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Autumn Events and New Praying in Color

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New Edition of Praying in Color™ in 2019

My hiatus from blogging is not part of some sabbatical plan. I have been putting most of my writing energy into a 2nd edition of Praying in Color. The original Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God, published in 2007, is a dozen years old and needs an update. After an extra twelve years of life, I probably need an update too–easier to do it with a book! So a revised edition will be published in the first half of 2019, From the original book, the text is about half new material and half new images. More info about the release date when I know more….

Two Retreats/Workshops:

October 12-14: Praying in Color® Retreat—Mo Ranch in Hunt, TX. Mo Ranch is a lovely conference center in the hill country of Texas.

Here is a description:

Prayer is more than using words to talk to God—it creates a space where stillness and silence encourage a connection with the Divine.
Praying in Color is a way to pray that is meditative, active, visual, serious and playful. With doodling, pens, markers and paper, participants will experience this versatile practice by praying for others, delving into a passage of Scripture, addressing the stresses of daily life and work and simply lingering with God.

The retreat will include praying with words, praying without words, praying Scripture, doodling/drawing, physical movement, singing, silence and free time.

To register: 1.800.460.4401 ext. 246 or [email protected]

 

October 25, Thursday “Caring Art Workshop” 2pm–
Gilda’s Club Memphis Charter Celebration–Memphis, TN

Following comedian Gilda Radnor’s death from ovarian cancer in 1989, Gilda’s Clubs were created to establish “local communities of social and emotional support” for people with cancer and their families and friends. Gilda said,  “that having cancer gave her membership in an elite club she would rather not belong to.”

This all day event at Shelby Farms in Memphis is the celebration of the Memphis group receiving their official charter.

To register click here:

I will present the one-hour workshop entitled, “Caring Art Workshop.” Since Praying in Color came about when I was trying to pray for friends with cancer, I am happy to be part of this celebration.

Please Share these Events with others who might be interested. Thank you.

 

Prayer Beads, Prayer Read

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I was three or four years old when I met my first set of prayer beads. The buff-colored rosary beads coiled cobra-like on the nightstand of my best friend and next door playmate Marian. In the daytime the plastic rosary was not much to look at: a string of plain lentil-sized beads with one nubby large bead and an inch-long crucifix dangling at the end. But after dark, the rosary transformed. When the lights went out, that boring-by-day rosary glowed. Frequent sleepovers on an army cot next to Marian’s twin bed exposed me to the mysterious glow. When darkness filled the room, the whole snaky community of beads cast an eerie bright-green halo of light over our beds. These nights were my magical introduction to both rosaries and florescence.

For years, I coveted the glow-in-the dark rosary, even though I knew that both coveting and rosaries were bad. Coveting, because it was a violation of the tenth commandment, and rosaries, because they were Catholic. And all things Catholic were suspect and not for us. My family was Protestant. Marian’s family was Catholic. Every room in their house proclaimed their religion. Crucifixes, beads, and plastic statues of Jesus, Mary, and saints hung on walls and sat on dressers. In her parent’s bedroom, a large crucifix spread its arms on the wall next to the bed. The blood on the hands and feet creeped me out a little, but also encouraged my childhood fascination with bodily fluids. Above the headboard of that same bed was a Polish Black Madonna.

Well-meaning Protestants told me that Catholics worshiped these objects instead of God. Idolatry was the spelling bee word I learned to describe this practice. Maybe a few Catholics misused and worshiped them, but flash forward a few decades or so into the future, and I have a different understanding of rosaries and statues and icons. Before the average person could read or had access to a Bible in their house, they needed ways to remember the stories, ways to learn the traditional prayers of the Church. Rosaries, crosses, and statues provided visual, kinesthetic, and tactile ways to remember the salvation story. Always within eyeshot, these religious objects/tools reminded people who they were as Christians and prompted them to pray unceasingly. Even though most Western Christians–Catholics and Protestants alike– now have at least one Bible in their homes, the sacred objects of beads, crucifixes, and statues honor the different ways people receive and hold information in their brains. Being a Christian is not just about the using the head and saying words, but a whole body experience. The miracle of the past few decades is the exchange of practices between Catholics and Protestants. More Catholics study and memorize Scripture; more Protestants wear crosses, display religious art, and use prayer beads.

