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Praying in Color Retreat July 10

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Paraclete Press is sponsoring a series of one-day summer retreats online. I am excited that Praying in Color will be one of them. If you have not been to one of my workshops or retreats, I hope you will consider attending. Please invite your friends and Share this post with others.

Below is the description. The cost of the retreat is $65. To REGISTER Click Here. 

Praying in Color: Old and New Ways to Pray

in an Ever-New World

Friday, July 10

with Sybil MacBeth

Prayer is the opposite of multi-tasking. It is the gathering of the mind, body, emotions, thoughts, and spirit into the same geography and inviting God to be present there. In this retreat we will gather (safely) as a community to explore praying in color—the visual, active, and meditative prayer practice introduced in the 2007 book Praying in Color: Drawing A New Path to God and its 2020 expanded/updated version. If you are word-weary, restless, antsy, or anxious in prayer or just looking for a new way to connect to God, come explore the versatile practice called praying in color. Bring paper, a black pen, and colored markers or pencils. Doodlers welcome; absolutely no artistic skill necessary! Check out Sybil’s website and blog: prayingincolor.com.

Schedule:

9am First Session—Intercessory and Blessing Prayers  with Q&A
10:15am Health break
10:25am Join Us for a Tai-chi Virtual Warm Up
10:45am Second Session—Griping, Grieving, Grounding, and Gratitude Prayers with Q&A
12pm Lunch Break with Visual Presentations from Paraclete Press
1:30pm Third Session—Praying With and In Scripture with Q&A


Sybil MacBeth is the author of Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God and other books in the series. She combines her years of experience in the mathematics classroom with her lifelong efforts in prayer to lead workshops and retreats across the country. As an inveterate multi-tasker, she loves to sing, dance, doodle, read, cook, spend time with her sons and grandchildren, and lead workshops. She lives with her husband Andy in Florida while they await the “all clear” for spending a year in Jerusalem.

This retreat is non-refundable unless cancelled by the host.

If you are unable to attend the live retreat at the hours given, we welcome you to register anyways, and if you contact us, we will send you, at no extra charge, the retreat link that you can watch over the following three days.

For questions, please contact Sr. Estelle at [email protected]  To register: Click Here.

View the other Paraclete Retreat Offerings for the summer.

Blessing Prayer Template

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Below is a template for creating a blessing prayer. See my post about blessing prayers from June 5. The “arms” on the template can hold the words of the blessing. If you run out of arms, you can use some of the other spaces for more words. Color and say the prayers to yourself or out loud. Or just sit in the quiet with the blessings as a backdrop for a silent time with God. Add more doodles, lines, arcs, marks…to the existing ones. Next to the blank template is an example of a partially filled-in blessing prayer.

Download the blank template by clicking on the word .jpg or .pdf. below the picture.

Blessing Template .jpg

Blessing Template .pdf

 

Please let me know if the blank template is too gray.  I have been trying to fix that! Thanks.

Blessing Prayers

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Blessing Prayers are one of my favorite ways to pray. In a blessing prayer we address directly the person we are praying for. A very old example of a blessing prayer is in the Book of Numbers 6:24-26:

May the Lord bless you and keep you;
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

Blessing prayers have a different feel to me than intercessory prayers, those prayers in which we ask God to do something for others. We make intercession for others for a multitude of reasons: for physical healing from illness, safe travel, healthy pregnancies, a new job, or happy and stable marriages. Intercessory prayers ask God to intervene and help. “Please, God, free Maria from her addiction.” “Almighty One, protect our children at college.” Compassionate Healer, release John from the grips of this virus.” “Loving Jesus, fill my child with joy.”

I like the blessing prayer form because it is less specific and more expansive than intercession. Finding the “right” words for my extemporaneous intercessions is difficult for me. Using a blessing prayer format gives me a framework for corralling my words. It stimulates my poetic imagination about my hopes for my friends and the world. Here are a few of ways I pray blessing prayers:

May the God of Love surround you.
May the God of Joy delight you.
May the God of Mystery surprise you.
May the God of Hope sustain you.
May the God of Wisdom direct you
May the God of Freedom release you…

OR

God to enfold you.
God to enliven you.
God to comfort you.
God to accompany you.
God to refresh you.
God to unbind you….

OR sometimes maybe we need to call forth blessings on ourselves as a reminder of who we are and whose we are.

