Praying in Color

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Ash Wednesday

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Most of my praying happens outside of a church building. But I don’t want to underestimate the power of a sacred physical space to create for  me an intense experience of prayer.

I arrived at church at 7:30AM today to receive a smudge of ashes on my forehead–the symbol of my mortality and sin and the big black starter button for Lent. The morning sun shone through the stained glass.The congregation recited prayers in unison. The familiar words of Psalm 51 circled my head and rose towards the rafters. My woolen-garbed neighbors passed the sign of God’s Peace with a handshake.The priest swiveled his blackened thumb on my forehead and said the words from Genesis 3: ” Remember, you are but dust and to dust you shall return.” The bread and wine woke my sleepy taste buds and slid down my throat. This was whole-bodied prayer. It invited my taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell into the experience.

Couldn’t this have happened somewhere else? Maybe. But the specific physical space where I worshiped this morning set the stage for this special time of prayer. My prayers joined the millions of other full-bodied prayers offered in this place for almost 170 years.

Sybil MacBeth ©2010

Valentine’s Day

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My Valentine to God….

Drawing or doodling gives me a chance to spend time with God without my body complaining. It also creates a quiet space for me to just listen. I don’t need words for these prayers, but if words come I don’t chase them away.

The drawings I do are really just doodles. This is a heart with a bunch of flat “U’s” drawn around it. A few hearts are thrown in. My friend Cindy from Mostly Markers showed me how to draw this kind of rosette drawing using just a bunch of V’s and U’s. It’s a way to grow a drawing without thinking much about the design. Just draw another U or draw a V. It keeps the focus on my time with God and not on the drawing itself.

Sybil MacBeth ©2010

Back to Blogging

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This is my first post since December 31. For most of 2009 I wrote The Prayer Blog for the website The Purpose Driven Connection. As of today the posts are still accessible on the site.

Six weeks away from blogging taught me six (more or less) things about blogging:
1) I needed a vacation from a year of almost daily writing for the public eye.

2) Writing down what’s tumbling around my brain keeps me from obsessing about it.

3) Paying attention is a spiritual practice that requires practice. Writing keeps my eyes and ears open. Open eyes and ears keep me writing.

4)  My posts don’t need to be Pulitzer Prize winners. When I adopt such a perfectionist expectation, nothing ends up on the paper.

5) Often I don’t know what I’m thinking until I see my scrambled thoughts and words emerge on the paper or computer screen.

6) Words sometimes fail me: in conversation, in writing, and in prayer. Walking, sitting, rocking, dancing, and doodling are non-verbal ways for me to pay attention.

My writing and drawings are the spiritual and prayer musings of one hungry pilgrim on an imperfect journey with Jesus. I’ll post these musings when the spirit moves–I hope it will often be the Holy Spirit! Thanks for reading.

Sybil MacBeth ©2010