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Breath Prayers for COVID-19

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“Breath of God, fill me.” “Indwelling Spirit, flow through me.” “God of breath and air, cleanse him.” “Loving God, permeate us.” “Holy One, protect us.”  “Ruach, inhabit me.” “Loving Healer, enfold us.” These simple, one-liners are called breath prayers. Since the coronavirus attempts to attack a person’s lungs and their ability to breathe, prayers with references to God as Breath, Life, and Spirit seem particularly poignant and appropriate for now.

Each of the above prayers include two parts: words of praise (or a name for God) and words of petition. In the first prayer, “Breath of God” is the praise part; “fill me” is the petition. Breath prayers are a tool to “pray unceasingly.” (1Thessalonians 5:17) The purpose of the prayer is to name the heart’s desire and to stay in steady communication with God.

Repeating a succinct breath prayer over and over again is my effort to stop obsessing about the “what-ifs” and the” Oh, no’s.” Like gossip, the constant conversation about COVID-19 can be titillating and invigorating, but, for me, it eventually leads to fear and despair. I’m not using the prayer to hide from the reality of the situation or from the wisdom of safe behavior and useful information, but to stay grounded in God. By reciting the words of the prayer, they become as natural and unconscious as my breath. Some people like to say the two parts of the prayer on an inhale and exhale. Since we are so afraid of what we might be exhaling on people today, I love that the exhale in these prayers is showering verbs of blessing and comfort on the world.

Lines from hymns can offer pertinent breath prayers:
“Breathe on me, Breath of God.”       Edwin Hatch (1835-1889)
Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on me.”      Daniel Iverson, (1890-1977)
Since I have tunes to go with these, I can also sing them over and over.

Scripture, of course, is full of breath prayer possibilities.

To get the prayer in your head and consciousness, try praying in color with it. Choose the praise and petition pieces of your prayer. Write the prayer on a piece of paper and doodle around it as you say it over and over again. If the prayer doesn’t seem quite right, tweak it. Change the words and try sitting, doodling, and praying the new words. If you don’t what to doodle or pray in color, pray in black and white. Write the prayer over and over on a piece of graph paper to implant it into your brain. Then weave the prayer into your daily life. Whenever you are tempted to panic, interrupt the panic with your prayer. I’d love to hear what prayers you create.

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.

Christmas 2019

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A Joyous Christmas to all of you! I hope the entire season of the Nativity—Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany —will prepare you for a rich pilgrimage with Jesus in 2020. May a bright star guide you, may surprising words enrich you, may sojourners and strangers accompany you, and may a little Child lead you to the life of transformative love.

Advent Calendar & Chain Pairings

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I know there are wine pairings for just about every food on the planet. But here are some resources for word pairings to go along with the Advent Calendar Templates or the Advent Chains from my November 9 and November 25 blog posts

1) #AdventWord is is a global, online Advent calendar. Each day from the first Sunday of Advent through Christmas Day, #AdventWord offers meditations and images to inspire and connect individuals and a worldwide community of believers to the themes of Advent. AdventWord is a ministry of Virginia Theological Seminary.” 

I love using the words from #AdventWord because I know that people all around the word are praying and pondering them too. You can post your reflections, images, poems, prayers…every day and see how others are responding. Below are the 2019 words. You can sign up to receive a daily reflection at adventword.org

#AdventWord 2019

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2) This year along with #AdventWord,  I’m using a reader called Low: An Honest Advent Devotional by John Pavlovitz. I have not read the whole book yet, but I like what I have sampled, especially this paragraph in the introduction about Advent: “the invitation is not to escape this place to an elevated heavenly sanctuary somewhere; it it to bring heaven down. Immanuel means ‘God with us.’ In other words, it is Jesus getting low. This is really good news for us here on the ground.”

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3) There are many wonderful daily readers for Advent. Here are five of my all time favorites–and there are many others. I would use these over and over again. I will include just the title and author. You can click on the title for further information. They are linked to the Kindle editions if they exist but hard copies are also available.



  • Light Upon Light compiled by Sarah Arthur–wise and literary excerpts from stories, poems, essays, and books.

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4) Here is a review I wrote in 2017 of four other books for Advent.

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5) If you are looking for playful and prayerful ways to celebrate Advent you can also get my book The Season of the Nativity: Confessions and Practices of an Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany Extremist by Sybil MacBeth. I have tried just about everything I suggest.

I am an Advent freak/geek and proud of it. I think Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany are the underrated, most important seasons of the Church Year. They prepare and equip us to live the rest of the year as embodied disciples of Jesus.

 

Gratitude Gobblers 2019

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“For the Beauty of the Earth, Sing, Oh Sing Today
Of the Skies and of our birth, Sing, Oh Sing, always.
Nature, Human and Divine, all around us lies,
Lord of All to Thee we raise grateful hymns of praise.”

