Advent Calendar | Praying in Color

Advent Three

December 11, 2016 by Sybil Macbeth Leave a Comment

This is one of those weird Advents when the third Sunday of Advent only marks the halfway point to Christmas. Because December 25 is on a Sunday this year, there is a whole week after the fourth Sunday of Advent until Christmas Day. My Advent calendar of words has only 15 completed ornaments of the 28 and yet I lit the third candle on the wreath today. The extra days are good news to me. I have just begun to settle into a daily routine of reading and drawing. Although Advent is a special time of attention and reflection, I also think it the dress rehearsal for how to make room and space for God in my life all year. It takes time to learn to take time. Advent gives me permission to learn how.

There are hints of December, Advent, winter, and Christmas in our house and neighborhood even without my intentional attempts at spiritual discipline and the staging of visual seasonal reminders. The holly in our front yard is full of berries and yesterday a mass of robins ate half of them in two hours. Usually their appearance means there will not be a single berry left when they depart. My interference with clippers in a desperate attempt to salvage some branches may have interrupted their annual feeding frenzy. I expect them to swoop down again soon and finish the job.

Our two Christmas cactuses are covered with buds. The younger one, the eight-year old on the left, has many blossoms and seems in a hurry to get to the finish line. The other, a plant I have had for 45 years, is full of buds, but moseying to maturity in its own time. Both plants seem to know of Advent’s arrival because they start their march to full flower every year at the end of November. It’s almost as if they are accompanying me on the Advent journey and saying, “Make way. Be not afraid. There is hope. Break forth.”

CountUP-to-Christmas Advent Calendar Templates

November 9, 2016 by Sybil Macbeth 2 Comments Leave a Comment

Advent calendars are for children and adults! Instead of opening daily doors with pictures or retrieving small gifts or candies from pockets, mark the day-by-day journey to Christmas by daily praying/drawing with a calendar template. When I draw, color, and doodle my own Advent calendar, I feel like I’m building something rather than tearing it apart. It is a countUP to Christmas, not a countDOWN. The finished Advent calendar is a colorful reminder of what was in my head and on my heart each day. It is a record of my spiritual journey through Advent. Note: 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.

Here are four Advent calendar templates in both .pdf and .jpg form. One of the calendars has already been “doodled”, so you can just color and pray. Click on the words .pdf or .jpg below the version/s you want. Download first; then print. Feel free to share these with others, for individually or groups.

.pdf OR .jpg .pdf OR .jpg

Ways to Use the Calendar Template

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)

2) Read a daily Advent reflection or meditation. Choose a word from the reading that jumps out at you. Write it in the shape and start to doodle and color. 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, await, hope, pregnant, watch, darkness, longing,…—as you doodle and color.

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

5) 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.

Here are examples of 2015 finished Advent Calendars:

Thanks to Cindy O. of Mostly Markers for creating the 2016 Box Calendar–with the oval in the center for Christmas Day. Notice her finished Box Calendar from 2015–the first one on the left.

Advent Calendar Templates–A CountUP to Christmas

November 6, 2015 by Sybil Macbeth 4 Comments Leave a Comment

Advent calendars are not just for kids! Instead of opening daily doors with pictures or retrieving small gifts or candies from pockets, adults and children can mark the day-by-day journey to Christmas by daily praying/drawing with a calendar template. When I draw, color, and doodle my own Advent calendar, I feel like I’m building something rather than tearing it apart. It is a countup to Christmas, not a countdown. At the end of the 20-some days, the finished Advent calendar is a colorful reminder of what was in my head and on my heart. It is a record of my spiritual journey through Advent.

Here are some examples of calendars from previous years:

Ways to use your calendar:
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. When you have finished with your daily entry, say “Amen” or a short passage of Scripture appropriate to Advent like “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” (Psalm 27:1)

2) Write and ponder an Advent word—prepare, await, hope, pregnant, watch, darkness, longing,…—as you doodle and color.

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

Here are three Advent calendar templates in both .jpg and .pdf form. There is also a version of one of the calendars that is already doodled, so it is more like an Advent calendar coloring page. Click on the words .jpg or .pdf below the version/s you want. Download first; then print. 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.

