cynical world and I grew up around cynical extended family members who get louder in my head whenever I sit down to write. (To be clear, their cynicism is their problem, how much I listen to them is mine.) So I cynically wonder if an “intention of the heart” is just a flowery, dressed up way to say “resolution.” I don’t think it is.
I think an intention of the heart is different from a resolution because my baked-in cultural understanding of a resolution is that it’s something you are requiring yourself to do, probably because you’re supposed to, possibly with the help of others but mostly alone using willpower. There is a solitary, externally-focused, and soulless nature to resolutions. Kate Bowler calls them secular sacraments. Like many secular sacraments, it’s got nothing for the real you. At best it’s a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie. With an intention of the heart there is a reciprocal relationship with something outside yourself that you can’t control. It is scary, meaningful, and it is why we are here.
Give me a word
Setting an intention of the heart at a threshold time is an ancient practice. Here we are focusing on setting an intention of the heart to receive a word, phrase, or image for the new year. When I think of choosing a word for the new year, perfectionism and shame stifle me. I feel like it better be a “good” one or anything bad that happens will be what I erroneously called in. In Give Me a Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year, author Christine Valters Paintner outlines the ancient and mystical roots of this tradition. I am seeking things with ancient roots right now, so this was music to my ears (thank you for the book, Caroline!)
Paintner describes how setting an intention of the heart originates from the wisdom of the desert mothers and fathers, who in 100 and 200 CE went to the deserts of Palestine, Syria, and Egypt to focus on a mystical relationship with the Divine. Seeking guidance, spiritual novices would say to them, “Give me a word.” Paintner says the novices were “not asking for…a command or a solution, but for a…stimulus to grow into fuller life.” The novice then pondered the word for weeks, months, or even a lifetime.
The practice of seeking a word is also central to lectio divina (divine reading), an ancient spiritual practice in which a passage from scripture or other holy texts is listened to with the heart. In this deep listening, people often find a word or phrase jumps out or calls to them. They reflect on what they’re noticing, and then read the passage again. The practice concludes with people responding to the Divine and their own hearts with what they’ve experienced and then resting in contemplation. I love doing lectio divina in a group setting because I always feel like I am choosing the most obvious words or phrases and then during our reflection time together I learn that everyone picked different things. Lectio divina helps build trust that what is calling to you is true.
You are invited
My invitation to you is to pick a day to begin, and for 30 days, start being open to and curious about your receiving your word. Ask from your heart to receive a word. Notice what pops up when you’re noticing more. Asking for something without specifying the details is a surprisingly humbling practice. It is part of why I near-daily pray. I get a sense of how I’m doing being not-God if I’m truly open to what God sees as my highest calling or if, instead, I want to order off a menu, Sally Albright (of When Harry Met Sally) style.
If a word comes and you are not sure about it, journal about it or talk to a friend (including me!) about it. See if your resistance is what makes the word all the more relevant. Purchase or borrow Give Me a Word if you want the structure of 30 meditative exercises for this journey. Otherwise, offer yourself the structure of being open to receiving your word every day and seeing what happens. Set a timer on your phone to remind yourself to make a little time and space for this. We are listening, as Howard Thurman said, for the whisper of God that comes through the sound of the genuine within ourselves. And then let me know what comes of it! I have a word that’s calling me – resonance – but I am going to work with it for 30 days and be open to what comes. I feel like it came to me too easily so there’s a lot for me to unpack there. Happy new year, dear friends!
