During scary times like the past few weeks of brutal weather, I am grateful for my years steeped in Scripture and liturgy. The words of my tradition have been prayed by millions of people before me throughout thousands of years of trials and tragedy. They give me a vocabulary of both lament and hope, a way to feel part of a larger community of humanity and faith.
The names in the drawing are those of family and friends who are directly affected by the hurricanes.
As a child and teen in the late 1950’s and 60’s in a firmly Protestant family, I was afraid of the symbols and physicality of my Catholic neighbors’ faith. Rosaries, medals of saints, statues of angels and Jesus, and crucifixes seemed both anti-intellectual and idolatrous. Why would anyone need these primitive objects to bolster their faith when there were words–the words of Scripture, prayers, hymns, and theological discourse? Religion was about having the correct thoughts and beliefs, wasn’t it?—not having some sentimental, visual, or tactile experience.
This snobby attitude worked for most of my life–until it didn’t, until words started to fail me in both prayer and worship. When I prayed for others, I lost my words. I could think of nothing to say except the simplest of prayers. “Heal him.” “Keep them safe, Lord.” “Please help her.” I expect God was fine with those barebones words. In the midst of this era of puny verbal prayers, I accidentally started to pray in color. A simple shape with lines, arcs, dots, and a smattering of color with a name became the visual platform for my prayers. Doodling gave me a way to get still on the inside, focus on the person I cared about, and turn my concerns over to God. My drawings were not the object of my prayer as I had incorrectly assumed rosaries, medals, and statutes were for others. But they were an avenue and aid for my prayer life. They released me from the need to have words, but gave me a way to sit in prayer.
I’ve been praying in color for fifteen years now, using it to corral my thoughts and enhance my intercessions, gratitudes, confessions, and adorations. Recently I’ve noticed that my doodles have been body parts. My husband and another friend had heart surgery. My husband had colon surgery. My friend Merry just had a extensive and painful foot surgery. Their names ended up in a heart, a colon, and a foot. As mostly an abstract doodler, I was surprised by the representational prayer drawings.
But I realized that this is not a new idea. People have been “praying with body parts” for years. Christians in Spain, Mexico, and South America use milagros and ex-votos. These are physical objects in various shapes offered to concretize a specific prayer request and a desired outcome. They can be small or large–silver, tin, wax, or wood. Since many prayers are for physical healing , many milagros are in the shape of a body part—heart, breast, kidney, intestine, foot, leg, hip. You name it. Some are small and fit in the hand. Holding them can be a tactile reminder to pray. Seeing them can be a visual reminder to pray. Often the milagros are taken to a church and placed near a candle or statue of a saint to request healing. They are also offered as a token of gratitude for answered prayer.
So I guess my doodled body-part prayers are a form of milagro. They are my way to make my prayers concrete. If words come to me as I draw, I pray them. Keeping the doodled prayers in plain sight is a prompt for me to be vigilant in prayer. On another day I add words, marks, and color to “update” my prayers. I am no longer ashamed that my prayers are tactile and visual. God does not require brilliant and articulate words from me but a willingness of spirit and an openness to God’s presence in whatever form that may come.
The milagros/ex-votos in the collage below belong to my friend Carol. They are made of wax, silver, and wood. In the third picture the wooden feet are life-sized. The silver ones fit in the palm of my hand. Click to read more about milagros and ex-votos.
If you are colon-averse, you might want to stop reading right now. A week ago today my husband Andy had a resection of his colon. The doctor acted like it was no big deal. “I love doing these things,” he said. My husband and I do not love “doing these things.” But I guess I’d rather have a doc who cuts people open with enthusiasm rather than one who dreads the work. As usual I struggled for prayer words on the day of the surgery.
So while Andy was in surgery, I sat in the waiting room and prayed in color. This is not the first time I have done this. Five years ago when Andy had open-heart surgery, my friends Randall and Sharon and I sat in the hospital cafeteria and drew prayers for him. Here they are:
The presence of friends who joined me in prayer was an experience of both surrender and power. We were surrendering Andy and ourselves to the care of God, knowing we were surrounded by the power of God. The three very different ways we drew remind me of the infinite number of ways we reach out to God bringing our own unique words and experience.
