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Rectangles of Light for Advent and Epiphany

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I know we are in the Season of the Epiphany, but I keep looking at these two Advent Calendars by Cindy O* and Melissa zL. There are so many symbols of light in them that the calendars could hang as reminders of Epiphany. Both Cindy and Melissa used a simple block calendar–nothing kitschy or fancy about the template. But each daily rectangle is a colorful window illuminating the story of God’s breaking into the world. On Cindy’s calendar, the first one, I love the Sunday progression of light on the weekly Advent wreath. The “family portrait” on Christmas Day makes me smile: the gathering of curious people around Jesus surrounded by holly and poinsettia. On Melissa’s calendar I love all of the visual references to light, especially the fireworks on Christmas. Of course, there must have been fireworks on that momentous night!

Advent Cindy O_final

by Melissa zur Loye

by Melissa zur Loye

Second-Week-of-Advent Calendars 2015

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Advent gives me the chance to reencounter the lush, dynamic vocabulary of the Christian tradition. The words on my round-sticker calendar are like old friends who are familiar yet always new. Like words in Scripture they are not stagnant. They reveal something new about themselves each time I spend time with them. It would be easier to think they have a single definition and once I’ve learned it, my work is done. But that would be putting a choke chain on what the words have to say to me or what God has to reveal to me through them. The Christian faith is not summed up in a set of one-dimensional, unchanging words.

A line from the Billy Collins poem called Introduction to Poetry comes to mind. Billy Collins describes his students’ way of dealing with poetry: “…all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.” Like poems, we can try to pin down the words of our faith or we can spend a lifetime with them and slowly marinate in the expansive beauty of their height, depth, and breadth. IMG_3497

Below is my friend Cindy’s first two weeks of Advent in word and drawing. Cindy described her experience of using Advent calendars in the December 3 post on my blog. Mostly Markers is Cindy’s blog about “drawing, doodles, and a few words.” Cindy Two-Week Avent Calendar 2015 Resized

Using Advent Calendars–Insights and Learnings

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It’s not too late to count up to Christmas with an Advent calendar. Templates are available here. 

My friend Cindy O gave me permission to doodle about 30 years ago. She encouraged me to enjoy the process of moving pen and colored markers on paper and to forget about the end result. I have been a doodler ever since. Cindy has joined me in praying Advent calendars since 2008. Here is her 2008 calendar followed by a list of things she learned about the process. Do not be intimidated by her drawing ability! My calendars never look this good.

Cindy Advent 2008 export 800 max

• At first I was apprehensive with all those little boxes on the blank calendar. How would I fill them all up? Would I run out of things to draw? Would I ruin it halfway through week 3? But something emerged every day. And I didn’t ruin it.
• The boxes seemed very small (1 3/8 x 1 5/8 inches), but they were very spacious. My note cards (4 x 6-ish) now seem enormous.
• The words and the drawings illuminated each other – Not “illustrating a word” or “labeling a picture,” as I would have predicted. The spaces have become icon-like for me, windows into someplace else. “We are leaving ordinary time” became true of the calendar.
• I loved seeing the themes and color patterns emerge. Candles for Sundays, blue and beige/yellow for Saturdays, large words to decorate, purple/red/pink, purple and blue, red and green, and brown making a comeback in week 3. The pictures are all very different from each other, but they go together somehow.
• Some days the words came first, and other days the drawing came first. Either way, choosing the words took me deeper into the Advent messages. I spent as much time there as on the drawings, reflecting on the words and the hymns, prayers, or scriptures they came from. Music is embedded too, because of the words.
• The drawing was right-brain, and the word choices were left-brain. Now they are fused together.
• I tried a lot of different techniques, some of them new, like the lace for the 3rd Sunday. The small size encouraged me to try it in a finished picture, even if I might not want it for a larger scale.
• They are all my favorites, and there’s not a single one that I want to do over. This probably ties back to the icon aspect of it. I didn’t expect that. I assumed some would turn out ugly. At the very least, I expected some would be nicer than others.
• I drew things I never thought I could draw – the pressed glass candlestick for the 2nd Sunday, the Nativity scene. And other things I never would have consciously decided to draw – “the Lord is near” with neon glow in week 4, the landscape in week 2, the “way” in week 1.
• Without the Copic markers, I wouldn’t have kept it going. I needed the reinforcement of how beautiful it looked. In the same way, I seem to need the beauty of words, music, liturgy, and space in worship. From my upbringing, I feel I shouldn’t need that so much, but I do.
• I did a lot of pencil layouts and sketching. But the drawings still look free. That makes me happy.
• I loved being able to scan & share with Sybil weekly as I went along. Never thought the scanner on the printer would get so much use.
• It was very soul-satisfying. Just the right pace. I am so glad I tried it.
• When I finished the Nativity drawing, I could feel the weight of 25 days of advent hopes and longings, all resting in that one scene. “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”
Thanks to Cindy for her insights about the calendars. Her website is Mostly Markers. You can follow her growing Advent calendar for this year on the site.