Suzanne Henley is one of those lifelong Protestants who understands the purpose and power of the ancient practice of praying with beads. In her new book Bead by Bead: The Ancient Way of Praying Made New, Suzanne is an engaging historian, jarring theologian, reluctant prayer warrior, and true confessions writer. Her book celebrates the beauty and significance of a bead by bead ritual of prayer. With both reverence and tenderness, she describes how these small pieces of stone, glass, and metal string together to become a visual and tactile prayer practice used by billions of people over thousands of years. As the creator of hundreds of sets of prayer beads herself, Suzanne literally prays them into existence one bead at a time.*

The step-by-step instructions and prayer liturgies in this book focus on Protestant prayer beads, a late 20th-century adaptation of the Catholic rosary. But the goal of Bead by Bead is more than just introducing the reader to this ancient practice of prayer. With or without beads, Suzanne wants us to march out the doors of our houses and our closed minds to see the whole world as a giant set of prayer beads. She wants us to see every object and every moment in our lives as an opportunity to count blessings, express awe, pray for others, and examine our lives. As a true Southern raconteur who is not afraid to reveal her fumbling efforts at life and prayer, her stories of seeing God on every corner, in the produce section at the grocery, and on a bright white Harley delight and wrench the heart.

I now have my own glow-in-the dark rosary from a Catholic bookstore and a set of Protestant prayer beads made by Suzanne. I’m not a regular bead pray-er with either, but each serves as a different kind of prayer prompt for me. The rosary hangs on the lampshade next to my bed. As I turn out the light, its glow tells me to say goodnight to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit with a little inventory of bless and release prayers. Suzanne’s beads remind me of my pages of prayer doodles. Each bead, each doodle is unique. And the collection of them represents my ongoing and colorful effort to pay attention to God and to pray unceasingly—one bead at a time, one doodle at at time, one prayer at a time.

*Prayer beads by Suzanne Henley

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. and The Still Small Voice

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Today Memphis bustles with almost 100,000 visitors who are commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. While I was a self-focused and distracted college freshman in Virginia, many of my friends and acquaintances lived here in Memphis when the murder took place in 1968. Their experience of the event and its repercussions were visceral and vivid. Over the years, King’s untimely death has magnified both the struggles and the vitality of the city. This week is jam packed with commemorative events sponsored by the The Civil Rights Museum (which is a must for visitors to Memphis), churches, colleges, and historical and community organizations throughout the city.

I plan to participate in two events. One is today at Calvary Episcopal Church: a worship service and placing of a new historical marker near the church. The marker acknowledges the vast wealth amassed from the slave market that existed near the church and was owned by Nathan Bedford Forrest. The second event is a reenactment of the Ministers March from St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral to City Hall in support of the 1968 Sanitation Workers Strike. The Cathedral’s website describes the original march:

On the morning of April 5 after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination in 1968, about 300 clergy gathered at St. Mary’s Cathedral. Most were members of the inclusive, multi-racial ministerial alliance of the Memphis Ministers’ Association. After prayer and soul-searching discussion, they adopted a statement favoring the striking city sanitation workers. Then, approximately 150 of them marched from the Cathedral to Mayer Henry Loeb’s office and presented their demands. Dean Bill Dimmick led the march with the Cathedral cross. 

I cannot write about Martin Luther King, Jr. because compared to others who have lived in the circle of his life and death, I know very little.  But there are many words I associate with the work and ministry of this holy and flawed hero. These words about his ideals, his issues, his causes, his character… surround the painting below of Dr. King by Roy DeLeon. Roy is the author of Praying with the Body: Bringing the Psalms to Life and the illustrator of a new book by Jon Sweeney called The Pope’s Cat.

In the late 1990’s my choreographer friend Gwen Spear Jones danced to Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream speech. Before she danced I sang a song by Bob Franke called A Still Small Voice. It seems appropriate for this special day. Here is a YouTube of the song sung by Bob Franke. The first verse is below:

In a still small voice in the middle of the night, Brother Martin heard the simple truth,
And he followed its pleading ’til it led to a crossroads parting in the days of my youth. 
In the heart of my city came a single scream,
And I heard it through all the white noise.
And the papers told me that they’d killed the Dream,
But they never killed the still small voice.