As I sat alone in the hospital waiting room this past week, dozens of other people also waited for their friends and loved ones undergoing surgery. We were drinking coffee, talking on phones, pacing, knitting…. And I’m pretty sure prayers were splashing all around the room. As I drew my abstract, biologically-incorrect version of a colon, I knew I was not really alone. A whole community of God’s people was there experiencing the same kind of anxiety and worry and maybe the intermittent peace and calm of God that I was. As I drew, blessing prayers for Andy popped into my head. The prayers weave in and around the large intestines in the drawing.
Throughout the morning dozens of text messages and Facebook posts arrived with prayers, virtual hugs, and encouragement. When the doctor called me and said the operation had gone smoothly, he said, “I did my job and now it’s up to God.” (I thought, an obedient patient would help, too!) I was grateful to share the good news with friends via all sorts of media. If the news had not been so good, I think I would still have been grateful for such a wide community of love and support.
Andy is recovering well. He has been home since Sunday. Yesterday he trimmed bushes with a small, handheld clipper and cooked a pasta dinner. Today is his birthday. So one week post surgery I am turning his hospital prayer into a birthday and gratitude prayer. I am grateful for his life and for our extended family of Christ—intentional and unintentional, near and far—who walks with us on this complicated journey of being human.
Finished Lent Calendar decorated with flowers and veggie from Memphis Farmers Market and yard flowers and herbs.
Words from the daily meditations by Walter Brueggemann in his book: A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent
It is 1:41PM on Good Friday. I am at the midpoint of the traditional three-hour observance of Jesus’s hours on the cross. As I relish the alone time and silence at my house, the word collaborator continues to haunt me as it has all during the previous 44 days of this Lenten season. It has popped up everywhere—in my reading and hearing and thinking. The word collaborator carries a heavy backpack of meaning—both good and bad.
My friend Cindy Guthrie, who died about ten years ago of ovarian cancer, was a great collaborator. She was a storyteller, a theologian, and a visionary. When I would get a hare-brained idea like, “Hey, wouldn’t it be fun if you told a story and I danced sometime,” she would say, “Let’s do it.” Within a month we’d be performing an original Cindy story for some organization or conference. We presented storytelling/dance workshops together. Our cooperation enhanced our individual art forms; our work was fuller and more creative because we shared ideas and brainstormed together. Our collaboration was one of the best artistic experiences of my life, beneficial to both of us and hopefully to others as well.
Collaboration also has a dark side. During World War II in Paris, men and women who were not sent off to death camps were often categorized, too simply, as either collaborators or resistors. You either helped the Nazis or you didn’t. Resistors were the men and women who actively sought to aid in the defeat of the Nazis. They risked their lives carrying information or housing downed Allied airmen or hiding Jews in their homes. Or maybe they just sent a Nazi on a wild goose chase when he asked for directions.
Collaborators were people who in any way helped the Nazi cause. Working in an office, performing on the stage for the entertainment of the occupiers, doing everyday jobs, or socializing with Nazis could be seen as collaboration. This soft collaboration was often just people trying to do their jobs, mind their own business, and keep their families from starving. The oversimplified labels of collaborator and resistor sometimes became rigid categories of harsh judgment or stellar praise after the War ended. The even darker side of collaboration involved people who sold out their Jewish neighbors, spied for the Third Reich, or used their relationships with the enemy to amass vast wealth from the war machine.
It is easy to be self-righteous and express disgust at people who had dealings with the Nazis. But if I am honest I suspect I would have been a collaborator of some sort. I doubt I would have been a spy for the Nazis but I’m pretty sure I would have been too afraid to risk my security or my life to be a resistor. I am used to a comfortable, law-abiding life. Brought up with the ladylike notion of “don’t make waves, be a good girl, always be friendly, respect authority..,” I might have been silent in the face of atrocities, choosing to ignore the disappearance and abuse of people around me, hoping that someone else would take care of it and get things back to normal. Maybe I underestimate my capacity for courage and risk, but I completely understand the desire to maintain a regular life and lay low even when the world is falling apart.
