Lenten Calendars | Praying in Color

Lenten Calendar Templates 2017

February 15, 2017 by Sybil Macbeth 9 Comments Leave a Comment

Using a calendar template is one of my favorite ways to keep a daily discipline during Lent. It doesn’t involve making false promises to myself about sitting down for thirty minutes a day and praying/studying/meditating and then feeling guilty when I fail. On the calendar template I choose a word or name for each day, write the word in a space, and draw or doodle around it. As I draw I let the name or word fill my heart and mind. If words come to me I pray them. If not, I am quiet. I think of each mark or stroke of color as a wordless prayer. This process can take three minutes or thirty. Each day is different. I love the accumulation of words or peoples’ names in a visual tapestry.

Below are four templates to choose from in jpg or pdf form. There are 46 spaces which include Sundays. (Officially Sundays are not a part of the 40 days of Lent. So feel free to do something special for the Sundays, if you like–or leave them blank.) On the Cross Calendar, the spaces on the cross are part of the 46 count. One calendar is dated; the others allow you to choose your own path. Since the spaces are small I take the template to a copier and enlarge it (129%-132%) onto an 11″x17″ piece of card stock.

I confess: I’m first a doodler, then a colorer. I enjoy making marks–lines, dots, arcs, swirls, scallops, triangles–as much as I like adding color. Three of the templates allow you to do add your own doodles. The template with the Cross is new this year. There is also a coloring-page version of this new one where the doodles are drawn for you.

Here are some 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 is a penitential Psalm with lots of juicy (sometimes depressing) words in it.
5) Read a different Psalm each day and choose a word.

Here are a couple of ideas specifically for the Cross template but also useable for any of the others:
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, dreams, and hopes around the cross one day at a time. While I was making the cross template I remembered one of the first contemporary Christian songs I ever heard by Chuck Girard in 1975. It was called Lay Your Burden Down and the words seem apt for the cross calendar:
Lay your burden down, lay your burden down
Take your troubled soul, your tired mind
And lay your burden down
Lay your burden down, get your feet on solid ground
Take your worries to the foot of the cross, and lay your burden down.

Click on .jpg or .pdf below the template. Make sure to download the template with the downward facing arrow in the top right before you print.

Cross Template on left and an Example of how to use it on right.

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Cross Coloring-Page Template

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Stained Glass Template
(Check out March 28 and March 31, 2016 on this blog to see finished versions of this template from last Lent.)

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Dated Box Calendar Template
(Check out April 22, 2011 for an example of a finished version of this calendar.)

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Notes about Lenten Calendars and Workshops

February 13, 2017 by Sybil Macbeth Leave a Comment

♥ I plan to post several Lenten calendar templates this week either on Tuesday or Wednesday, February 14 or 15. Lent starts on Wednesday, March 1. Feel free to download and share these templates.

♥ A Pre-Lent Workshop at Memphis Theological Seminary
Here’s the info:

The Theology & Arts Institute at Memphis Theological Seminary will offer a 3-session workshop on Doodling as Prayer and Meditation– A Praying in Color Workshop with Sybil MacBeth on February 16, February 23, and March 3, 2017 from 6:30-8:30PM. Praying in Color introduces a way to pray that is meditative, active, visual, serious, and playful. With doodling, pen, markers, and paper, participants will learn this practice by praying for others and delving into a passage of Scripture. Praying in Color is for the word-weary and distracted pray-er or anyone looking for a new way to spend time with God. No artistic ability necessary! Supplies are provided.

This is the 10^th anniversary of Sybil’s book called Praying in Color: Drawing A New Path to God. When her book was published in 2007, the idea of melding prayer and doodling was unusual and innovative. Now her books and DVDs have sold over 100,000 copies. Sybil combines her lifelong love of prayer with her experience as a community college mathematics professor to offer workshops and retreats that engage people of varied learning styles. Visit her website and blog at prayingincolor.com.

Register at: http://memphisseminary.edu/event/praying-in-color-with-sybil-macbeth/ or call Dr. Tiffany Hall McClung at 901-334-5840.

♥ I will be leading A Lenten Retreat in Oklahoma City, OK , March 25-26, 2017 at St. Paul’s Cathedral sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma. To register Click Here.

If you know anyone who might be interested in the info about the calendars or workshops/retreats, please pass this along. Thanks.

Lenten Calendars 2016

March 31, 2016 by Sybil Macbeth 1 Comment Leave a Comment

Several people sent me their finished calendars for this past Lent. Pat Maier designed a template by drawing a cross, chopping it up, and using the pieces to create a pathway to Easter and resurrection. Here is Pat’s finished calendar; Connie Denninger (Vintage Grace) used the same template. Both chose a word each day to pray and mediate on.

Lent Calendars Connie and Pat 2016--1000

LInda S. and her adult daughter J each used a separate stained glass template and then also shared one alternating who drew each day. They used sharpie pens and colored pencils.

Here are their three calendars: Linda’s, J’s., and their cooperative effort. I love the idea that they sometimes started with words but the calendars are mostly wordless.
1) Linda choose five designs and repeated them. “Three of them represent the refreshing “water” of the spirit, the “cross” roads of decisions we encounter daily, and opportunities for growth. (Though I have no idea exactly what the other two represented).”
2) In J’s template she ” focused on the quotation from Michael K. Marsh’s Lenten 01/28/16 blog I Don’t Want To Do Lent This Year https://interruptingthesilence.com/2016/01/28/i-dont-want-to-do-lent-this-year/.
3) In the shared template they alternated days and drew what “spoke” to them that day color and design-wise.

