Praying in Color

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Archives for November 2011

Other Advent Calendar Ideas

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Here is an Advent calendar shaped like a Christmas tree. Feel free to download the template here or click on the drawing itself. I like to take a copy of the 8 1/2 x 11 page to a commercial copier, enlarge it to 11 x 17 inches (about 129%), and print it on white card stock.

This calendar is designed to start  tomorrow November 27, the first Sunday of Advent, and go through December 24. You can add dates to the shapes and start drawing in any of the twenty-eight shapes–one a day. The star at the top of the tree is not considered a day unless you want to make it Christmas.

Last Advent, I did a Praying in Color workshop at a Catholic parish in Pittsford, New York called St. Louis Church. The woman in charge of organizing the workshop gave each family a piece of string, tiny manila envelopes and clothespins to create an Advent calendar. Each day someone would draw a prayer on an envelope and hang it on the clothesline. Families had different ideas about what to put in the envelopes–candy, toys, little notes….One idea I liked: Each day anyone could put pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters in the envelopes. At the end of Advent the family would decide where to donate the collected money.

Depending on how much space you have, the clothesline and the envelopes can be small or large.

Advent Calendars

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My friend Cindy O. and I have been praying/drawing Advent calendars for several years. Below is a collage of some of our past calendars. We mark each day of the four weeks before Christmas with a prayer for a person or a meditation on a word. Words like” watch, wait, fear not, joy, darkness, light, hope…” remind us of the dark days before Jesus and the promise of a Savior.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.” (Isaiah 9:2 NRSV)

Cindy created a blank 2011 Advent calendar. You can download the template for the calendar at her website Mostly Markers. Cindy’s and I draw our calendars in color, but for the “marker or color-phobic” using just a black pen is also an option.

Thanksgiving Turkey Prayer

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Here is my 2011 Thanksgiving prayer. The turkey wasn’t large enough for all of my thanksgivings, so this is my Group Gratitude prayer. Most of the people I am grateful for fit into one of these groups. I’ve probably forgotten a few, so I’m imagining them on the other side of the turkey.

Yesterday a woman said, “I’m not just thankful for the things God has given me now; but I’m thankful for all of the future ways in which God will love me and care for me.”  Hallelujah!

Making hand-turkey prayers might be a good after Thanksgiving dinner activity for children and adults alike. Help a child trace around their hand or let them borrow yours.

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow…..”

“Silly Letter-People” Prayers

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People do all kinds of wonderful things with praying in color to personalize the way they draw their prayers. Praying in color pray-ers use colored markers, colored pencils, basic graphite pencils, black pens, pastels, gel pens and drawing media I don’t even know about. Graph paper, colored paper, lined paper, envelopes, napkins, plain paper…have all hosted prayer drawings.

My drawings are almost always abstract with geometric shapes. Other people draw flowers or objects that remind them of the people who need their prayers. Some prayers are simple scribbles; some prayers are works of art. I love the way people  have adapted praying in color to suit their skill, style, and prayer needs.

Lynne M. from CT has been praying in color everyday for over four years. Here’s what she says about drawing her prayers:

I have discovered a tremendous closeness to Jesus and have been having a grand ole time with my best Friend.  We share a lot of laughs, grumps, and tears together and with a lot of circles, dots, and curves, I’ve discovered I have been given the ability to draw some pretty silly cartoons!

Lynne has many different styles of drawing, but her favorite one is her “silly letter-people.” Her whimsical prayers make me smile. Even when she prays about struggle and serious issues, there is a bright spirit of trust, hope and delight in her drawings. The passage from Psalm 37:4 comes to mind: Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. (NIV)

Here are some of Lynne’s prayers about all different aspects of her life–prayers for others, prayers for herself, prayer on Inauguration Day, prayer after visiting a holy site.

Last I heard, Lynne was drawing prayer #1550-something! Now that’s a prayer discipline.

Thanks for sharing your prayers, Lynne.

Pumpkin Tree Prayer

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On Saturday mornings the open-air Eastern Market in downtown Detroit introduces me to some wacky plants and vegetables . Last year I met my first Romanesco.

Romanesco tastes like a sweet, nutty cauliflower. With its interesting logarithmic spirals and fractal pattern, it looks exactly like the plant-life I imagined on Perelanda, the planet of C. S. Lewis’s imaginative sci-fi Space Trilogy. In a beautiful hymn called Bring Many Names, Brian Wrendescribes the God who creates such a whimsical, edible, and mathematical masterpiece, the God who is:

“working night and day,
planning all the wonders of creation,
setting each equation, genius at play.”

This year’s Eastern Market surprise was a pumpkin tree. Bearing a menagerie of colorful little pumpkin like-fruits, the tree almost looks fake. It, too, could have come from another planet. “You can eat those little pumpkins,” said the woman who sold me several branches. “They’re related to the eggplant.” I haven’t been brave enough to whip out the olive oil and garlic, but the pumpkin tree made a terrific seasonal decoration. It also inspired a prayer drawing.



Doodling

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Sometimes people say to me, “OOH, you wrote a book. What’s it about?” When I say “Prayer,” 30% of the people roll their eyes. When I say “Prayer and Doodling,” the other 70% roll their eyes. It’s not a duo that garners respect. For years I’ve touted the meditative, cognitive and educational benefits of doodling. People are not impressed; eye-rolling accelerates.

Doodling was not encouraged when I was a student. I remember it was actively discouraged. “Pay attention! Bobby, are you doodling again? Do you want to go to the office?” If I ever doodled before I was twelve, my seventh grade team-taught science class put a sure end to it. There were seventy students in the class. My friend M. and I were in the back row. We couldn’t see very well. So we played Hangman. I’m sure we were using some giggly pubescent word when the big hairy arm of the guidance counselor grabbed the paper and escorted my friend and me to the hall. He had seen us through the door being less than attentive. (Maybe we were trying to pay attention with our hangman diversion.)  But my capture by the authorities prevented me from future marks in my notebooks other than words from the teacher’s mouth or from the blackboard.

In college I was more adventuresome. I took notes in clouds and in diagonal clumps on the page. Color became part of my note-taking and highlighting in textbooks. Clouds, clumps and color were a way to keep my attention and to organize the material.

Alas, I’m not the only person on the planet who espouses the benefits of doodling. Doodling has merited a TED talk. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. TED talks are presentations under 18 minutes on topics deemed worthy of sharing with the world. Sunni Brown‘s six-minute TED talk on doodling is all over the net. Here is the link. Note: It has an R-rated line or two, so listen before you share it with an eight-year old. Thanks, Sunni, I feel validated and vindicated.