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Grieving—with Words, Pen, and Color Part 1

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NOTE: Lenten Calendar Templates for
2021 are on the Handouts Page &
in the Blog Post for January 25.

When my mother died a few decades ago, a friend said to me, “Not only did you lose your mother, but you have lost your mother’s memories and perceptions of you, things that only she knew and experienced.” When my brother Don died in December, I wanted to grab onto my memories and perceptions of him. I’m not talking about the specific things we did or places we went together in childhood or the activities our family of origin and our extended families shared, but my memories of who he was. What was his “Don”ness? When he was alive, his body, his voice, his whole physical presence were living and breathing testimonies of Don. When he died, the visual reminders and prompts of who he was were no longer there.

A couple of days after he died, I sat down with one of the Gratitude Gobbler templates I had made for Thanksgiving. I wrote Don’s name in the center and started to brainstorm words and phrases to describe him. Some were physical descriptions, but most were about his personality and his character—good and bad, silly and serious, nouns and adjectives,…. These were my memories and impressions of him, no one else’s. My mental energy for writing prose about Don was zero, but this brainstorming exercise did not require sentences or correct punctuation. It did not require digging into family history or going through photo albums. I was gathering the little confetti pieces of Don from my heart’s and mind’s memory and flinging them onto the page. I took breathers and aded color to the spaces. It was playful, emotional, tender, and honest. It felt prayerful, loving, and cathartic. I had not planned to do this ahead of time, but I showed this memory meditation to my brother’s family and they loved it.

Putting the words on the page has cleared my mind for other memories to surface. I could probably fill a whole other gobbler. When I reread the words, I think, this was “Don,” not all of him, but some of the fullness I know of him. Creating this mini portrait/doodlelog feels like a tangible way to mourn, give thanks, and celebrate the unique creation of God he was.

In a guest post on April 21, 2020, guest blogger Mary Ann Stafford shared a similar but complementary drawing and exercise. She calls hers a “memory map.”

If you are hurting from the death of a friend or loved one, make your own drawing. You can use any coloring page or one of the ones on the Handouts Page. Or you can start from scratch. During Lent, I’ll post another example with my Mother as the focal point. I will take a step-by-step praying in color approach to show you how to grow a memory meditation without using an already-drawn template.

Making the Lenten Journey–Calendar Templates

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Using a calendar template

Using a calendar template is a simple, daily, and playful but serious practice for praying our way through the forty days of 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 (though it often does), 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.

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. (Sundays are not officially part of Lent, but I don’t like to break the rhythm of my daily practice.)

Feel free to Share this post and the templates with others. 

(NOTE: Some schools do not permit the download of materials from outside websites. If you have trouble downloading from a school address, try using your personal email.)

These templates are also available on the Handouts Page of this website.

Lily Stained Glass   pdf    or   jpg
Circles/Cross   pdf   or   jpg

Box Calendar   pdf   or  jpg
Spiral Calendar  pdf   or   jpg
(Thanks to Hilary Ann Golden for her Spiral calendar template.)

Ways to Use the Calendars

1) Pray for a person each day of Lent.

2) Use a daily book of Lenten meditations. Read the meditation for the day and select a word that jumps out at you. Write the word in the space. Meditate on it 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) Use the vocabulary of Lent from Scripture and tradition–ashes, desert, temptation, denial, repentance, Passion, cross, forgiveness, fasting….

4) Read a Psalm each day and choose a word.

5) Describe the nature and character of Jesus in your calendar using nouns and adjectives: Savior, Redeemer, Healer, radical, obedient, forgiving,…

6) Since Lent is a time for reflection and self-examination, scatter your confessions, character defect, and regrets. The past year has been a difficult one for many people, so include your specific worries, fears, and sorrows on the calendar. Your pathway of tears will take you to the cross and give you a visual way to lay your burdens down.”Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt. 11 :28  NIV) Ask the Holy Spirit to be present as you reflect on these.This is not meant to be an exercise in self-flagellation or self-pity, 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.

Here is an example of the possible beginnings of a Circle/Cross calendar. I filled in the arms with an assortment of doodles. This could be done at any time during Lent. Color is not a requirement; just using a black pen can also be a meditative practice.

Here are three examples of completed calendars from previous years.