These simple and beautiful words are from the “Canticle of Brother Sun” from the Missa Gaia by Jim Scott and Paul Winter (Litchfield, CT, Living Music Records, 1982). This is one of my favorite thanksgiving songs.

Here are three turkey templates to use for a Thanksgiving gratitude exercise. This can be a fun, family activity between dinner and dessert on Thanksgiving Day. In the center of the turkey write your name for God: “Loving God, Gracious God, Holy One….” In the spaces within the turkey and on the sides of the page, write your “gratitude list.” The list does not have to include sweeping, important things like “family, country, home, teachers…”–though it can. Just go for the little, ordinary things that pop into your head.–“gravy, pumpkin pie, colorful leaves on the ground, a game of checkers with my brother…” Part of the purpose of a gratitude list is to learn to “think in gratitude” in the same way we “think in French or Spanish” when we learn a foreign language. 

If this gratitude gobbler is a little too goofy for you, trace around your hand to make your own template. Draw lines or arcs to delineate spaces for words.  

Click on the link of the template you want. Download it first. Then print. Feel free to make multiple copies.

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

Below are examples of completed turkey from previous years.

A Blessed Thanksgiving to all.


Advent Paper Chains

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Advent paper chains are like 3-D Advent calendars. They are a physical and visual way to mark the daily journey to Christmas.

Paper chains are an easy and playful way for kids to learn Advent words. Pick simple words like “wait, prepare, watch, baby, dark….” For children who are too young to read, write the word on one strip of paper and talk with them about its meaning. Let them doodle or draw around the word and along the strip. When the artwork is finished, take the strip of paper, make a loop, and staple the ends together. Give children two other strips of paper on which to draw and color. Remind them of the word without necessarily writing it again. Add the finished strips to each side of the original loop to create a three-loop chain. If you decorate a Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving, you can hang the trio on the tree. (Or maybe forget the Christmas decorations completely until closer to the 25th.)  Repeat the process every day of Advent with a new word. Reviewing the previous words each day immerses children in the rich vocabulary of the season.

Adults can also create Advent chains. Try any of the ideas I suggest for Advent calendars in my November 9th blog post. I like to pick an Advent word for each day and pray it/meditate on it as I doodle. The word seems to stay with me for the rest of the day. Adults might enjoy the meaty and fresh daily Advent vocabulary offered by #AdventWord.

Keep the 3-loop chains separate as individual “ornaments” or connect them together in one long, swoopy chain. It’s amazing to me how the simple practice can end up being both beautiful and spiritually satisfying.

Since I often travel at Christmas time, I buy a little Norfolk Island pine and designate it as an Advent tree. Purple or blue lights on it remind me that it is still Advent and not yet Christmas.

2019 Advent Calendars

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My early-childhood, next-door neighbor always had an Advent calendar. In our Christian Science household we did not celebrate Advent, but I coveted all those little doors my friend Marian opened every day in the weeks before Christmas. Each door revealed tiny, colorful scenes of sheep, shepherds, stars, and angels. The pictures summarized the stories I knew from The Bible and from Christmas carols. I think an occasional Santa Claus and reindeer popped out of doors, too.

Advent is now my favorite season of the Church year and using an Advent calendar is my favorite way to pay attention to the four weeks before Christmas. The calendars I use, however, are different from the store-bought versions. Mine have no doors, just a calendar template with blank spaces for the days of Advent. Each day I fill one of the little spaces with my prayers–not just verbal prayers but visual ones. The calendar grows day by day with doodles, drawings, and words–whatever feels right. After four weeks the page is a patchwork quilt of my small, daily efforts to be present with God. This practice feels prayerful and playful.

I posted the first Advent templates in 2009. I still love using the calendars because they engage my mind and my body in the Advent experience. The daily practice of drawing on the calendar gives me a creative and simple way to immerse myself in the story of God’s Incarnation and to watch and wait for the celebration of the birth of Jesus on December 25. The accumulation of my daily doodlings is a colorful tapestry and a record of my spiritual journey for the weeks leading up to Christmas. Below are samples from past years, a list of ways to use this year’s calendar templates, and eight possible templates.

Finished Calendars from Previous Years

Creating an Advent calendar is not supposed to produce a great work of art. Enjoy the process. Drawing skills are not a requirement! Advent calendars can also be just black and white.

Calendars by Cindy O
Candles by Connie Denninger

The free, downloadable calendar templates below provide spaces for your daily prayers, words, and doodles. Since Advent starts on December 1st this year, each calendar has twenty-four empty spaces. These Advent calendars are for both adults and children.

Ways to Use the Calendar Templates

1) In a space or shape on the calendar, write the name of someone for whom you are praying. Doodle around the name, add color. Think of each stroke of color or each doodled mark (line, dot, arc, spiral…) as a wordless prayer. If words come to you as you draw and color, pray them. Squeeze them onto the calendar in the shape or along the margins if they feel important. When you have finished with your daily entry, say “Amen” or recite a short passage of Scripture appropriate to Advent like “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” (Psalm 27:1) This tiny colorful mosaic creates a frame around the person’s name. Every time I look at the calendar, the names and designs are a visual reminder to pray for each person again.

