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Count Your Blessings in Color–a Thanksgiving (and every day) Gratitude Coloring Book

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If you are looking for a Thanksgiving gift for friends, family members, or Thanksgiving Day hosts, consider Paraclete Press’s new coloring book called Count Your Blessings in Color. The book is designed specifically for praying your gratitudes and thanksgivings. I wrote the introduction to the book with suggestions for how to use the coloring pages, but the designs were created and drawn by a group of artists from Paraclete. The book includes 28 designs on the right-hand pages and 28 quotations about gratitude on the left-hand pages. The quotations’ sources range from ancient to contemporary–Cicero, the Bible, Teresa of Avila, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Albert Einstein, Maya Angelou, Brian McLaren, Shauna Niequist….

The coloring pages are visually inviting and interesting without being too complicated or intimidating. There is space for words in and around the designs and room to add additional marks or doodles if desired.

As an after dinner activity on Thanksgiving Day, hand out colored markers or pencils, pass around Count Your Blessings in Color, and invite each person to choose a coloring page. Together you can pray and play your gratitudes.

Below is the cover and three examples of the coloring pages. You can order the book from Paraclete, amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the other usual suspects.

 

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count-your-blessings-collage-1

 

 

Coloring Books to “Bless and De-Stress”

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Paraclete Press, the publisher of all of my books (except for the famous Algebra 1 Printed Test Bank and Instructor’s Resource Guide I wrote in 2005 for Addison-Wesley ), has just released three coloring books. They were created in-house by artists at Paraclete.  I was lucky enough to see them before they went to press and to write an introduction and blurb for each.

Here is what I wrote for the introductory page of each:

“Sometimes coloring is just coloring. To put crayons to paper and create a rainbow of marks and swaths is relaxing, playful, and maybe even artistically satisfying. But sometimes coloring is more. To put colored crayons, markers, or pencils to paper is to create a pathway to the numinous. Coloring invites the body and the senses into an experience of inner stillness. While the hand moves, the mind and the body slow down. The heart and the ears open carving a space for a time of rich silence and an opportunity for God to speak.”

I have mistakenly assumed that everyone can or likes to doodle. “If my ‘C-minus-in-Art’ self can doodle, then anyone can,” I thought. This might be true, but not everyone wants to doodle. Coloring books allow people to express themselves visually and colorfully without dealing with the “I can’t draw” or even “I can’t doodle” voice.

The three new coloring books are a special addition to the coloring book market. I like the size (7″x8.5″), the format, the simple but beautiful designs, the spiritual content and the layout. There is space for my notes or thoughts. I can even add some of my own doodles if I want.

Coloring Books--Paraclete Resized

Here are some sample pages from Words of Faith and Celtic Blessings.

Coloring Book Collage 2 ResizedParaclete did not ask me to write this blog. I just like these coloring books. And I know that the designers and production staff prayed and loved them into existence. You can purchase these books from all of the usual booksellers and the publisher.

Preparation for the Season of Preparation

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Here are five things to do today or tomorrow in preparation for Advent:

1) Create a special corner in your house/apartment where adults and children can go to be quiet. Provide a Bible, book of daily meditations, or appropriate picture books. Put some candles (real or battery-operated) nearby to create an Advent atmosphere. Set five minutes a day set apart for quiet, prayer, mediation or for just doing nothing. Invite children to spend time in the special place.

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2) Plant narcissus or amaryllis bulbs in a bowl of potting medium or in a bowl of stones with water. Watch the plants grow daily as a kind of live Advent calendar. Check the water levels daily.

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3) Hang some purple (or blue) lights. There is no need to spend a lot of money. Keep it simple. Put a purple bulb in a night light, front porch light, or electric candle. (I use a purple marker and color a clear bulb when I can’t find one in a store). I bought a string of cool purple lights by Phillips for $11.99. The purple lights are a visual reminder to me that it is Advent and not yet Christmas. They are also a good conversation starter.

Purple Lights resized

4) Set up an Advent wreath. (Lots of info about using Advent wreaths online or in The Season of the Nativity). I am such a failure at using the pre-formed metal or styrofoam rings; I now use four random candle sticks with purple ribbon, greens, or paper chains. Votives or recycled candles from a previous year are also candidates.

Advent Wreath Resized

5) Download Advent Calendar Templates. Set up a table or part of a table with art supplies for drawing on the calendar.

Advent Calendar Templates 2014

For some other ideas about Advent read the Patheos article about Five Ways to Experience an Extreme Advent.

Paraclete Press is having a 40% off sale this weekend on my book and all of their books until Monday, December 1.  Sarah Arthur has a nice book for Advent called Light upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.

