Practice These 3 Sensory Challenges with Your One Word
{One Word 2023 July Linkup}
Try this SENSORY CHALLENGE with your One Word.
Here are 3 practices to experiment with using your own One Word with SIGHT, SOUND, and TOUCH.
Give yourself extra credit if you can find a way to TASTE and SMELL your word, too.
1. SEE IT
Where can you see your word most often? Move your word or a representation of your word around this month, putting it in fresh places. Write it on a post-it note for your refrigerator. Make a wallpaper design for your phone. Set it on the desk at your office.
This month I’ve attached my word HUMAN to my bedroom mirror along with this “goose feather.”
Jeff and I attended the Wild Goose Festival last weekend, a community gathering for faith-inspired social justice. While the adults were attending their sessions, one of the children’s activities was to create a paper goose with their own sayings as feathers.
After communion on Sunday morning, we were each invited to pull a feather from a goose to take home with us to remind us of the weekend.
I chose this one: “One is not nearly enough . . . ALL.”
It fits my word just right. Thank you, whoever created this feather.
2. HEAR IT
What does your word sound like? Listen for it in the birds or your favorite music. Read a poem aloud with your word. Save the spot on your audio Bible that contains a scripture containing your word.
The song “Crowded Table” by The Highwomen has been playing in my head for awhile (we also sung it at the Wild Goose Festival). So this week I finally added it to my playlist.
Isn’t this a beautiful way of being HUMAN?
I want a house with a crowded table
And a place by the fire for everyone . . .
The door is always open
Your picture’s on my wall
Everyone’s a little broken
And everyone belongs
Listen to the whole song here.
3. TOUCH IT
Perhaps more challenging, what does your word feel like? Find a way to touch your word. Examples: For FINISH, rub your fingertips over a smooth piece of wood or art to feel its finish as well as to celebrate something completed. For ALIGN, craft objects out of Play-Doh. For GRATITUDE, put your hands together in thanks for the good things in your week.
Another of my takeaways from the Wild Goose Festival was to recognize we each have been different versions of ourselves throughout our lifetimes. My latest version is who I am now, but I also contain all my other versions inside me. Together they make me the HUMAN I am today.
I ordered a set of nesting dolls this week to remind me to embrace my most expansive self, but also to honor my deepest core self, too.
The nesting dolls arrived in my mailbox on Friday. When I open and close these dolls, I feel my humanity. Here they are.
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Leave a comment here about your One Word.
I shout it from the rooftops,
I sing it loud and sing it clear,
I celebrate the flower of hops,
for my word for ’23 is BEER!
A pint of ale ‘fore glow of dawn
some stout after the chores are done,
then lager as the night is gone…
now doesn’t that sound fun?
A Pilsner to make lunch complete,
a Bock or two at tea,
cream ale (for a beer it’s sweet)
quaffed while I watch TV,
and I give God gratitude in hunks
that He blesses kids, the beasts, and drunks.
Your poetry always brings a smile with it, Andrew. I’m actually singing your words in my head to the tune, Pass It On. 🙂
I like your idea of the nesting dolls.
I actually had a set of nesting dolls already, but there were various tops or bottoms missing from them so it didn’t feel like a good metaphor for wholeness. lol. I love my new set.
I loved your take on FINISH, my word, and it is one of the definitions I relish. God is surely sanding me right now through a physical difficulty, and I long to shine through it all. The word crops up in various songs and poetry. I see finish lines in races on TV. And I see it in crosses. Jesus’ Cross is what I must constantly see before me, because it reminds me of the price He paid to finish the Word of redemption. I just had the thought too that He was not nailed to a pretty, “finished” wooden cross, but a rough-hewed, grossly splintered one against which His poor, torn flesh was nailed and against which he “rubbed” and pushed up on spiked feet just to take a breath. This just reminded me that I wrote a piece about Jesus’ blood “polishing” (finishing) the Cross. I beg your indulgence for the length, Lisa, so PLS. JUST REMOVE IT THIS IS TOO LONG! xo Lynn
Worship
by Lynn D. Morrissey
Sunday after Sunday, I enter the sanctuary to worship. I revel in polished mahogany, silver glint of organ pipes, sprays of sun through stained glass—the hushed, holy reverence of it all. I love worship in the comfort of beauty.
I love comfort period, a comfortable little life where little is asked of me.
I descend onto crimson, plush protection between me and hard wood. Suddenly, the organ trumpets, choir parades, robes flow, faithful rise. I do . . . slowly, then forward-lean, head bowed, hands outstretched, cupped palms curling ’round the scroll of pew, polished glossy by streaming sun and palms of sinners past. Countless hands across countless Sundays have gripped for support this curve of wood, worn smooth by mortal time and human testing. Like a convict’s fingerprint on ink, I press a heinous hand-print onto theirs, co-mingling frailty and failing, a laying on of unlikely hands.
A call to worship, a hymn, a prayer, a confession, and assurance of pardon, I freely uncurl my fingers’ clutch, upturn palms from hard wood, praising, knowing His hands remained outstretched, upturned, nailed down hard—His fingers screaming, splayed stiff like wheel spokes—His blood gushing, polishing the unforgiving wood glossy.