The middle one was completed by Cindy O.

Star/Epiphany Prayers

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The Feast of the Epiphany was January 6, but the Season of Epiphany continues. The “shining forth” of the Light of Christ deserves more than one day. It is an infinitely expanding event. Right now, I need as much of that Light as I can collect. So I pray, “Let me be a solar panel to absorb Christ’s rays and transform me!”

I love stars as templates for prayers during this season. In the prayer drawing below, I used cookie cutters for several stars and drew a couple freehand. It’s pretty easy to tell which is which. This is a prayer for friends who also need God’s light for healing and comfort. Just in case you are wondering why there are red and blue stars…, there really ARE red and blue stars in the universe. The colors are indicators of their heat. From coolest to hottest: red are the coolest, then yellow, then white, and finally blue are the hottest!

After 18 years,  praying in color still helps me to focus in prayer. My body gets to be part of the prayer and is content. My hands have something to do, my eyes have something to see…, so I can settle into a place of inner quiet. Words may come to me and I pray them. Sometimes I incorporate words into the drawing as I did in this one. If no verbal prayers come, I just focus on the name and imagine the person in God’s care and filled with God’s love and light.

Here are some Epiphany/Star prayers from previous years.

  1. A Stable Lamp is Lighted–hymn words by Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)
  2. Job 38:7
  3. Psalm 148:3
  4. 2 Samuel 22:29
  5. Psalm 104:2
  6. Matthew 5:14
  7. Matthew 5:17
  8. Matthew 2:10

Sixth Day of Christmas

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Here are my two Advent calendars for 2020. The calendar on the left incorporates the words of #AdventWord–a ministry of Virginia Theological Seminary. The one on the right contains my prayers for others. Advent was full of illness and death for friends and family. The daily encounter with the emerging tapestry of words and names on both calendars made me feel part of a widespread community of both hurt and hope.1

It’s the 6th day of Christmas and I want to beg my neighbors not to discard their Christmas trees so quickly. Already, there are naked trees at the ends of driveways. Not yet, please; at least keep the decorations up until January 6. I confess to some hefty rigidity about celebrating Christmas until Epiphany, the day after the twelfth day of Christmas. But this year especially, when there has been so much darkness, I need the lights and the glitz.

My psyche is still in Advent mode. Advent lasted twenty-six days in 2020. I had almost a month to practice being an Advent person, a person who remembers, longs, hopes, waits, despairs, expects….  I need more than one day to practice what it means to be a Christmas person. A Christmas person delights in prophecies and promises fulfilled, celebrates Incarnation–God’s coming into the world in Jesus and our own experience of being flesh and blood, and in spite of so much evidence of Sorrow, recklessly touts the victory of the Joy team…. I guess I need the visual reminders of light and color to regale this time and to keep my spirits from falling back into the dark side of Advent and pandemic despair.

For many people Christmas is just plain over. Christians included. They wait for the next big part of the church year which is Lent and Easter. I want to propose a little “front-porch” theology. This is the stuff I pray about and ponder as I sit on my front porch. I think we miss half of the message of the Salvation story of Jesus if we think of Easter as the most important Christian season. In the Episcopal Church and many other liturgical churches, we have a three-sentence story we proclaim every Sunday as we celebrate the Eucharist or Holy Communion:

Christ has Died.
Christ is Risen.
Christ will Come Again.

These words are called the Mystery of Faith. It is the Lent and Easter story. And I love saying them. They summarize the Death, Resurrection, and Return of Jesus, the Christ, with the emphasis on Jesus’s divinity. But I think there is an equally important three-sentence story about Jesus, the man who was born and experienced three decades of life before the showdown at Lent and Easter. Here is my three-sentence story:

Christ was Longed For.
Christ was Born.
Christ will Spread like Wildfire.

For me, this is the prequel to the Mystery of Faith or the First Mystery of Faith. These sentences celebrate Incarnation—the life and humanity of Jesus. They are a summary of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany—the whole Season of the Nativity. My desire to extend the Nativity Season at home is not just my selfish need for light and glitz, but a passionate belief that Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany are just as important as Lent and Easter. We are in the Christmas season for another week. Epiphany starts on January 6 and celebrates the spread of Jesus’s influence beyond the boundaries of a small town in a small country. Theologian and preacher Peter Gomes said, “This is the most important season of the church’s year because this is the season in which we come to see who Jesus is, where he is to be found, and where we begin to understand what he is about.”2  Epiphany, the “shining forth,” is the reminder that we are players and makers in the emerging kingdom of God, that we spread the fire of the Gospel.