Creator of All, unite us.
Stream of Justice, trouble us.
Path of Righteousness, turn us.
Singer of Love, teach us.
Binder of Wounds, heal us.
Freer of Captives, release us.
Light of Light, awaken us.
Bread of Life, feed us….

Maybe the difference between blessing and intercession is just semantics, but blessing prayers seem like prayers of affirmation rather than just prayers of asking. They focus on the person but also on the infinite nature of God. When I offer a blessing prayer, I imagine I am unfurling an enormous canopy of God’s goodness and power onto someone. I feel like I am anointing a person with holy words and acting as an agent of God’s love. I want the people I pray for to look up and feel covered with the vast, bright gossamer of God.

I love combining blessing prayers with praying in color, ie. doodling prayer. I often use them for cards of condolence, birthday and anniversary wishes, and healing.

A simple way to draw a blessing prayer is to use the “two-stroke” prayer format. You can see the complete instructions in my September 12, 2016 post called Two-Stroke Doodled Prayers. Here’s a quick synopsis.

  • Draw a shape in the center of the page.
  • Write the person’s name in the middle of the shape.
  • Draw lines or arms from the shape, as many as you need for the blessings you want to include.
  • Write your blessings along the arms.
  • Choose two shapes to use–lines and circles or arcs and V’s or…see the instructions and start to draw and add color.
  • Pray the blessings as you doodle and color.
  • You can always sneak in more arms for additional blessings that come to you.
  • The example below uses arcs and lines.

Many traditional Irish prayers follow a blessing format. John Michael Talbot’s God of Life 1980’s album has several songs that fit this pattern. His songs God and Betwixt Me are two especially beautiful examples of blessing prayers. I have kept these songs in my repertoire of memorized prayers and sing them whenever I feel the need for blessing.

COVID Confessions 5–Intercession and Confession

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Intercession: Just about the last thing I see at night and the first thing I see in the morning is the wonderful little nightlight my friend Suzanne made for me. (See below). When we moved to Florida I brought it with me and plugged it into a socket into my mother-in-law’s 1970’s bathroom. When I see it in the morning I always say, “Good Morning, Suzanne, Good Morning, Matisse, Good Morning, God.” (The abstract design reminds me of my favorite artist Henri Matisse’s flower paintings.) Saying those “Good Mornings” has become a ritual. Looking at the light a couple of days ago, I thought the design would make a great template for intercessory prayer. The lilac rectangle/vase represents God, the source from which all life emanates; the colored tissue-paper-looking blossoms are the people for whom I am praying. Below is my nightlight/Matisse inspired intercessory prayer.

By the way, my friend Suzanne has written a wonderful book called Bead by Bead: The Ancient Way of Praying Made New. Beads are a visual and tactile way to pray. You can see my review of her book on amazon or the post I wrote about the book on July 11, 2018. My husband and I both have prayer beads she made. We plan to carry them with us when we finally go to Jerusalem.


Confession: A few days ago my husband and I took two paper grocery bags and walked to the next street over. The street backs up to a large Presbyterian church complex and marks the far edge of the church’s property. It is lined with a four-foot tangle of pin oaks, palmetto scrub, and vines. The untended thicket is a perfect place for people to throw empty beer cans and water bottles from their cars. In fifteen minutes, we had filled both bags–Busch, Coors, Bud Light, Icehouse, and Mike’s Harder Cranberry cans. I have to admit to a certain sense of pride and even self-righteousness about being a good neighbor and citizen. Then I thought, “I won’t tell anyone what we did and that will make it a really selfless act.” Then the voice on the other shoulder jabbed me and said, “Self-righteousness is self-righteousness, sister, whether you say it out loud or keep it in the pride box of your mind.” So I’m saying it out loud because it did feel good to clean up the neighborhood. And it felt right. And in cleaning up and saying it out loud I actually feel less disdain for the people who trashed up the road to begin with. Now when I walk by, I’ll get to enjoy the the green stuff on both sides of the road–the Spanish moss, the elegant oaks, the palmettos, Confederate Jasmine, Angel Trumpet….

Confession: I hope a few people have watched the YouTube video of Jana Riess interviewing me about Praying in Color. The interview covers most of the important things I think about praying in color, explains why it “works” for me, and gives examples of several different ways of praying. It is free to watch through Wednesday. After that, there is a small charge, I think . Click on the poster to watch it.