2) Combine your calendar with one of the many wonderful Advent books of meditations and reflections. Read the entry for the day. Choose a word from the reading that jumps out at you. Write it in the shape and start to doodle and color around it. Marinate in the word. What is the word saying to you? What does God have to say to you about the word?
Listening + doodling+ coloring = praying.  Keep a computer or notebook next to your calendar so you can write any insights or “ahas.”

3) Write and ponder an Advent word: prepare, wait, pregnant, hope, watch, darkness, wilderness, longing, light… as you doodle and color.

#AdventWord, a ministry of Virginia Theological Seminary, offers a new word each day and the chance to see how others throughout the world have reflected on the word. 

4) Advent is a season of hope. Write something you hope for each day. Offer that idea to God as you draw, write, and color.

5) Celebrate the Women and Men of the Bible. Choose a different person for each day and learn what they did and why they are important to our story and God’s story. As you draw, be quiet and listen to what these people might reveal to you.

6) Advent means “coming,” and specifically the coming of Jesus. Write one of the many names for Jesus in the daily box. Here are a few of the many ways we refer to Jesus: savior, messiah, friend, Prince of Jesus, Emmanuel…. Use the Bible, Handel’s Messiah, Christmas carols, and hymns to uncover those names. Pray and ponder how that name for Jesus stirs, affects, annoys, delights, or inspires you.

7) Choose a word from the daily lectionary readings for the season. Here is a link to the Vanderbilt University site for the daily readings.

7) For smaller children, print the calendar on 11″x17″ paper and just let them color. Light a battery-powered votive candle and give them a quiet, secret place to work. The Advent Tree template might be a simple one for a child to use.

2019 Advent Calendar Templates in .pdf  form.

Click on the links below the pictures for the one you want. When the image appears as a  google doc, click on the download button at the top (the square with the downward facing arrow). Download first; then print. Feel free to share the calendar templates with others, for individual or group use.

Thanks to Cindy O for creating the Box Calendar template for 2019.

Notes:

  • Advent is short this year. It starts on Dec 1 and lasts 24 days.
  • Each calendar has a space for Christmas. On the Advent Tree Calendar it is the star. The Angel Calendar has the face of the angel.The Box Calendar has the central oval. The Star Calendar has the large Star of David in the center.
  • I like to enlarge the 8.5″x11″ format to 11″x17″ card stock. It gives me more room to doodle and color and consequently more time and space with the person or word.
  • Thanks to Cindy O. for the 2019 Box Calendar template.

P.S. If you have trouble downloading the template, send me an email from the Contact page and I’ll send a calendar template to you directly. Sometimes school and church computers or accounts will not allow you to download things from unknown sites on the internet. If you contact me, use your home email instead of a school or church email. If you would prefer a .jpg, contact me.

Yes to Easter!

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Yes to the new creation! Yes to Christ is Risen! Yes to all that I do not understand about this new beginning! Alleluia!

This year I am neither exhausted nor “sooo ready for Lent and Easter to be over.” What is different from past Lents was not bingeing on a multitude of spiritual practices. Lent is a time to go down, go deeper, and go spelunking into the dark and unexplored caves of the heart. I misread this as an invitation to gather up a overlarge slew of spiritual tools and start digging: give up something, take on something, read more, pray more, blog more, meditate on my shortcomings, exercise more, snack less, be kind, do a complete makeover in 40-some days….

A week into this overzealous archaeological expedition, I know I have overpacked; so many tools are a burden. But I trudge on with grouchiness and guilt added to the load. Self-shaming and trash talk about my spiritual inadequacy make me the center of all this exploring. I forget that the inner work is not primarily about me, but about connecting with Jesus. I’m not sure why I overload during Lent. I don’t know if I try to out-holy my efforts from the year before. But with uncharacteristic kindness towards myself, I think it’s more basic than that. I am hungry, really hungry for a deeper and more loving relationship with God, other people, and myself. Bingeing and hoarding on spiritual practices seems like the logical, if misguided, way to get what I need.

Thanks to a three-week cough right before this Lent, I did not have the energy for rounding up as many tools as usual. I picked one calendar template and one devotional to use with it. With his book Lent for Everyone: Luke, Year C: A Daily Devotional, New Testament scholar and retired Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright was a terrific guide for my Lenten exploration. Each day Wright offers a passage from Luke, a reflection, and a prayer. I chose one word from the daily reading, wrote it on the calendar, thought about it, doodled around it, and listened to it. The practice felt spacious and satisfying rather than burdensome. And I was not alone. Luke, N.T. Wright, and Jesus were there with me. That one simple word became my manna for the day. Not too much, not too little. Food and Enough.