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Archives for February 2020

Calendars Redux + 2 More for Lent

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Today is the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday. The pancakes from last night’s suppers are gone and promises for Lenten disciplines have been made.

There is still time to download a calendar template or two and follow a doable, visual path through Lent. Here are two additional templates plus the ones I posted on February 14. For ideas on how to use the calendars, Click Here to access the February 14 blog post.

Click on the links below the calendar to download the ones you want to use.

Here are two additional calendar templates. The beautiful Heart and Crown one on the right was designed by Kim Gilman for Visual Faith® Ministry. To see what other free templates and visual faith resources they offer, visit their website.

May you enter into a Holy Lent.

Shapes Path   .pdf   or .jpg             Heart and Crown  .pdf  or  .jpg

Lenten Calendar Templates 2020–as shown in the February 14 post and on the Handouts Page

PDF’s
*Spiral .pdf
Heart .pdf
Jesus Lamb of God .pdf
Box Calendar .pdf

JPG’s
Spiral .jpg
Heart .jpg
Jesus Lamb of God .jpg
Box Calendar  .jpg

New Praying in Color

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Writing the Expanded and Enhanced version of Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God was a journey through the past dozen years of my prayer, spiritual, and vocational life. When I first started praying in color almost twenty years ago I was teaching calculus, pre-calculus, trig, and algebra at a community college in Virginia Beach. I loved my work, the students, and my colleagues at the college. My church, my dance community, the choir, and friends also enriched my life.

At the same time a dozen family members and friends received diagnoses of terrible and varied cancers. I was at a loss for words in my prayers for them. So I started to doodle and the doodles morphed into prayers. Praying with paper, pen, and markers became the main way I corralled my restless mind and body into a chair and spent time with God.

Our move to Memphis in 2004 introduced me to Phyllis Tickle, a Christian and a writer. She said, “You need to write a book about the way you pray.” I said, “Yes, m’am,” obeyed, and wrote the book. The 2007 publication of the original Praying in Color led me to offer workshops and retreats around the country.

The workshops and retreats were my new way of being a teacher. But they were also a new way for me to be a student. I met wonderful people in many different denominations–Lutheran, Catholic, Baptist, Salvation Army, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Congregational, Methodist, Church of Christ…. I have shared praying in color in churches, retreat centers, hospitals, and parochial schools in the U.S., Canada, and France. Everywhere I go, people share their faith and their experience of prayer. The way we worship and the details of our doctrine might be a little different, but the hunger for God and prayer seem to be universal. I am so grateful for the thousands of people I have met who have given me fresh ways to see God and who have prayed with me and for me.

The original Praying in Color was 103 pages; this new version is 174 pages. It includes material from the 2007 book but also many more prayer  doodles and ideas for prayer. If you have never prayed in color before or if you are a veteran prayer-doodler, consider reading it as part of your Lenten discipline. Or combine some of the ideas with a Lenten calendar template. I hope this expanded and enhanced book will nurture your prayer life and give you permission to be with God in new ways. Thank you.

Praying through Lent 2020 on a Daily Calendar

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Using a calendar template is a simple, daily prayer practice for making the 40-day journey through Lent.

Each day choose a word to ponder or a person to pray for. Write the word or name in the allotted space with a pen and draw or doodle around it. Add color with colored pencils or markers. Let the word or name speak to you. If words come to you as you draw, pray them. If not, just continue to draw, stay quiet, and let the word or name burrow into your mind and heart. Returning to the calendar each day establishes a special time to be present to God and to listen.

Think of each mark of the pen or stroke of a colored marker/pencil as a small non-verbal prayer. The goal of the doodling and drawing is not to make a beautiful work of art, but to create a visual prayer. Drawing/doodling invites the body into the prayer, gives the eyes and hand something to do, and helps to focus attention on the word or person.

Praying on the calendar is a visual and kinesthetic Lenten discipline. The accumulation of words or peoples’ names on the calendar creates an emerging tapestry of your spiritual journey through the forty-plus days of Lent.

Download the templates below. Choose the one or ones you like and click on the link below the calendars. Download the template first, then Print. Below the templates are some suggested ways to use the calendars. Since the spaces are small you can take the template to a copier and enlarge it (129%-132%) onto an 11″x17″ piece of card stock. Although Lent is officially 40 days, there are 46 spaces on each template to include the weekends. Feel free to Share this post and the templates with others. Some schools do not permit the download of materials from outside websites. If you have trouble from a school address, try using your personal email. 

The Spiral, the Jesus Lamb of God, and the Box Calendars templates seem to have a natural path of progression by flow or by date. The Heart template can be filled in any order. The Jesus Lamb of God calendar has less room for doodling, but be creative with the space and perhaps use all of the words of the calendar as a breath prayer while you doodle and pray.

Further down the page are some examples of finished templates from previous years.  

PDF’s
*Spiral .pdf
Heart .pdf
Jesus Lamb of God .pdf
Box Calendar .pdf

JPG’s
Spiral .jpg
Heart .jpg
Jesus Lamb of God .jpg
Box Calendar  .jpg

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, for example, is a penitential Psalm with lots of juicy (sometimes depressing) words in it.

5) Read a different Psalm each day and choose a word.

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, fears, and sorrows on the template. Ask the Holy Spirit to be present as you reflect on these. This is not meant to be an exercise in self-flagellation, but a way to be honest with yourself and draw closer to God and God’s unconditional love. Mix in some dreams, hopes, and thanksgivings.

8) Create a visual gratitude list. Each day add a word or an image. The items on your gratitude list can be important and profound or simple and fleeting: a cup of coffee, a walk around the block, a smile from a child….

Here are three examples of completed calendars from previous years. Thanks to Cindy O for the Box calendar and Connie Denninger for the Spiral calendar.

*Thanks to Hilary Ann Golden for her Spiral calendar template.