.pdf or .jpg

.pdf or .jpg .

pdf or .jpg

.pdf or .jpg

Thanks to Cindy O for the box calendar template for 2015 and for her finished Advent calendar from last year. Check out Cindy’s blog called Mostly Markers.
Thanks to Connie Denninger for her finished candle calendar. Check out her blog called Vintage Grace.

Finished Advent Calendars

December 29, 2014 by Sybil Macbeth 5 Comments Leave a Comment

Here are six finished Advent calendars from five different people. Thanks to the four people who shared their calendars with me. Of course, I would love to see others.

This first two are from friends Cindy O and Connie D. Cindy used phrases and words associated with Advent. Check out her websites Mostly Markers and Mostly Markers–Cards. Based on a book by Sarah Hornsby called Jesus Be in My Christmas: Morning and Evening Meditations for Every Day of Advent. Connie’s words on the tree calendar complete the sentence “Jesus be in my ______.” Connie’s blog is called Vintage Grace.

The next pair is from Linda S. and her daughter. “My adult daughter and I worked individually on both sheets, alternating days, to create a shared positive focus for family and friends and their particular situations.”

The last two are mine. On the tree I prayed for people. On the box calendar I meditated on the words from Scripture associated with Advent. I love to refer to my calendar during Christmas. Each day reminds me of who or what I was thinking and praying about.

Last Sunday of Advent

December 21, 2014 by Sybil Macbeth 2 Comments Leave a Comment

The weeks of Advent are far-spent, only four more days until Christmas. I have loved this Advent as I usually do, but it also has been too short. There are three meditation books I would still like to read and I have squandered my sitting-still/prayer time. But the days roll on and prepared or not, Christmas comes. More of signs of it are visible in my house than last week.

The Advent calendars are almost complete.
The fourth candle on the Advent wreath is lit today.
.Mary and Joseph are within eyeshot of the manger on the mantel.
The Paperwhite narcissus are in full bloom.
The Christmas tree is decorated and a few gifts have made their way under it.
The lectionary readings begin to tell the Nativity story in Luke 1 with Gabriel’s appearance to Mary and Mary’s response: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

Psalm 89: 1-4 (NRSV)– one of the other lectionary readings
1 “I will sing of your steadfast love, O LORD, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.
2 I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.
3 You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to my servant David:
4 “I will establish your descendants forever, and build your throne for all generations.'”

Advent Calendar 2014 Week 1

December 7, 2014 by Sybil Macbeth 4 Comments Leave a Comment

Here is the first week of my Advent tree calendar. On this calendar I pray for people and places–for healing, in gratitude, for restoration. I doodle, pray with words, let go of words, doodle, listen, pray more words if they come, and generally, try to be present to God and the person. (Note the addition of Advent lights on the tree.)

Here is the first week of the Advent box calendar. On this calendar I write an Advent word each day. I think about the word but also listen for what God or the word might say to me. Check out my friend Cindy O’s calendar on her website Mostly Markers. (Many years ago Cindy handed me beautiful, colored markers and gave me permission to doodle and draw poorly.)

It’s not too late to print a calendar and start the one-day-at-a-time countdown or countup to Christmas. Go to the Handouts page of this blog and find the list of calendar templates.

A Rose, a Narcissus, a Christmas Catcus E’er Blooming

December 2, 2014 by Sybil Macbeth Leave a Comment

One of my favorite Advent traditions is planting bulbs in a clear container with stones and water. Potting soil or a potting medium will also work. Once the little roots get going, they will wiggle in and out around the stones. You can almost watch the plants grow. The plants, narcissus or amaryllis, are a live Advent calendar. By Christmas Day, there might just be some flowers springing forth.

The clear bowl on the left has just-planted narcissus bulbs. (I’ve been wondering what to do with my mother’s cut glass ice bucket). On the right is Claudette, a Gen X, forty year-old Christmas cactus, who seems to know just when Advent begins. She will continue to wear her pink blossoms until Lent.

The plants remind me of a favorite German Christmas carol called “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming,” written in the 16th century. The verse below was translated into English in 1894 by Theodore Baker.

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.