A Homemade Day and A Homemade Year

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My 2 1/2 year-old granddaughter loves to shop for groceries. She shops with her parents in the “real” store and also at home with a pink and green plastic shopping cart she received as a Christmas gift. On a visit to her house two weeks ago I was invited into one of her plastic shopping cart narratives. The play-shopping proceeded quite well until she needed a bag. None of the QFC and Whole Foods white plastic and brown paper ones in the bag drawer seemed to satisfy: “Too big! Too little!” Narrative was about to turn into drama.

Then I thought “WWMSD”–“What Would MOTHER Sybil Do?” I put on my aging mother-hat and grabbed one of the “too big” baguette bags. I chopped off six inches, performed some kitchen origami, and taped on a handle. Voila! She was thrilled! A week later she was still using the bag.

The paper bag creation was a flashback to my life with small children, when improvisation was a daily part of “making home.” It also reminded me of a book I blurbed a few months ago called A Homemade Year: The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting, and Coming Together by Jerusalem Jackson Greer.

Jerusalem is the quintessential home-maker. I use that phrase with great admiration and respect. Jerusalem knows the importance of organizing home as a place of learning, nesting, and coming together. “Making home” is a whole-family affair. Here is the blurb I wrote about A Homemade Year: The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting, and Coming Together:

With waffle crumbs and bacon drippings and brown sugar crystals, Jerusalem Jackson Greer leaves a Hansel and Gretel-like path for us to follow as we travel through the seasons of the liturgical year. With tasty-sounding recipes and visually pleasing crafts, A Homemade Year gives families a wonderful sensory way to share and experience the Christian story at home. The recipes, the activities and Jerusalem’s lovely and honest reflections on parenting and living in family weave the sacred and mundane journeys of life into a braided whole. I was charmed and moved by her book.

Jerusalem helps families create not just heady memories of the sacred year but embodied ones—through their fingers and in their stomachs.The activities and recipes in the book are simple enough even for families with very little spare time: During Advent create a Woodland Advent Wreath; on St. Lucy’s Day bake some Sweet Orange Rolls; for Candlemas make beeswax candles and cook crepes….

It is still Lent, so there is time to consider preparing a Maundy Thursday Passover meal from A Homemade Year. With deep roots in Arkansas, Jerusalem proposes a Southern-Style Seder complete with Ms. J’s Chicken and Dumplings (matzo ball soup and roasted chicken alternatives) and Nathan’s Greens and Bacon (bitter herbs and salt water alternatives). It’s not exactly a kosher meal but it does come by way of Jerusalem!

To purchase this book at an almost 40% discount (limited time)
Click Here and use the coupon code: sybil at check out.

Southern Seder photo: Judea Jackson
Paper bag photo: Sybil MacBeth

A Homemade Year:The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting, and Coming Together
by Jerusalem Jackson Greer
©2013 by Jerusalem Jackson Greer, images by Judea Jackson
Used by permission of Paraclete Press

 

Waiting and “What Advent Means to Me” Video

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My husband Andy and I flew to Seattle yesterday to spend Christmas with our son and two and a half year-old granddaughter. The trip was supposed to take 7 hours; it took 11 1/2 hours. Because of weird weather and missed connections, we spent hours waiting in airports. Though not normally patient people, we knew holiday travel snafus were a possibility, so we planned some waiting activities–a NY Times crossword puzzle, copies of Time Magazine and the New Yorker, a nice meal in a decent airport restaurant, walks around A, B, C, D, and E terminals….

As I was waiting I also read an Advent meditation called Waiting for God by Henri Nouwen from the book Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas. A couple of excerpts mirror our experience from yesterday:
“The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us….Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there.”

Nouwen suggests that Mary and Elizabeth in their pregnancies formed a community of active waiting.
“They affirmed for each other that something was happening that was worth waiting for…..This is what prayer is all about. It is coming together around the promise. This is what celebration is all about. It is lifting up what is already there.“

 This “lifting up what is already there” is why I need a regular worshiping community and a group of friends with whom I gather in hope, promise and celebration rather than in my default mode of cynicism and fear. I was grateful to have a partner, a mini-community in the airport experience of waiting.

Paraclete Press asked its authors to create a two-minute video on “What Advent Means to Me.” I include it here, not because I think it’s good, but because it embarrasses me to watch it. I wanted it to be more playful, more dancy, less intense, less inhibited, more articulate, more polished…. But if I waited to capture that perfect performance I would never risk doing it at all. Like my Advent waiting, this video is active, but imperfect. Click on the picture to view the video.