Finished Advent Calendars

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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.

Advent Calendar Finished Cindy Connie Resized Collage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.”

Advent Calendar Finished Linda S Collage Resized

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Advent Calendar Finished Sybil Collage Resized

Advent Calendar 2014 Week 1

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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.)

Advent Calendar Week 1 300dpi resized

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.)

Advent box Calendar 2014 1st Week resized

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.

Advent Calendar Templates 2014

Advent Calendar Templates 2013

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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

Advent Calendar Wreath B&W resized2013

Advent Calendar Box B&W resized 2013 1

Lenten Calendar Templates 2013

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Ash Wednesday, February 13–the first day of Lent– is only five days away. Here are three templates you can use to mark the 40 days (46, counting weekends) until Easter. Two of the templates are modeled on previous years. The newest one, the one with the variety of shapes and pathways connecting them, is the one I created for this year. I kept thinking of Lent and life as a path of walking, marching, plodding, skipping, falling, stopping, running, dawdling….

A more traditional version of Psalm 16:11 says: ” You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand”  (NIV). The Message uses these words: “Now you’ve got my feet on the life path, all radiant from the shining of your face. Ever since you took my hand, I’m on the right way.” I like this version of God as handholder and cosmic flashlight–quelling my fears and lighting my path.

Click on the word below the calendar style you want to download.

         Path jpg      Path pdf                          Block Calendar                               Hexagons

 

Here are some suggestions on ways to use the calendar:

1. Pray for a person each day. Write their name in the shape; draw, color, doodle as you hold them up to God.
2. Pray a word each day–a word from a scripture passage you have read that day–a word that intrigues you or bothers you.
3. List your shortcomings along the path. Draw, doodle, color….
4. Just draw and listen to what the Holy Spirit may be saying to you.
5. Use color on your calendar or just a black pen.

I like to expand this 8 1/2″ x 11″ template to 11″x17″ on card stock for bigger spaces.

Here are some samples of previous years’ finished calendars:
2012A     2012B      2011     Cindy O’s 2011

Cindy O’s Lenten Calendar

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Here is the Lenten calendar of my friend Cindy of Mostly Markers. Cindy includes the names of people as well as words associated with Lent on her calendar. About the word sufficient, she says: “I was surprised  by the word and drawing “sufficient.” Not sure where that came from, but it felt very strong to me. Like a sufficiency of grace in the midst of gray.”

Sounds like one of my favorite quotes from Paul: “But he (God) said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (2Corinthians 12:9 NIV)

Advent Calendars

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My friend Cindy O. and I have been praying/drawing Advent calendars for several years. Below is a collage of some of our past calendars. We mark each day of the four weeks before Christmas with a prayer for a person or a meditation on a word. Words like” watch, wait, fear not, joy, darkness, light, hope…” remind us of the dark days before Jesus and the promise of a Savior.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.” (Isaiah 9:2 NRSV)

Cindy created a blank 2011 Advent calendar. You can download the template for the calendar at her website Mostly Markers. Cindy’s and I draw our calendars in color, but for the “marker or color-phobic” using just a black pen is also an option.