 

1 Walter Brueggemann, Advent/Christmas Proclamation 3
2 Peter J. Gomes,Sermons: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living(New York: William Morrow and Company, 1998), 30-31.

 

Advent, My Brother, and Advent Calendars

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If Don had to die
I’m glad it was in Advent
When Grief and Hope Dance

My brother died a week ago. Don was my big brother by six years. His death was a surprise but not a shock. He had escaped death on multiple occasions with heart issues. Every time a family member’s name showed up on my phone, I held my breath. And then a sigh of relief followed when the conversation was about other things. But this time the phone call brought the unwanted news. Don was in a wheelchair at the hospital waiting to be picked up to go home after a one-day stay. The nurses found him unresponsive. The next couple of hours held little chance of recovery. The gift of those hours was the gathering of eight family members in the hospital room and a relative who was a priest. It is rare that families get to assemble in the hospital during CoVid, but they did. With prayers and anointing, they released Don into God’s hands and comforted each other. With a phone placed next to my mouth and Don’s ear, I spoke love and goodbyes to him. I am both sorrowful and grateful. We were siblings but we also had a hard-won, easy friendship. We have no unfinished business.

Two friends and I started writing daily haiku a few weeks ago. Haiku are the tiny, 17-syllable poems, like the one at the top of the blog. They are a wonderful way to corral thoughts, memories, and emotions and to investigate the world. I have written six or seven about my brother—some serious, some silly. Haiku-writing, daily reading of Advent meditations, and the Advent calendar drawing keep me grounded in the paradoxes of the season. Grief and hope really do dance arm-in-arm, hand-in-hand. Scripture readings about sorrow, longing, and despair are juxtaposed with ones about hope, expectation, and promise. Psalm 30: 10-11 (NIV) is just one example: 10 Hear, LORD, and be merciful to me; LORD, be my help. 11 You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy. 

I have two Advent calendars this year, one with the names of people, the other with words from #AdventWord. When I enter my calendar worlds, I burrow into prayer and stillness. The people-calendar reminds me of my place in a large and loving, if scattered, community. I am one of many pieces in this colorful patchwork of friends, family, and even strangers. The words on the #AdventWord calendar remind me of who I want to be and the vision I have of a God-infused world. I love the ebb and flow between words and silence I experience when I doodle/pray on the calendars.

The time between the first phone call and the call confirming Don’s death is vivid in my mind. I walked outside and sat on the hood of the car in our jungle-y property. It was winter-dark and quiet. I wanted to walk, so I edged through the vines and ferns to the road. The neighborhood has no street lights. As I turned the dark corner not more than fifty feet from where I had been sitting, I was met with an exaltation of light and color. Almost every house on the street had Christmas lights—two blocks of them. I tend to be pretty cranky about Christmas lights before December 20, but not that night. The shimmer and glitz and glare were like a proclamation, an announcement—“Glory to God in the highest and Peace to God’s people on earth.” I was not alone on the flip-flop journey of gratitude and grief. Millions of other people were on it, too. This was unexpected, this gift of light on the night I became the last person alive in my family-of-origin. I was alone, but not alone, and smiling.

Gratitude Gobblers 2020

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Here are five turkey templates (some old, one new) for a pre- or post-dinner Thanksgiving activity for adults and kids. In the center of the turkey write your name for God: “Gracious God, Creator, Beloved One, or….” In the spaces within the turkey, in the shapes on the side, or anywhere on the page, write or draw your “gratitude list.” Add color and more lines, dots, or squiggles. The list does not have to include large, sweeping things like “family, country, home, teachers, planet, Jesus…”–though it can. Don’t just write the things others want you to say or those things you think you should be grateful for. Go for the little, ordinary things, the ones that give you delight, ease, or a moment of curiosity–“gravy, mac and cheese, a tiny acorn on the ground, colored pencils, a Zoom meeting with friends, a lizard, the rain.…” Part of the purpose of a gratitude list is to learn to “think in gratitude” in the same way we learn to “think in French or Spanish” when we study a foreign language. Noticing simple, specific things helps me to cultivate chronic thankfulness rather than just gratitude for the general or the extraordinary. I want to learn to be “abounding in thanksgiving” or “overflowing with thankfulness” as the writer of Colossians 2:7 proclaims.

