In my lovely little Unity church, we, like many other New Thought communities, have a White Stone ceremony at the beginning of each year. We are invited to prayerfully choose a word that comes to us through meditation, listening to our spiritual guidance in the quiet. My word this year is JOY – definitely God speaking to my heart in quiet whispers during this ceremony. Much more on that choice and what it means later, but first, a little more background.
White Stone ceremony comes after several weeks of different release activities and messages during Advent, culminating in a Burning Bowl ceremony on New Year’s Eve, when we literally toss into the fire a paper inscribed with those thoughts and habits that no longer serve us, letting go to make spiritual space for the new, for positive intentions and higher purpose.
The symbolism in each of these activities is deeply and personally meaningful to me, especially as they are done during Advent – metaphysically a time of preparation to receive Christ Consciousness at a new, higher level, birthing into the Light core concepts of Faith, Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. So beautiful!!
I share this as a way of a new beginning of sorts for me, resuming blogging after quite a hiatus, this time from a very personal place of caregiving for my husband Doug, who has mild dementia, early Alzheimers. This has aready been quite a journey for both of us over the last several years, and continues to be, which brings me back to my white stone word – JOY.
Many of you know I have a real penchant for acronyms… I love them; I “think” in acronyms, and have taken quite a liking to what I’ve termed “sacred-nyms” – using acronyms to describe spiritual concepts/words in a way that makes me smile and my friends roll their eyes and groan!
So JOY has become my word and my intention for this year… my 2026 purpose to embrace JOY – my Journey in Oneing and Yielding!
Oneing may not be a familiar word/concept to you, unless you are a fan of Julian of Norwich – a Middle Age mystic, theologian, author. and anchoress – and Father Richard Rohr – a Franciscan priest, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, and author of many books on spirituality, including a biannual journal called “Oneing ” that has several editions.
Oneing is an old term, but for me the meaning is timeless – it describes the knowledge that nothing exists apart from God, that we and all of creation are one with Spirit. In Revelations of Divine Love, Lady Julian writes “the soul is preciously knitted to God in its making by a knot so subtle and mighty that it is oned into God.” This image brings to mind those inextricable threaded clusters that one someimes finds melded together in the laundry – a knot that absolutely will not come apart, no matter what. She also describes our connections to each other, “In the sight of God all humans are oned, and one person is all people and all people are in one person.” This is what I yearn for, what I know for sure is Truth, but don’t always remember!
This quote from Fr. Rohr speaks to oneing; it touches my heart and challenges me to be authentic in my faith. “A mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone else. That is a definition that will never fail you, always demand more of you, and give you no reasons to fight, exclude, or reject anyone.” This message is so timely for our current community, state, national and world events, when in the name of Christianity, so much ill will, exclusion,”othering”, hate, and rancor exist.
From a deeply emotional and personal perspective, the daily challenges of loving a person with Alzheimers makes oneing so important to my mental and spiritual health – remembering that even when Doug’s memory fails to recognize me (fortunately only a few times so far- so devasating!), our souls are knotted together, entwined as one with each other and God. It helps!
Yielding for me this year as another part of my JOY is spiritual surrender – releasing the need to control everything (as if I could anyway!) but especially letting go of preconceived outcomes and trusting Divine Order. I can feel moments of inner peace and JOY when I let go, but I still have a “I need to be in control” mentality, especially when it comes to this horrible disease that is slowly robbing my Doug of his brain function, memory and cognition with its wicked amyloid placques. I want so badly to change what is going on in Doug’s brain, and I struggle to find balance between what faith tells me is possible (with God, all things, right?) and accepting and surrendering to what is with grace, compassion, love, finding joy in our time together with gratitude, knowing God’s presence in all of it. I haven’t reached that balance yet, and hope that my Journey in Oneing and Yielding will help me get closer to achieving that sacred, harmonious equilibrium this year.
We are so fortunate in many ways – access to good health care, the love and support of our wonderful families and helpful friends, hugs from devoted kindred souls at church and in our Spirit Group , our minister and prayer chaplains always there to bring LIght and Love to the situation, and sometimes a stranger like today in a waiting room who gently touched my arm and said “Alzheimers is hard – I’m so sorry,” a simple gesture so authentic and sweet it immediately brought tears to my eyes and I had to catch my breath to keep from breaking down into a flood of usually restrained public emotion.
So much GOOD is there!
So, readers, fellow truth seekers, fellow lovers of acronyms, my JOY begins. I hope you’ll follow me in my 2026 journey and share your thoughts.