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Lenten Calendars 2016

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Several people sent me their finished calendars for this past Lent. Pat Maier designed a template by drawing a cross, chopping it up, and using the pieces to create a pathway to Easter and resurrection. Here is Pat’s finished calendar; Connie Denninger (Vintage Grace) used the same template. Both chose a word each day to pray and mediate on.

Lent Calendars Connie and Pat 2016--1000

LInda S. and her adult daughter J each used a separate stained glass template and then also shared one alternating who drew each day. They used sharpie pens and colored pencils.

Here are their three calendars: Linda’s, J’s., and their cooperative effort. I love the idea that they sometimes started with words but the calendars are mostly wordless.
1) Linda choose five designs and repeated them. “Three of them represent the refreshing “water” of the spirit, the “cross” roads of decisions we encounter daily, and opportunities for growth. (Though I have no idea exactly what the other two represented).”
2) In J’s template she ” focused on the quotation from Michael K. Marsh’s Lenten 01/28/16 blog I Don’t Want To Do Lent This Year https://interruptingthesilence.com/2016/01/28/i-dont-want-to-do-lent-this-year/.
3) In the shared template they alternated days and drew what “spoke” to them that day color and design-wise.

Linda S and J Collage

Bev W also used the stained glass template.She read several devotions each day and then came up with a word for daily mediation.

Bev Wicher Calendar (1)

This is another pair of calendars from Linda S and J using the spiral template. Inside each circle J wrote a short prayer–the words spilling on top of each other–from many sources including prayer books, songs, and websites. The margins in between also have prayers written. See if you can figure out what’s on the second calendar.

Piral Lent 2016 Linda and J

Thanks to Pat, Connie, Linda, J, and Bev for letting me share these wonderful calendars and the Lenten discipline they represent.

 

Finished Lenten Calendar 2016

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I used the mediation and scripture passages from the daily guide called Forward Day by Day published by Forward Movement. Each day there is an Old Testament/Hebrew Scripture reading, one to four Psalms, an Epistle, and a Gospel. On most days I read all of the suggested passages and chose a word or phrase that jumped out at me. I messed up the numbering and used a couple of words twice. On Good Friday and Holy Saturday, I did not use words at all.

I would love to see any finished templates that you have. Send me a message via the Contact page and I’ll tell you how to send it to me. It needs to be a scan or photo as a jpg. Also let me know if it is okay to post your template.

LENT 2016 (1)

 

 

Semana Santa=Holy Week in Mexico

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I have heard and read the story of Jesus’s entrance into Jerusalem from Luke’s gospel dozens of times. The story has deep roots in my brain extending back to my childhood. This past Sunday in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, I joined a sea of people for whom the story is not just in their minds, but also implanted in their bodies.Thousands of us processed on fennel-strewn streets surrounded by doors and windows decorated with flowers and ribbons. Garlands of palms arched from one side of the cobblestone streets to the other. A drum and bugle corp played a triumphal march but also the foreboding notes I associate with an impending execution.

Sna Miguel Collage (1)

We waved elaborately woven palms and paraded behind crosses, statues, and banners to the center of town and the spectacular parish church called the Parroquia San Miguel Arcangel. Processing together through the narrow streets of San Miguel was a visceral and sensory experience of communal worship. So many legs, feet, arms, ears, eyes, and faces collected to form this big moving Body of Christ.

As recently as a couple of decades ago, my reserved Protestant leanings would have made me think this parade was childish, maybe even idolatrous. What educated person needs colorful symbols and pageantry to exercise their faith? But being a part of the colorful Palm Sunday mob felt almost like an act of surrender—a giving up of my low threshold of embarrassment and an unlocking of the maximum security cell where I keep any display of religious zeal. As I grow older I don’t want my worship to be just an intellectual exercise in beautiful words and correct theology, I want my whole body to celebrate and experience the story of God’s saving work in the world.

The Parroquia

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Lenten Catch-Up

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Some people have commented that I have not posted in a while. Here are my excuses:
1) I moved back to Memphis on January 15 from a year in the mountains of Colorado but have traveled to IL, MA, CA, and KS for workshops in the past 5 weeks.

2) I’m working on a book that is due at the publisher on Monday.

3) I gave up Words with Friends for Lent and I seem to be staying offline and enjoying the reprieve.

4) I don’t have much to say right now.

NOTE:
Some people have gotten an Unsafe Message about my website when they go to it from Internet Explorer. My website tech people say that for some reason Microsoft had it on their unsafe list. (Probably because it had “prayer” in the title and we know that is a dirty word!)

Microsoft has removed the site from their unsafe list. You may need to clear your cache in internet explorer to see the site without the warning. Thanks.

A Holy Lent to all of You.