Archives for November 2014

Preparation for the Season of Preparation

November 28, 2014 by Sybil Macbeth Leave a Comment

Here are five things to do today or tomorrow in preparation for Advent:

1) Create a special corner in your house/apartment where adults and children can go to be quiet. Provide a Bible, book of daily meditations, or appropriate picture books. Put some candles (real or battery-operated) nearby to create an Advent atmosphere. Set five minutes a day set apart for quiet, prayer, mediation or for just doing nothing. Invite children to spend time in the special place.

2) Plant narcissus or amaryllis bulbs in a bowl of potting medium or in a bowl of stones with water. Watch the plants grow daily as a kind of live Advent calendar. Check the water levels daily.

3) Hang some purple (or blue) lights. There is no need to spend a lot of money. Keep it simple. Put a purple bulb in a night light, front porch light, or electric candle. (I use a purple marker and color a clear bulb when I can’t find one in a store). I bought a string of cool purple lights by Phillips for $11.99. The purple lights are a visual reminder to me that it is Advent and not yet Christmas. They are also a good conversation starter.

4) Set up an Advent wreath. (Lots of info about using Advent wreaths online or in The Season of the Nativity). I am such a failure at using the pre-formed metal or styrofoam rings; I now use four random candle sticks with purple ribbon, greens, or paper chains. Votives or recycled candles from a previous year are also candidates.

5) Download Advent Calendar Templates. Set up a table or part of a table with art supplies for drawing on the calendar.

For some other ideas about Advent read the Patheos article about Five Ways to Experience an Extreme Advent.

Paraclete Press is having a 40% off sale this weekend on my book and all of their books until Monday, December 1. Sarah Arthur has a nice book for Advent called Light upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.

Gratitude Gobbler

November 26, 2014 by Sybil Macbeth Leave a Comment

I love drawing/praying my yearly gratitude turkey. The turkey is a visual journal of my life in the past twelve months.

What I notice about my life in the past year is my tendency to be alone. This is not all bad. Keeping one’s own company and learning to cultivate the gifts of solitude is a skill, a skill I lacked as a young adult. Now I have the tendency to spend too much time alone. Reading, drawing, praying, studying, writing, playing Scrabble, hanging out on the computer keep me busy for hours.

Being alone is easier than being with other people. My opinions go unchallenged. I can be spiritual in my own way without the annoying trappings of a church and without people who bother me. I can eat what I want and do what I want. I’m the monarch of my self-contained little kingdom. On the down side: My opinions go unchallenged. I can eat what I want and do what I want. My entitlement grows and MY wants and needs become paramount. My solitude turns to isolation.

What I also notice about my life is my huge need for community–as messy and inconvenient as it sometimes is. This year my turkey is dressed with the groups in my life who make my life richer and who keep my thinking from running amok or growing more distorted. These communities remind me that I am both spiritual AND religious. Whether secular or sacred, these groups offer me “religious” frameworks for opening my eyes and staying in touch with reality. Lillian Daniel in a 2011 Huffington Post article says it well:
“Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn’t interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself.”

I invented none of the groups on my turkey, but I am immensely grateful to be part of them. Thanks be to God. Happy Thanksgiving.

Family Tree Advent Calendar

November 23, 2014 by Sybil Macbeth 2 Comments Leave a Comment

Advent is the beginning of the annual church pilgrimage through Scripture and salvation history. I think of it as the starting gate to the yearly reunion with our spiritual ancestors from the Bible and from two thousand years of Christian history. In the midst of reconnecting with all of those characters in the stories, I am often confronted with the relationships I have with my own relatives and ancestors.

Maybe Advent is a good time for me to pray for the members of my family, both alive and dead. I carry a full array of emotions, feelings, and thoughts about them–gratitude, sorrow, love, resentment, delight, frustration, friendship, bewilderment, joy, forgiveness, and unforgiveness. Some of those relationships need healing or maybe just a fresh way to view them. I need to vent some ill feelings and forgive some of my relatives. But I also need forgiveness for my behavior with them. Praying for my relatives opens the door to my memory, but also to my heart. In most cases, my prayer time with family members will remind me of the richness and love in those relationships.

Below is a template for a family tree calendar. Pray for a family member each day. Write the name of the person or paste a picture (with glue or digitally) in a ball on the tree. Doodle, draw, and include words if you like. Make this an opportunity for God to be part of the relationship. “Let go, let God,” and listen.

Download as a Powerpoint (looks cut off, but is not when downloaded and printed), a pdf or a jpg. All print nicely on an 8.5 x 11 page. Expand it to an 11 x 17 piece of paper for more space (129%-135%).
Click: pptx or pdf or jpg

Advent Calendar Templates 2014

November 16, 2014 by Sybil Macbeth 1 Comment Leave a Comment

Advent calendars are not just for kids! Instead of opening daily doors with pictures or retrieving small gifts from pockets, adults and children can mark the day-by-day journey to Christmas by praying/drawing on a blank calendar template. Pray for a person or write and meditate on an Advent word each day. Just the small amount of time it takes to fill the space with doodles and color each day can create a time of quiet, reflection, and listening to God. Set aside a table with a basket of markers and/or colored pencils where family members can work on their calendars. Hang the calendars on the wall for all to see. Watch them grow daily.

Here are three template choices. Click on a picture to download the template. I like to enlarge the template to an 11″ x 17″ piece of card stock. The links are also on the Handouts page of this website. Below the templates are samples of previous years’ finished Advent calendars.

Dated Tree Calendar Undated Tree Calendar

Box Calendar

Study Guide for The Season of the Nativity

November 13, 2014 by Sybil Macbeth Leave a Comment

A FREE Study Guide for The Season of the Nativity: Confessions and Practices of an Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany Extremist is now available. Click here to download it. The downward facing arrow at the top is the button to download it. The guide is designed for a four-week class for a group of people. There are community building exercises along with opportunities to try some of the exercises from the book. The first three weeks are about Advent; the last week is about Christmas and Epiphany.

The guide can be used “as is” or as a jumping off point for creating your own class or study group. “Take what you like and leave the rest.” I would love some feedback from anyone who uses the ideas. Thanks.

Patheos Book Club Features The Season of the Nativity

November 11, 2014 by Sybil Macbeth 2 Comments Leave a Comment

The website Patheos–Hosting the Conversation on Faith addresses all religious and non-religious spiritual paths. It seeks to be a place where people ask questions and discussions take place about all world religions and even atheism.

One of their divisions is The Patheos Book Club. For the first two weeks of November The Season of the Nativity is one of their featured books. There are reviews by bloggers, a Q&A about the book, an article by me called “Five Ways to Experience an Extreme Advent,” and a video interview with Deborah Arca (a managing editor of Patheos). When I found out that Deborah not only has a theology background but is a jazz singer I suggested we sing the “Advent Chant” by Phil Porter form page 90 of the book. She agreed and we did. The Advent Chant starts about minute 16:00 of the the 18-minute interview.

Here is the link to all of the Patheos Book Club Season of the Nativity entries. Please pass this on. Thanks.

Archives for November 2014

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