“On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.” (Isaiah 11:10 NRSV)

Two Things I Have Learned (and a late, finished Advent calendar)

February 6, 2014 by Sybil Macbeth 2 Comments Leave a Comment

Writing, writing, writing for the past two months…. A manuscript was due at the publisher six days ago. It’s getting there. (Do not panic, dear editor.) If the finished book will change my erratic blog-posting behavior, I do not know. March or April will tell.

Two practices continue to inform and enhance my life. I was going to say my “spiritual” life. Separating my “regular” life and my “spiritual” life is an unhelpful split. One day maybe the two will be one.

The two things I have learned are two practices:
1) Staying in bed for five or ten minutes when I wake up. Unconscious and conscious thoughts meet there. Prayers pop up. Answers to yesterdays dilemmas (or take-home math tests in the past) are there. Creative solutions to my writing problems surface. The soliloquy of my emerging nighttime self has things to tell me. I need to listen.

2) Writing three pages in my marble notebook before I do anything else. Even before I pray. (Okay, while the coffee is brewing.) I write anything that comes to mind. Some of those things might be events from the day before. More often they are ramblings, brainstorms, thoughts captured from the 5-minute lie-in before my feet hit the floor. I do this every day, even under the looming, finger-shaking February 1 deadline. The things I need to pray about are in the pages . Ideas for my present book and for a new one are in the pages. Complaints about writing the three pages are in the pages. Feelings I didn’t know I had are in the pages.

If my husband Andy is awake, he knows not to speak to me during this 20-25-minute exercise. It’s to his benefit. I am nicer and saner after I write, as if I’ve been to a Zumba® class or taken a long walk. As if I had my clogged brain cleaned out and plunged free. Writing this way is a spiritual exercise. Fifteen+ years after Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way told me to write three pages every day, I still do. She calls them the Morning Pages. I call them a goldmine.

Advent 2013 Finished Calendar– Posted only 6 weeks late!

Advent Lights and Advent Calendar 2013–First 1/2

December 17, 2013 by Sybil Macbeth 4 Comments Leave a Comment

I am an “Advent Fanatic” or “Advent Extremist” or “Advent Fundamentalist” or “Advent ____.” I’m trying to find the right word to fill in the blank. Yesterday a friend proposed “Advent Advocate.” I like the alliteration, but it feels less hardcore than I am. I really want Advent to have its almost four-week due. Then let Christmas and Epiphany have another two or more weeks. Maybe, it turns out, “Advent Grouch” is a more apt word for me. Anyway, I’m still waiting for the perfect word duo to express my resolute devotion to a real time of preparation and waiting before Christmas. (without being a cranky old lady about it)

I discovered I’m not the only pre-Christmas, purple-light person in the neighborhood. There is a magnificent light-covered tree about a half-mile from me. I haven’t knocked on the owner’s door yet to ask if they are making an Advent statement or if they just like purple. To me the tree says, “It’s Advent!, Prepare the way of the Lord.”

The picture on the left is our porch; the fabulous tree is on the right.

Here is the first half of my Advent calendar. This year I decided to pray for people and places. For the past couple of years I’ve been pondering and praying Advent words: wait, hope, anticipate, darkness, prepare, light….

Advent Calendar Templates 2013

November 11, 2013 by Sybil Macbeth 4 Comments Leave a Comment

Advent starts this year on Sunday, December 1. Advent, the four Sundays and weeks before Christmas, marks the beginning of the Church year. It is a time of preparation for the birthday of Jesus and the entrance of God into the world in a new way.

Advent calendars often seem like a way to tick off the days until Christmas, a way to keep children’s excitement at bay–or in reality rev it up: “Oh, wow, only five more days until Christmas.” I like to think of an Advent calendar as the beginning of the journey into salvation history, a one-day-at-a time celebration with other pilgrims on the road to a lifetime walk with God.

Here are a couple of Advent Calendar templates for this year. Click on the image to download the 8″x11″ template. (If you can’t see the image itself, click on the Edit tab and scroll down to Download.) I like to go to a FedEx/Kinkos or other copy store/business center and blow up the image onto a 11″ x 17″ piece of card stock.

My entries on previous calendars have been prayers for other people and words of the Advent season. Click on these links for examples of my and other peoples’ calendars from past years: Advent 2012A, Advent 2012B, Advent 2012C

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