So why do I bring this up on Good Friday? There are similarities between the circumstances of people in 1st century Jerusalem and mid 20th century Europe. In the face of the power of the Roman Empire, many well-meaning people collaborated with the enemy without wanting to. They kept quiet and did their work to feed and protect their families. Other not-so-well meaning locals saw an opportunity for wealth, influence, and power by kowtowing to the Romans and suppressing their own people. Jesus had little tolerance for this collaboration. He was a resistor, a serious inconvenience and a troublemaker to those in the government. He did not fight with weapons but with story and the Word and complete reliance on God. When he was arrested and sentenced to death, the authorities were terrified of his persuasive resistance to their ultimately puny power. I once again suspect I might have collaborated with the status quo. Maybe I would not have screamed “Crucify him,” but I doubt I would have had the courage to scream “Release him!” I am pre-resurrection Peter down to the core. Peter’s denial seems like a sane, protective response: “I do not know or understand what you are talking about.” I do not know the man!” (Mark 14:68, Matthew 26:74 NRSV)
I cannot really know how I would have behaved in 33 or in 1943. I can fantasize that I would have been more courageous and less self-protective than I imagine. But I doubt it. So what about now? I must ask the hard questions about what form of subtle collaboration I practice in the present. What is the present version of “Empire” that draws me from Jesus and the kingdom of God? If I want to be a collaborator with Jesus, the choices I must make may adversely affect my personal wealth and my security. But if I ignore the plight of the suffering, the poor, and the abused now, then I replay what I fear I would have done in 33 and 1943. If I keep my head down and play the good-little-girl card, I will be just like the people who in response to Pilate’s question “Shall I crucify your King?” said, “We have no king but the Emperor.” It was the safe, make-no-waves response.
It’s now 9:24 PM. My husband and I have just returned from a Passover Seder with our closest friends in Memphis who are Jewish. This is about the 10th time we have been privileged to spend this evening commemorating the history of our spiritual ancestors at their Passover table. As we sat with about sixteen people we heard these words:
“Although it is the Pharaoh of old who is the tyrant of this Haggadah, it is not he alone of whom we speak tonight. We speak this evening of other tyrants and other tyrannies as well. We speak:
Of the tyranny of poverty
And the tyranny of privation.
Of the tyranny of wealth
And the tyranny of war,
Of the tyranny of power
And the tyranny of despair.
Of the tyranny of disease
And the tyranny of time,
Of the tyranny of ignorance
and the tyranny of color.”
As Jesus died on the cross again today on this Good Friday for the almost 2000th time in our retelling of the story, I learn over and over of the radical nature of his life and death. The real power in the world is God to whom all other powers will eventually surrender and bow down. But the way this happens is not by God’s use of weapons of mass destruction or military coercion but by the sheer power of transforming love, by Jesus’s willingness to claim solidarity with the broken and the suffering. His suffering is God’s ultimate promise to be with us no matter what. I am struck by a quartet of words that start with “co.” If I hide under the bed and stay silent, I cooperate with the systems that discriminate and oppress. Then I will start to collaborate, to justify my inactivity and accept the unacceptable. If I collaborate, the next step is collusion then ultimately complicity. I really don’t want my life to end with the regret, “I sure wish I had had the guts to stand up for justice, to love my enemy, and to really follow Jesus.” But am I really ready to collaborate with “Love so amazing, so divine” that “Demands my soul, my life, my all.”? (When I Survey the Wondrous Cross)
Praying for other people was the reason I started praying in color over a dozen years ago. Although praying in color has also become the way I pray my gratitude list, my confessions, and my concerns, I still return to it over and over again for intercessory prayer. I love to use colored markers or colored pencils in my prayer doodles. But for me praying in color is less about coloring than it is about giving my hand something to do while I enter a time of prayer with God. Praying in color (or in black and white) creates a little prayer closet for me, invites my body into the prayer, focuses my attention while I wait for words and for stillness, and gives me a visual prayer list at the end.
This black and white prayer is my prayer list for the week. Every time I look at it, it reminds me to pray for the people on it and to release them into God’s care.
In Memphis, dogwood and azalea blossoms paint swaths of color on the stark templates of their bare branches. The city and surrounding neighborhoods flaunt white, flame red, and fuchsia flowers with an almost eerie, unseasonal fervor. Although the weather seems like Easter Week, Lent is not even at its halfway point. For once I’m glad; I am not quite ready for the rest of the story. Although Advent is my favorite season of the Church year, Lent this year has had some unexpected and nourishing surprises.
A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent by Walter Brueggemann offers me short but challenging daily reading. Each devotion includes a Scripture verse, a reflection, and a prayer. These devotions have lifted me from a spiritual and skeptical funk I’ve been wallowing in for months. The weird weather in Memphis (and maybe everywhere) is a backdrop against which Brueggemann’s words reiterate the radical hope and alternative way of the Gospel in the face of a chaotic and unsettling world. I’m using the cross template I posted on February 15 and extracting a word from the daily reading to encourage me throughout the day.
