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Archives for February 2017

Lenten Calendar Templates 2017

February 15, 2017 by Sybil Macbeth 9 Comments Leave a Comment

Using a calendar template is one of my favorite ways to keep a daily discipline during Lent. It doesn’t involve making false promises to myself about sitting down for thirty minutes a day and praying/studying/meditating and then feeling guilty when I fail. On the calendar template I choose a word or name for each day, write the word in a space, and draw or doodle around it. As I draw I let the name or word fill my heart and mind. If words come to me I pray them. If not, I am quiet. I think of each mark or stroke of color as a wordless prayer. This process can take three minutes or thirty. Each day is different. I love the accumulation of words or peoples’ names in a visual tapestry.

Below are four templates to choose from in jpg or pdf form. There are 46 spaces which include Sundays. (Officially Sundays are not a part of the 40 days of Lent. So feel free to do something special for the Sundays, if you like–or leave them blank.) On the Cross Calendar, the spaces on the cross are part of the 46 count. One calendar is dated; the others allow you to choose your own path. Since the spaces are small I take the template to a copier and enlarge it (129%-132%) onto an 11″x17″ piece of card stock.

I confess: I’m first a doodler, then a colorer. I enjoy making marks–lines, dots, arcs, swirls, scallops, triangles–as much as I like adding color. Three of the templates allow you to do add your own doodles. The template with the Cross is new this year. There is also a coloring-page version of this new one where the doodles are drawn for you.

Here are some ways to use the calendars:
1) Pray for a person each day of Lent.
2) Use a daily book of Lenten meditations. Read the mediation for the day and select a word that jumps out at you. Meditate on the word as you draw and color around it. Let it enter your heart and mind. Ask God what you need to hear from the word.
3) Follow a daily lectionary and choose a word from one of the Scripture readings.
4) Read the same Psalm each day and choose a daily word. Psalm 51 is a penitential Psalm with lots of juicy (sometimes depressing) words in it.
5) Read a different Psalm each day and choose a word.

Here are a couple of ideas specifically for the Cross template but also useable for any of the others:
6) Use nouns or adjectives that describe the nature and character of Jesus: savior, redeemer, healer, radical, obedient, forgiving,…
7) Since Lent is a time for reflection and self-examination, scatter your confessions, character defects, regrets, worries, dreams, and hopes around the cross one day at a time. While I was making the cross template I remembered one of the first contemporary Christian songs I ever heard by Chuck Girard in 1975. It was called Lay Your Burden Down and the words seem apt for the cross calendar:
Lay your burden down, lay your burden down
Take your troubled soul, your tired mind
And lay your burden down
Lay your burden down, get your feet on solid ground
Take your worries to the foot of the cross, and lay your burden down. 

Click on .jpg or .pdf below the template. Make sure to download the template with the downward facing arrow in the top right before you print.

Cross Template on left and an Example of how to use it on right.

Lent 2017 Cross Collage Resized

.jpg     or    .pdf

Cross Coloring-Page Template

Lent Cross Coloring Page 2017 resized
.jpg     or    .pdf

Stained Glass Template
(Check out March 28 and March 31, 2016 on this blog to see finished versions of this template from last Lent.)

Lent Lily Template 2017 Resized.jpg     or    .pdf


Dated Box Calendar Template
(Check out April 22, 2011 for an example of a finished version of this calendar.)

Lent Box Calendar Collage Resized

.jpg     or    .pdf

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Filed Under: Praying in Color Tagged With: Chuck Girard, Lay Your Burdens Down, Lenten Calendar Templates, Lenten Calendars, Lenten discipline, Praying in Color

The Love of a Few (Thousand) Friends

February 14, 2017 by Sybil Macbeth 2 Comments Leave a Comment

For our whole adult lives, my husband and I have been nomads. We have lived in a dozen plus cities and towns, sometimes for a year, once for sixteen years. I often complain that I am rootless and homeless–at least in the Southern sense of having a strong sense of local place and people. “Our people” are spread all around the country and even in other countries. For Valentine’s Day, I decided to draw hearts for each of the people and friends I have loved and who have maybe even loved me. As I was drawing the hearts, I didn’t know where to stop. Every new name prompted another name and another heart.

The first two verses of Hebrews 12 came to mind: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” (NIV) I feel truly surrounded, carried, upheld, defended, nudged, and sometimes chastised and pushed by a great cloud of witnesses. Many of those people are Christians but not all and yet all feel a part of the great parade of people holding me in God’s love. 

EPSON MFP image

I looked back at Hebrews 11 and noticed all the phrases that started with “By faith.” “By faith Abel, by faith Enoch, by faith Noah, by faith Abraham, by faith Sarah, by faith Jacob, by faith Joseph, ….” The list is long of those who followed God and lived their lives “by faith.” When I am feeling homeless and rootless and sometimes faithless, it helps for me to recall this ancient cloud of witnesses in Hebrews and to be grateful for the present cloud of witnesses and friends (both alive and deceased) who sweep me in and carry me along by faith.

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Filed Under: Praying in Color Tagged With: great cloud of witnesses, Hebrews 11-12, Praying in Color, Valentine's Day

Notes about Lenten Calendars and Workshops

February 13, 2017 by Sybil Macbeth Leave a Comment

♥ I plan to post several Lenten calendar templates this week either on Tuesday or Wednesday, February 14 or 15. Lent starts on Wednesday, March 1. Feel free to download and share these templates.

♥ A Pre-Lent Workshop at Memphis Theological Seminary
Here’s the info:

The Theology & Arts Institute at Memphis Theological Seminary will offer a 3-session workshop on Doodling as Prayer and Meditation– A Praying in Color Workshop with Sybil MacBeth on February 16, February 23, and March 3, 2017 from 6:30-8:30PM. Praying in Color introduces a way to pray that is meditative, active, visual, serious, and playful. With doodling, pen, markers, and paper, participants will learn this practice by praying for others and delving into a passage of Scripture. Praying in Color is for the word-weary and distracted pray-er or anyone looking for a new way to spend time with God. No artistic ability necessary! Supplies are provided.

This is the 10th anniversary of Sybil’s book called Praying in Color: Drawing A New Path to God. When her book was published in 2007, the idea of melding prayer and doodling was unusual and innovative. Now her books and DVDs have sold over 100,000 copies. Sybil combines her lifelong love of prayer with her experience as a community college mathematics professor to offer workshops and retreats that engage people of varied learning styles. Visit her website and blog at prayingincolor.com.

Register at: http://memphisseminary.edu/event/praying-in-color-with-sybil-macbeth/ or call Dr. Tiffany Hall McClung at 901-334-5840.

MTS Collage Resized

♥ I will be leading A Lenten Retreat in Oklahoma City, OK , March 25-26, 2017 at St. Paul’s Cathedral sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma. To register Click Here.

If you know anyone who might be interested in the info about the calendars or workshops/retreats, please pass this along. Thanks.

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Filed Under: Praying in Color Tagged With: Lent, Lenten Calendar Templates, Lenten Calendars, Memphis Theological Seminary, Praying in Color

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