Choose the turkey you want to use. Click on the link below the drawing. Download it first. Then print. Feel free to make multiple copies.

Left     .pdf     or     .jpg
Right  .pdf     or    .jpg

 Left  .pdf or jpg 
Middle   .PDF  or .JPG
Right  pdf.   OR    .jpg

Another option for a Gobbler template is to trace around your hand. Draw lines or arcs to delineate spaces for words.

Below are examples of completed turkeys from previous years. A Blessed Thanksgiving to all.

 

Florida Advent Wreath

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Advent is a time of quiet contemplation and reflection but also a time of restless expectation and journey. My favorite practices, like Advent calendars and Advent wreaths, are ones that give me day-by-day opportunities for reflection but also activate my senses. They emphasize the juicy paradoxes of Advent–like light and darkness, “already there and not yet, flesh and spirit, stillness and movement, faith and fear, sorrow and joy, despair and hope. Advent asks us to rest and go inward but it also propels us forward to a future of “God with us” in a new way.

Advent in Jerusalem was on my calendar for 2020. Advent in Florida is where I am. Except for two years when we lived in Florida a few decades ago, most of my Advents have been in colder places with bare trees and leaves on the ground. I’m learning to appreciate the dense jungle greenery of this almost-tropical state, even in November. The saber pines, cedars, water and live oaks, palmetto scrub, and palm trees are home to the raccoons, possums, woodpeckers, and squirrels we see almost every day (or night) in our yard.

Using local plants and greens seemed like the logical choice for this year’s Advent wreath. Since I have divided loyalties between blue and purple for the candles, I’ve have two wreaths. I put the candles in the holders, placed them on a table, and with haphazard delight walked in my yard and neighborhood to gather local flora. The wreath with the blue candles has cedar clippings and Brazilian pepper plant (invasive, I think, but pretty). The wreath with the purple and pink candles has saber pine, cedar, pinecones, water oak, and a puff of Spanish moss. (I wanted to use more Spanish moss, but I over boiled it in an attempt to get rid of the pesky red bugs that sometimes live in it.).

The candles of the Advent wreath mark the four Sundays and four weeks before Christmas. The traditional color for Advent, purple, represents reflection, repentance, and royalty. Some churches and people prefer blue as a symbol of hope, joy, expectation, and Mary. The colors purple and blue claim their own paradox. Advent, as preparation for welcoming and receiving Jesus, includes both hope & expectation AND self-examination & repentance. So hang a little purple; hang a little blue, if not literally then at least in your heart and in your mind’s eye. Pre-Christmas time can be overwhelming and depressing. On those days, focus your eyes on the blue. When you are overloading your car with presents and decorations and carping at everyone around you, focus on the purple.

The colors are a visual reminder of Advent messages in Scripture.
Blue: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13 NRSV)
Purple:  “In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near…“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” (Matthew 3:1-2, 7b-8 NRSV)

Some people like to use a pink candle for the third Sunday of Advent to mark the halfway point to Christmas.

Light the first candle on the first Sunday of Advent, November 29. Say a prayer, recite a passage of Scripture or sing a song.  With small children, a short and repeatable scripture verse might keep their attention and help them to learn some words of Advent. Use the same prayer or line of scripture all during the first week. On the second Sunday of Advent light the second candle as well as the first. As the weeks pass and more candles are lighted, the darkness of Advent is infused with the anticipated brighter light of Christmas.There are dozens of Advent Wreath lighting devotionals available online. The website Building Faith has many ways to celebrate the weekly ritual.

If you missed my Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany book, you can still order it in Paperback or on Kindle. Click on the photo below. It offers other examples of Advent Wreaths and many ways to celebrate the whole Nativity Season at home. Many of the activities incorporate praying in color.