Phyllis Tickle: A Life

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When I first opened Phyllis Tickle: A Life and landed on the Chronology page at the beginning of the book, I started to cry. Here was a quick summary of Phyllis Tickle’s bio in three pages. It was a life I had been privileged to be part of for a dozen years.

From Jon Sweeney’s new, official biography of Phyllis, I learned so much more about the complex woman I loved, admired, and respected. Jon tackles the difficult task of organizing and analyzing the life of a woman who cannot be boxed in. There are so many overlapping and contrasting circles that describe her but do not contain her: Christian, spouse, mother, teacher, lecturer, analyzer, visionary, thinker, evangelist, sociologist, writer, poet, mentor, monk, extrovert, friend…. But Jon’s book does not just send out accolades on every page. It is an honest look at an amazing woman who struggled to juggle and balance those demanding and often conflicting and controversial roles. Phyllis Tickle: A Life expands my admiration for the breadth of her professional accomplishment and for the depth and discipline of her personal faith in God.

P.S. Without Phyllis Tickle, Praying in Color might still be just a secret prayer practice in my personal journal. When I met her in 2004 and showed her the way I prayed with doodles and color, Phyllis said “You’re going to write a book!”  Being in the South, I said, “Yes, m’am” and went to work. She was my encourager, my mentor, and my writing midwife/doula. Through emails and conversations, Phyllis helped me to birth a book–as she did for dozens, maybe hundreds of other writers. Phyllis Tickle: A Life is not a series of testimonials by grateful friends and authors, like me. That may yet be another book.

Lenten Calendar Templates 2018

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Using a calendar template is one of my favorite ways to keep a daily discipline during Lent.  The discipline can take three minutes or thirty. What matters is the daily regimen of participation and presence.

Each day I choose a word to ponder or a person to pray for. I write the word or name in the allotted space and draw or doodle around it. If words come to me as I draw I pray them. If not, I stay quiet. Returning to the calendar each day helps me to create a hallowed place where I can be present to God and listen. Each mark or stroke of color is a small movement prayer. It is a one day at a time, visual and kinesthetic way to have a Lenten practice.

The accumulation of words or peoples’ names is a visual tapestry of my mini spiritual journey through the forty-plus days of Lent.

Below are four templates to choose from in jpg or pdf form. Each calendar has 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 the spaces empty.) On the Cross Calendar, the spaces on the cross itself are part of the 46 count. The traditional Box calendar is dated; the Tears template suggests a path to follow. The other two allow you to move around and choose the space you want to use on a given day. Date them as you go. 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. Staying inside the lines is not a requirement! Add words or draw around the designated spaces.

Children can mark the daily walk through Lent with the calendars, also.

This is an example of a calendar from 2017. It includes the original blank template  on the left (also available this year), the first few days of one calendar, and another finished version. Words on the third version came from daily meditations by Walter Brueggemann in his book: A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent.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, 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, dreams, sorrows, and hopes around the Cross template one day at a time.
8) The Tears template provides space above the line at the top to mark the arrival of Easter. Write the word Easter and/or use words or a drawing/doodle in the space to reflect the mood of the passage from Revelation 21:4 (NRSV) “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more.”

  Tears .jpg or .pdf  Cross .jpg or .pdf  Box .jpg or .pdf  Lily .jpg or .pdf

Click on .jpg or .pdf below the desired template. Make sure to download the template with the downward facing arrow in the top right before you print. These are also available on the Handouts Page on this website.

Epiphany Word Tree

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Besides the cake, the best part of the birthday parties I attended as a child was the “tray game.” Before the party the mother or father of the birthday girl placed numerous objects on a big tray and covered it with a tea towel or large cloth napkin. During the game part of the party an adult brought the tray out and placed it on the floor in the center of a circle of chiffon-clad, giggling partygoers. With the flourish of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, the covering was removed and we had 90 seconds to memorize the contents of the tray. Giggles turned to silence and smiles to serious lip-biting and furrowed brows as we catalogued the tray’s twenty or so items in our minds: red pencil, penny, sugar cube, barrette, paper clip, comb, toothpick, bubblegum, spool of green thread,….This memorization was serious work and for the person who could recall the most objects, there was a prize at stake.

We must had been at least six or seven when we played the game because I remember writing a list of the tray’s contents when it exited the room. I was pretty good at the game and tried to get my friends to play it on a regular basis, not just for parties.

