“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it until it begins to shine.” Emily Dickinson
Here we are again, another year. Maybe it’s my age, but it does seem that they roll around more quickly than in the past. “Wait!” I shout. I’m not quite done with this year! I need to squeeze a little more out of it, to give it time to improve its standing. I know I will surrender to the inevitability of its passing and hope for the best in the year to come.
Like a fine sauce, I would like to reduce the year to its essence, a simple sentence or a single word. Merriam Webster designated their 2025 word of the year as slop, defined as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” It expands the definition of a word that would mystify my farmer grandfather, though the tie to pig sty does seem appropriate for those who feel inundated with what looks like information but often is trite data that obscures more than informs.
Words can be fun. Wordle gives me a new word every day. Crossword puzzles spark my imagination. Scrabble tests my creative arrangement of letters.
Words are wonderful building blocks for forging hopes and dreams. We also know how devastating words can be when someone uses a word to disparage us or someone we love. Like measles, I thought we had eradicated many of those words only to find that they have been laying dormant, ready to reemerge as guardrails are removed.
I love muscular words. They feel like entries to another world. Take the word quintessential. Merriam Webster defines it as “perfectly typical or representative of a particular kind of person or thing.” Digging into its etymology, using our trusty dictionary, we learn that it evolved from the words quinta meaning five and essentia meaning element. Scientists and philosophers in ancient times concluded that the earth was made up of four elements: air, water, earth, and fire. Aristotle later added a fifth element that made up the rest of space. Eventually this fifth element (quinta essentia) came to mean anything so perfect, it surpassed the elements of earth. Thus, we have our word, quintessential. A perfectly good word for defining the true essence, the highest form. The new year is the quintessential time to reassess where my life is taking me.
Christine Valters Paintner in her book, Give Me a Word, describes how in the first and second centuries AD, people would go to the desert to seek wisdom from women and men who lived as hermits, spending their days in prayer and pondering, not dissimilar to gurus in the Eastern traditions. People would come to ask for a word. What they would get is a single word or a short phrase. They would take that and meditate on it, explore it, live with the invitation to let it lead them.
Paintner encourages us to find a word—for the day or the week or the year. Or, perhaps more accurately, to let a word find us. I can be grabbed by a word, often having to look up its meaning, made easier with our electronic tools rather than having to dig out the dictionary, now relegated to the basement, relic of another era.
Let the magic of words enrich your year ahead. Let them be filled with honesty, kindness, and care.
Last year the word that found me was release. It is a word I returned to throughout the year—releasing fears more imagined than real, habits past their expiration date, dreams lost to the realities of age and time. Release. Set free. As I turn my attention to what word may be calling me this year, I consider words that have caught my attention of late. Here are some that are considering me:
Zest. In a time of upheaval as we are experiencing, zest comes with an energy that won’t surrender to despair. It is a word that carries vitality and engagement. Like the lemon zest I add to a salad, it sparkles, enlivens as it engages.
How about reappraisal? I recently read about the power of positive reappraisal. When I spill coffee grounds on the newly cleaned floor, speak without thought or care, move too fast and break my toe, I can beat myself up or I can choose to reappraise the situation from a positive point of view. I am glad that I have a little hand vacuum that makes clean up easy. I have another opportunity to remember how golden silence can be. I see that the universe is reminding me to slow down before I break something more critical than a toe. Reappraisal might be useful this year.
Silence. Now there is a practical word. Silence the inner chatter. Silence my phone when I need a break. Silence the 24/7 news. Welcome the silence of nature.
Reverence. I could choose to notice the innate value and beauty in my encounters with people, nature, life. Reverence implies respect and awe. Awe is another full word. What brings me to awe? Where do I experience that tingling sense of knowing that I am with something greater than the ordinary? The times that I tear up with stories of heroic acts, the sacrifices people make for others, the full moon brightening a winter landscape while creating shadows in the night. If the word reverence chooses me, I might note when it shows up and I keep a reverence journal to review when I am feeling lost.
Hope. Theologian Walter Brueggemann says, “Hope is a human act of commitment to and investment in the future. Hope is an act of human courage that refuses to cherish the present too much or be reduced to despair by present circumstance.” Hope could be a good transition word into the new year, especially when tempted by resignation or fear.
Freedom. Change. Sobriety. Powerless. Powerful words, packed with possibility.
Play. Now that could be a helpful word in the year ahead. Or Create or Joy or Passion. Where might those words lead me? Will this year’s word lead me to expand my life or contract it? Will it call me to more or to less? Will it open me to new vistas or pull me into more frequent pauses?
What word is calling you? What word or phrase sums up the year just ended? J.K. Rowling says, “Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.” I think she is right. Let the magic of words enrich your year ahead. Let them be filled with honesty, kindness, and care. Happy New Year!
