Praying in Color

Mobile Nav Menu

Archives for September 2010

Jealousy

by Leave a Comment

While I was taking photos in the hills of North Carolina last week, I noticed my shadow. “Wow! These are the legs I’ve always wanted,” I thought.

As a 5′ 3″ dancer, I spent years in ballet studios envying the young women with the long, willowy legs up to their armpits. After realizing I’d never grow long limbs, I decided to like my short ones. My short legs had strong, pointy feet at the ends of them. They were good for quick, allegro combinations. Acknowledging and being grateful for the gifts of my particular body type was a step in the right direction. But instead of just loving the power and speed of my short legs and admiring the fluid beauty of long legs, I wanted my type to be superior. So I’d enter into some jealous rationalizing. “My ability for jumps and speed is way more interesting than the lovely, elegant lines of those gangly legs next to me at the barre.”

Jealousy is not a modern concept. In book after book, the Bible is full of tales of envy and jealousy. Cain killed Abel when God accepted Abel’s animal sacrifice but rejected Cain’s offering of crops. Rachel, the more beautiful of the sisters, was jealous of her sister Leah’s ability to produce heirs for Jacob. Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him—the favored son of Jacob– and sold him into slavery. Moses’ followers were jealous of his prophet status with God. And on and on….

Proverbs 14:30 (NIV) says, “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.” When I can finally let others have their gifts and be unqualifiedly happy for them, I’ll know I’ve made some spiritual progress. The few times I’ve managed to do this without envy and without finding some other way to feel superior, I have felt genuinely happy and at peace.

A Little Refuge

by Leave a Comment

Once a year the members of my husband’s clergy support group are guests at a beautiful inn in the North Carolina mountains. At 5000 feet the view of the sky, meadows, and surrounding Appalachian range is spectacular. After years of nagging, we spouses garnered an invitation to the retreat as well. When we arrived,  I stuck my hand in a paper bag and pulled out a little piece of paper with our room assignment. Each room or cabin is unique and charming with no bum choices in the whole place.

This year Andy’s and my lottery draw must be the honeymoon suite. The room has a king-sized bed, a fireplace with a stack of wood, an indoor shower, and a porch twenty feet above the ground with an outdoor shower and a copper soaking tub. In the twenty-four hours I’ve been here, I have tried both of the outdoor bathing options.

This morning at 4:40 AM I sat on the chaise lounge of the porch and read until the sky lightened into pastels and a hot pink sun rose above the mountains. Not a bad way to spend a sleepless few hours.

As much as I enjoy the exotic plumbing amenities and a ring-side seat at the early dawn light show, the place I love best in the room is a humble little cubbycorner across from the indoor shower. It’s intended as a vanity with one of those horrifying magnifying mirrors that turns pores into potholes large enough to swallow a Ford F-150. Not one for donning much makeup, I have turned the corner into my personal reading and writing place. If I open the porch door inward, I am enclosed on four sides.

Maybe it’s the smell of the cedar-log walls or the sight of the large stones on the front wall, but I keep thinking about the images of cedar trees and stones in Scripture. The coziness and security I feel in my 2’x3′ hideaway also makes me think of the promise of God’s strong but gentle protection in Psalm 91: “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” Psalm 91: 4 (NIV)

Check out the Swag Country Inn website.

Prayers for Bones and Backs

by Leave a Comment

My friends Lois and Susan are both struggling with physical issues. One friend has a serious broken ankle. The other has recurring back problems. This prayer started with a simple, wiggly diagonal line. On the top of the line I drew a cloud-like shape for Lois; on the bottom I drew a cloud-like shape for Susan. As I prayed for my friends, I added lines, dots, and color. Drawing helps me to sit with Lois and Susan in prayer and silence without my body or my thoughts becoming too much of a distraction.

Saying the line “Look to the Lord and His strength” from the Psalms helps me to concentrate and to refocus when my mind starts to wander. Strength of the body is what I also hope for Lois and Susan.

Powerless Prayer

by Leave a Comment

Step One of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon is “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol–that our lives had become unmanageable.” Because my life is often unmanageable and chaotic, I say the first step a lot, substituting other words for alcohol: sugar, my adult children, the government, the neighbor’s dogs, the weather, the church, my computer….” The list is endless.

A popular rewrite of Step One says, “We admitted we were powerless over people, places, and things.” A friend of mine likes to say, “We are powerless over ‘nouns’.” Step One is a way to acknowledge my inability to fix everyone or everything that displeases me or makes my life feel out of control. Step Two invites God into the chaos: “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” It doesn’t say God will fix the annoying nouns in my life to my liking; it just says God will restore me to sanity. My take is: God will fix me—or at least shape up my attitude.

When I wake up in the middle of the night obsessing about the crazy-making  people and things in my life and creating new ways to repair them, I have a choice to make. I can continue down the delicious path of resentment, blame, self-righteousness, and Möbius-strip problem-solving. And I’ll lose all hope of sleep. Or I can wave my white flag and surrender to the prayers of Step One and Two. “I give up. I admit I am powerless over________. Please, God, restore me to sanity.”

Photo of Möbius strip: David Benbennick from Wikipedia site under terms of  GNU Free Documentation License

Circular Prayer

by 1 Comment Leave a Comment

Here is a prayer I drew starting with the name “Healing God.” I drew tiny lines, dots, and shapes in a circular pattern so I could keep my focus on the name. I added peoples names and prayed for them. Sometimes my prayers had words. Sometimes I just continued to draw and imagined the people in the care of our Healing God. With the circular drawing and a large piece of paper, I can expand the drawing over more than one prayer time.

This kind of  circular drawing is often called a mandala. The 14th century Tibetan monk Longchenpa described a mandala as a “an integrated structure organized around a unifying center.” In the prayer doodles I draw, the unifying center is God.

A Child is Born

by Leave a Comment

I drew the prayer below for two families with newborns. One child is completely healthy. The other child has serious health issues. Parenting a newborn or a child of any age is not easy. With little sleep and the reality of the responsibility, both sets of parents need support and prayer.

Sitting in church today I had a thought about Jesus and his birth narratives. As much as I love to sing them, the carols about Jesus as a sweet and gentle baby irk me. I hear people talk about “the little baby Jesus” and I want to shake them and say:  “Look what a child does to your life! They make lovely little noises. they smell milky sweet, and they are so beautiful when they sleep. But they wreak havoc on the life you once knew, the control you imagined you had.” Jesus does this too. He demands my love and attention. He throws my life into a tizzy. He invites me into a relationship and an obligation which both compels and terrifies. Nothing will ever be the same.

So maybe the birth narratives are important as more than just an excuse for a birthday party or even as a means to fulfill Biblical prophecy. “For unto us a child is born” (Isaiah 9:6) is both a promise and a warning. The love for this newborn Jesus, like all newborns, will change my life in ways both wonderful and unfathomable.