As a high school and college student I carried the idea of the tray game into the way I studied and took notes. Instead of writing on the lines, I often wrote at odd angles or in blobs.. The unusual pattern on the page stuck in my brain and helped me to remember facts, words, and formulas better. It was as if the page was a party-game tray full of ideas and images.

If this way of learning was supposed to fade as an adult, it hasn’t for me. Notes from lectures and conferences are still in blobs and odd configurations on the pages of my notebooks and journals. Colored highlighters and pencils emphasize and underline important words and thoughts. Praying in color is one of the main ways I pray because it engages my body, my eyes, and my mind, but also because the colorful and visual display helps me to remember my prayer list better.

It is January 15, Martin Luther King Day, the ninth day after the Feast of the Epiphany. Every year I mourn the passing of Epiphany as just a single day on January 6. Epiphany deserves more attention than it gets, so some of us think of it as a whole season lasting until Lent. It means “shining forth” and is really the “So what?” after Christmas. It is the story of strangers following a star to a babe in the manger, of Jesus’s baptism, and of his first miracle. Epiphany is about how this story spreads like wildfire beyond the boundaries of a small town in the Middle East and scatters the Gospel in faraway places to faraway people. Martin Luther King was an Epiphany man. He spread the not-always-comfortable good news of the Gospel in his preaching and his activism.

There are so many juicy words, ideas, and names associated with Epiphany that I want to put them on a tray and commit them to memory. So I made an Epiphany Word Tree and taped it on the wall. It will stay there until Lent. My prize for memorizing the words will be a rich vocabulary and the Gospel story that strings them all together.

You, too, may have words and stories you associate with Epiphany. Find a way to keep them in your sight and your thoughts during these next few weeks before Lent.

Third Week Advent 2017

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.Advent seems so short this year. This is the sixteenth day of Advent and already three Sundays of Advent are gone. Here are my two daily disciplines for this Advent:

1)  I have been reading Walter Brueggemann’s Celebrating Abundance: Devotions for Advent. The daily readings are challenging and loaded with fresh and surprising Advent words. Each day I choose a word that jumps out at me, write it on a small envelope, and doodle while I think about the word. I pin the envelope on the Advent tree (i.e. our future Christmas tree). Some of the words on the tree are: Relinquish, Solidarity,Protest, Welcome, Outrageous…. This collection of words and Brueggemann’s meditations remind me that Jesus’s coming into the world is meant to turn my comfy, tame life on its head, that “God’s rule of starchy justice and generous mercy will arise on the earth…” Coins and dollars we collect in the envelopes will go to some organization that witnesses to that starchy justice and generous mercy.

2)  AdventWord is a worldwide experience of prayer using social media and images. A new Advent word is posted each day.Recipients reflect on the word and share images or photos on a worldwide Advent calendar.The Society of St. John the Evangelist started this four years ago. This year Virginia Theological Seminary is contributing short meditations with the word. I’m using the word they provide in connection with one of the Advent calendar templates I created. The words from the Brueggemann book have captured my spiritual imagination more than the AdventWords, but I love the idea of a worldwide daily discipline of  prayer and collective visual response.

 

Zechariah Echo Pantomime

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One of my favorite intergenerational Christian Formation tools is the echo pantomime. Echo pantomimes tell a story with words and movement. They are a playful, full-bodied way to learn a Bible story and to build community. Here’s how the form works:
1.Choose a leader–an adult or a child who can read.
2. The leader reads a line of the script and performs the indicated action at the same time.
3. The group echoes the leader’s words and gestures.
4. The leader says the next line with the action; the group copies the words and actions again.
5. The back and forth between leader and group continues until the story is complete.

Echo pantomimes can be used with a large group of people or even with a small family. Adults seem to enjoy the movement and playfulness  as much as children. The Zechariah story below can be repeated over and over during Advent. With lots of repetition a group can eventually do it together without a leader, almost as a dance.

Below is the Luke 1 Echo Pantomime of Zechariah’s encounter with the angel Gabriel. It was first published in The Season of the Nativity: Confessions and Practices of an Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany Extremist (2014)  You can download a .pdf or .jpg version of this Zechariah Voice and Body piece.

.pdf    or .jpg