 

Advent Calendars–Doodling Ideas

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Just in case you are drawing- or doodle-phobic, here are some examples of ways to fill in your Advent calendar template. Below is the template/poster I designed for Forward Movement and #AdventWord. To read more about that partnership look at my November 9th Post. The calendar shows a new word for each day of Advent. The first word is the word Tender on November 29.

On the calendar below are six possible ways I might illuminate the word Tender. This is not great art; some of it is even messy. One version has no color, just a black pen. One version is just a mini-brainstorm on the word. The point of writing the word and drawing around it is to keep it front and center in my mind, eyes, and heart for the whole day. What does this word mean to me? What might I need to hear from it? How does Scripture enlighten me? What might God be saying to me through this word today? Maybe I could “try a little tenderness” more often as Otis Redding wrote in his 1966 song of the same title. Tenderness is not my go-to relational skill. It needs to be honed. Honesty and directness tend to supersede tenderness and kindness. Maybe this is a reminder. Tender also makes me thinks of steaks and greens and shoots and shepherds and babies. What else do I need to hear?

This template is still available along with a devotional/reflections book from Forward Movement. There is still time to order it before the first Sunday of Advent. Here are the links.
Booklet

Calendar

My free Advent calendars templates are available on my Handouts Page and on my November 6th Post.

Two Online Events: Lectio Divina and Advent Workshops

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1) Lectio Divina and Praying in Color with Ruah Space
November 15, Sunday, 7pm Central Time 

Join Phil & Erin Vestal of Ruah Space and Sybil MacBeth, the author of Praying in Color, for a special live event. As a community, we will explore the practice of praying in color in tandem with lectio divina. Lectio divina means “sacred reading.”  It is an ancient way to read and pray scripture as living word, always fresh and new.

Bring paper, a black pen, colored pencils, markers, crayons, paint, or whatever you would like to use to pray in color with us!

To sign up Click Here

2) An Advent Workshop—November 29, Sunday 7-8:30 PM ET

Praying in Color Advent Workshop–Zoom
Sponsored by the Jordan Ministry Team, a collaborative ministry of the Salvatorian Family.  For Details and Registration:   Click HERE

Advent is the season of preparation for God’s coming into the world as flesh and blood at Christmas.  Advent—which begins on Sunday, November 29—is also the season of preparation for our daily pilgrimage with Jesus throughout the whole liturgical year. With left-brain and right-brain exercises, we will explore the rich and lush language of Advent. We will learn some meditative and playful prayer practices for use during Advent or anytime. Bring some plain paper, a pen, colored pencils or markers, and a spirit of holy Adventure.

#AdventWord and Another Advent Calendar Template

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“For the seventh year in a row, #AdventWord will gather prayers via a global, online advent calendar. Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) in partnership with Forward Movement is offering 27 daily meditations and images during this holy season beginning Sunday, November 29. During a year of disparate worship and communities of prayer, AdventWord offers a way to reflect and pause for the Advent season and await the birth of Christ.”

“Gathering a worldwide community, #AdventWord provides a daily meditation, visual image, and invites your personal reflections via social media to share your own Advent journey. Thousands have participated each year, responding to the words with photos, written responses, crafts, drawings, poems, found art, and Holy Spirit-filled posts.”
For more info: #AdventWord

#AdventWord and publisher Forward Movement partnered to create a booklet of meditations called Waiting and Watching. I was invited by them to draw a calendar template to go with the booklet and the words. The AdventWords are on the border of the calendar and there are spaces for each day of Advent. Except for three days where I have already entered the word and a doodle (to give examples), the spaces do not have a designated date or word. You can decide where to write each word on the calendar and make a visual response with doodles, drawings, color, or more words.

The calendars are 17″X22″ and come in packs of 5 for $12. Each person in your family, small group, or congregation can participate with their own calendar. The booklets are $7 each. To order the calendar and/or booklet, go to the Forward Movement website:
Booklet
Calendar
Here is an example of the 2020 AdventWord calendar with other words and color added.

 

For the past three years I have combined my Advent calendar templates with #AdventWord. Besides having a word to think and pray about, I am a member of a worldwide congregation and community of people making the daily prayer journey to Christmas. I love this full-bodied practice. My mind, heart, eyes, hands, and imagination all get to participate. This is my #AdventWord calendar from 2017.