Linda S and J Collage

Bev W also used the stained glass template.She read several devotions each day and then came up with a word for daily mediation.

This is another pair of calendars from Linda S and J using the spiral template. Inside each circle J wrote a short prayer–the words spilling on top of each other–from many sources including prayer books, songs, and websites. The margins in between also have prayers written. See if you can figure out what’s on the second calendar.

Piral Lent 2016 Linda and J

Thanks to Pat, Connie, Linda, J, and Bev for letting me share these wonderful calendars and the Lenten discipline they represent.

Lenten Calendar Templates 2016

January 25, 2016 by Sybil Macbeth 17 Comments Leave a Comment

Below are four templates to choose from in jpg or pdf form. There are 46 spaces which include the weekends. Some calendars are dated; others allow you to choose your own placement. Since the spaces are small I take the template to a copier and enlarge it (129%-132%) to an 11″x17″ piece of card stock.

Here are some ways to use the calendar:
1) Use a daily book of Lenten meditations. Read the mediation for the day and select a word that jumps out at you.
2) Follow a daily lectionary and choose a word from one of the Scripture readings.
3) Pray for a person each day.
4) Use nouns or adjectives that describe the nature and character of Jesus: savior, redeemer, healer, radical, obedient, forgiving,….
5) Read the same Psalm each day and choose a daily word. Psalm 51 is a penitential Psalm with lots of juicy (sometimes depressing) words in it.
6) Use the Confession from the liturgy and choose a word from it. Here is the Confession from The Book of Common Prayer:
Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.
7) Just draw. If words come to you in your silence, write them in the space.

Click on .jpg or.pdf below the template you want.* Download the template first, then print. (If you print without downloading, you will get a version with the website info written on the top and bottom of the page.)

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*Thanks to Cindy O. (Mostly Markers) for her box calendar template and to Hilary Ann Golden for the spiral template.

Here are some examples of last year’s completed templates:

Thanks to Gwyn Varozza, Linda S. and J., Martin Boardman, and Linda S. and J. for sharing their 2015 calendars.

Lenten Calendars 4

April 21, 2015 by Sybil Macbeth Leave a Comment

From Debbie Huff “Here’s my Lenten Butterfly Spiral intent: Making a butterfly a day felt like it might be a wonderful way for me to come in thru the Lenten back door, with an eye towards Hope. So that’s what I did.”

Thanks to everyone who shared their calendars.

Lenten Calendars 3

April 20, 2015 by Sybil Macbeth Leave a Comment

Two more Lenten Calendars:

Gwyn Varozza says, “I’ve struggled to believe that I’m included in what God says that we
are…so I decided to pray about what I thought God was telling me I
am…even if I don’t feel like I am.”

Catherine Windsor: “As a hospice chaplain, I find that doing this Lenten practice was a journey to quietness and stillness, creativity and language [I love words], prayer and contemplation.”

Lenten Calendars 1

April 14, 2015 by Sybil Macbeth 1 Comment Leave a Comment

I have had the privilege of seeing some of the calendars people filled in for their Lenten discipline. For the next few weeks during Easter I will post some of the calendars with a sentence or two about the pray-er/doodler’s intent.

Thanks again to Hilary Ann Golden for sharing her blank spiral template for us to use. It was a wonderful way to take the journey through Lent.

The two calendars below were a daily response by Connie Denninger and Pat Maier to the Lenten devotional called 40 Things to Give Up for Lent and Beyond by Lutheran pastor Rev. Phil Ressler.

Finished Lenten Calendars 2015

April 8, 2015 by Sybil Macbeth Leave a Comment

Snapping “awesome” pictures everyday was a discipline of looking and seeing for my Lenten “Awe of the Day” Calendar. I took at least one picture per day but did not always post it to the calendar template each day. I plan to add the remaining photos and fill up the empty rectangles this week–even though Lent is over.

My real discipline turned out to be spending forty-six days with the word “Surrender.” I liked the narrow scope of thinking about a single word and getting to know it better. My mind often flits to a dozen rooms in my head at the same time, wondering what to do next. Marinating in just one word kept me more grounded than usual. (This may be the start of a-word-a-week or a-word-of-the-month club.) The two “Surrender” calendars together catered to several different learnings styles: My mind thought about the word; my hands and eyes doodled the word, and my body experienced the postures. “Surrender,” I suspect, will continue to speak to me because it seems to have a lot to say.

P.S. I’d love to see other Lenten calendars if you want to send them to me. Send me a sentence about how you used the calendar and permission to post it on the blog if you want to.

“Awe” Calendar

February 25, 2015 by Sybil Macbeth 2 Comments Leave a Comment

I have been trying to just observe and absorb with my eyes for these first seven days of Lent. Here are the Awe-inspiring images I saw this week. Most of them are from nature, but the ceiling of the DC Metro at Gallery Place Station is a geometric treat.The altar with bread and wine on the first Sunday of Lent was at Wellshire Presbyterian Church in Denver.

Although not really capturing the magnificence of a Colorado sunrise or a mountain vista, I am totally spoiled by and grateful for the instant gratification of taking pictures with my phone. Whether God-made or man-made, the photos of these sights increase my sense of wonder and awe for creation and creativity.

“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Ps 118:24 NRSV)

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