An unexpected ritual has been a rereading of the book of Genesis. I confess I dislike reading dense pages of uninterrupted text in the Bible. I like to read small bits and bites or hear the words read aloud. But for some reason I opened my newish, unused wide-margin Bible and started to read from the beginning. I read two pages and then “illuminated” the text on the right-hand page with images and doodles. Then I read another pair of pages and did the same thing. The drawing/doodling helped me to stay with the text and rethink its content while I was drawing. Illuminated sacred texts have been around since as early as the 400’s. I shutter to even use the word “illuminate” in reference to my puny drawings. Historically, the illuminations were exquisite works of art often highlighted with real gold.
In the past five years, the idea of illustrating a personal Bible has become popular. The Illustrated Faith/Bible Journaling Community on Facebook numbers about 38K. My friend Connie Denninger, a big Praying in Color proponent, has a nice blog called Vintage Grace on which she shares her experiences of Bible journaling, visual faith, and praying in color.
Here are a few samples of my Genesis pages. I decided not to include words although many Bible journalers do. My amateurish attempts at representation should set you free to use colored pencils and markers in your Bible. I’m happiest when I’m just making abstract marks and designs to catch the spirit of the words. Although what I’m doing does not deserve the word “illuminate,” I will use it anyway. Illuminate means to cast light on or to enlighten. Drawing in the margins keeps me in the chair immersed in the text. The text then has a chance to spread its light and reveal things I have never seen before. Will I read and doodle my way through the entire Bible? I doubt it. But for now, I’m enjoying the immersion in the words, the story, the color, and the light—two pages at a time.
Here is a hodgepodge list of resources, ideas, and books I will use during Lent. There are so many good Lenten devotion books on the market, I chose two because I like the authors and trust their work.
1.Paraclete asked me to make an audio podcast about ways to use Praying in Color during Lent. The podcast has suggestions for both groups and individuals. Click here to listen.
2. Between Midnight and Dawn: A Literary Guide to Prayer During Lent, and Eastertide is a guide to prayer and inspiration for Lent by Sarah Arthur. Sarah has compiled both contemporary and classical poetry and literary writings to probe the depths of Lent. She suggests a daily outline of devotion with prayers, Scripture readings, literary readings, reflection time, and a closing prayer. The writings she has chosen are not lightweight snacks but hearty meals that require gnawing, chewing, swallowing, and digesting over many days.
3. A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent by Walter Brueggemann is a daily devotional inviting us to an unpredictable journey: “But women and men of faith are always on the road again, departing safe places, running risks, and hoping for well-being on the journey.”
4. Using a Lenten Calendar Template–I think I have mentioned this a time or two before–is a favorite way to travel the 40 days of Lent. You can download them from the Handouts Page or the post on February 15.
5. Someone sent me a copy of Coloring Lent: An Adult Coloring Book for the Journey to Resurrection by Christopher D. Rodkey, Jesse & Natalie Turri (Chalice Press). This is a pictorial, verbal, and theological journey through death, resurrection, and transformation. The image of “Cloud” is a repeated theme in the writing and coloring templates. I like the coloring pages and the short, unique commentary with references to Scripture passages. The drawings are not too detailed or complicated. There is lots space for brainstorming words or adding my own doodles (which I love to do). My husband looked at it and said, “These are coloring pages I would actually enjoy.They are not too overwhelming or intricate.” Another plus is the pages are not two-sided, so colored pencils and markers will not cover another drawing or text. Since I like to use markers, I would insert a sheet of paper between pages when I colored.
6. I have learned a new chant to sing for myself and to share with workshop/retreat participants during Lent. It’s called Lay Me Low and uses words from an old Shaker hymn with a new tune by Daniel Schwandt. A YouTube video of Lay Me Low from Music That Makes Community teaches the song. Music That Makes Community is a group of people who love to sing and lead songs in a new “paperless” tradition. No sheet music necessary. The songs are mostly simple and invite improvisation and harmonization.
7. If you want to work on a variety of prayer forms with the option to color, consider one of the many Paraclete Press coloring books. My coloring book and guide to prayer called Pray and Color has about 30 coloring pages and explanations of 14 different ways to pray using them. One of the described ways to use the pages during Lent is for Prayers of Confession or Regret. Below are two templates designed with these prayers in mind.
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.
Cross Coloring-Page Template
Stained Glass Template
(Check out March 28 and March 31, 2016 on this blog to see finished versions of this template from last Lent.)
Dated Box Calendar Template
(Check out April 22, 2011 for an example of a finished version of this calendar.)
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.
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.