I leave the sanctuary knowing everything is asked of me, especially my comfortable life. I leave, finally ready to worship.
Oh wow, Lynn. I love what you’ve done here with FINISH. I’m glad you didn’t finish with this word last year but kept it again for 2023. The juxtaposition of the unfinished cross with our comfortable lives will stick in my head today. Thank you, wonderful friend!
Thank you so much for allowing me to share that and for such kind words. I hadn’t intended to, but God brought it to mind as one thought led to another.
Lisa, had meant to say I LOVE that you bought your nesting dolls as a reminder of who you are–as Walt Whitman said, “I am large, I contain multitudes”! I have worked with these in journliang worshops and poetry. I own several groupings of them, and straight from Russia. Mother and I have corresponded there w/ a piano teacher for over 50 years. Sadly, as you can imagine, the inHUMANE brutality of Putin devastated our correspondence (both Russia & US cutting off the post). By God’s grace, I found her and we now “WhatsApp.” The thing is that countries are inhabitated by real, live wonderful HUMANS who hate the inhumanity of war and dictators! It’s important never to forget that.
xo
L
I’m so glad you were able to find your friend in Russia and can now correspond again. This makes me very happy for technology.
Crazy, but I actually had a dream last night about Putin! World leaders don’t usually show up in my dreams. lol. It wasn’t a good dream and I hope I forget it soon.
Thanks for sharing the Walt Whitman quote! It made me search out the whole poem. I admit I don’t quite understand all of it. 🙂 But I am saving it to ponder on with my nesting dolls.
Song of Myself, 51
Walt Whitman
“The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them.
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.
Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?”
Admittedly, I don’t either, but I love that quote. You can easily Google analyses of the poem. I’d say a Putin dream is a nightmare. I wonder what God is showing you through it? I wrote a poem about Ukraine and Putin; though I don’t mention his name you know to whom I’m referring by the attribute I use for him. I’m still so moved by the resolve and patriotism of the Ukrainians and by his unwarrented vileness and violence. Genocide. No other word for it.
I love nesting dolls, Lisa. I have several sets but never thought about using them in this way. Great idea! I’ve been thinking about the sensory challenge and have even jotted some thoughts about how it might work with my word (remember). Stay tuned … I’m hoping there might be a blog post that comes from it. 🙂
My old set of nesting dolls was missing a few parts so I’m glad to have this new set. 🙂 I’ll look forward to your sensory finds with Remember!
Lisa, amazing! Thank you soooo much for the reminder to look and to hear our word (in unexpected places). Today, our beloved pastor, who, himself, suffers relentless vertigo (not daily like mine) but devastating–he has vestibular migraines which have grown in intensity in pain and vision problems and falling-over vertigo when he has them, which is increasing to maybe 4 or 5 a week. He’s had them for over 30 years, but they’ve grown much worse in the past year. He leaves for Mayo Clinic for help and hope and answers tomorrow. How he preached today, I don’t know. But his sermon spoke to me, personally, on a number of levels–because Clay really understands my problem and empathizes, because his sermon was on Heb 12, about Jesus the author and FINISHER of our faith, and with his closing example of Olympian Derek Redmond, predicted to be the winner of his race in 1992, until a devastating pulled hamstring buckled him. But then . . . he was determined to FINISH his race, even if he had to hobble (in excruciating pain). Amazingly, his father, leapt from the stands, pushed his way through the crowd and onto the racetrack and gave his son support to FINISH his race. Derek did not win, but perhaps he won a far greater victory, because he FINISHED his race despite horrific pain and disappointment! You can see just this race and finish, but I liked the song “You Raise Me Up” paired with it, along with a little explanation and application to the Lord. I wept through the whole thing! And this is a song I love soloing. I added my own verse to the bridge to sing at funerals, so it has especial meaning for me.
May we all FINISH our race for the Lord!
xo Lynni
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-Yn4b9iClE
Thanks for sharing about your pastor and about the Olympian. There are so many people who struggle with various challenges, including you. I’m grateful for how you continue to encourage others despite those challenges, Lynn.
I’m on a roll today, Lisa! My WOTY is, as you know, FINISH… and this ties into your comment about the wood.
Finishing Coat
by Lynn D. Morrissey
High-gloss polish me.
God, make my soul to shine
like burnished brass, so You can see
Your face.
This is my first time hearing the song, Crowded Table, Lisa. Thanks for sharing it. My oldest daughter worked with orphans in Russia for five years, so the nesting dolls are a familiar site.
Oh, wow–that’s wonderful that your daughter did that, Lisa! I’m sure it was a life-changing experience for her.
I must admit Lisa, I have inadvertently neglected my word ‘Season’ over the past few months.
But you have given me much food for thought here.
blessings, Jennifer
Season is such a wonderful word…maybe it’s meant to go dormant in some months and rise up fresh in others?
ohhhh I love that ? thank you!
Yes, it is 8/13 and I am just now reading this post. I love the sensory challenge.
Since I was in school this summer, I was fully emersed in learning this summer while still working in childcare/summer camp full-time. I guess you could say all my senses were engaged at one time or another.
Blessings to you, my friend.
ps – love the nesting dolls