If I had to choose just one Advent discipline or activity, it would be a doodled Advent calendar. If you have never done this before, it is a simple, daily but satisfying spiritual practice. This kind of calendar is different from the Advent calendars you buy in a...
Lent 2026 Calendar Templates now available!
Blog
I have been writing the Praying in Color blog for over a dozen years. The entries include theological musings, memoir, reflections on life and Scripture, and hundreds of posts on ways to incorporate Praying in Color into your prayer and spiritual life. In the search bar you can type words like “Scripture, Advent, Lent, calendar templates, intercessory prayer, mourning, gratitude, forgiveness…” or other topics of interest to find related posts. I hope you enjoy exploring this site.
Autumn Events and New Praying in Color
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...
Prayer Beads, Prayer Read
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...
Martin Luther King, Jr. and The Still Small Voice
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...
Prayers of Lent to Easter Alleluia
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed. Alleluia!
Phyllis Tickle: A Life
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...
Lenten Calendar Templates 2018
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....
Epiphany Word Tree
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...
Christmas 2017
Advent morphs into Christmas. The #AdventWord calendar is now the swaddled babe. The Advent tree becomes a Christmas tree. Equipped with the skills of Advent we become Christmas people, followers of Jesus—laying the groundwork and working for the emerging kingdom of...
Third Week Advent 2017
.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...