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Wild and Cry–Advent Words

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For the first nine days of Advent I have really enjoyed combining praying in color with #AdventWord. Everyday #AdventWord (adventword.org)  sends  an email with a new word and a reflection on the word. The chosen words are based on the Advent lectionary from year C. Most of them are familiar, returning Advent companions. But Sunday’s word jarred me and my thoughts went wild. The word was WILD. Instead of just drawing, I started writing:

WILD
Jesus tames the wild, but Jesus also wilds the tame. For people like me who seek the safe, easy, and comfortable way, he discomforts. I choose the path of the good-girl Christian. She’s the one who follows the rules, wants to be perfect, memorizes the Beatitudes and Ten Commandments, respects authority, doesn’t make waves, tries to please, goes to church every Sunday, smiles…. I don’t think Jesus objects to any of those things; they are good things– except if they get in the way of following Him. For me, it’s easier to follow rules. It’s hard to follow the Jesus who calls for wild, sometimes risky discipleship.

“I am the Way,” says Jesus. Possibly, the wild way, the unpredictable way. Jesus steers me off the 8-lane highway of comfort and conformity, asks me to unbuckle my seat belt, and takes me onto the narrow path through a forest of thickets, roots, and brambles. The only navigation tool is Jesus Himself. My mother warned me about men who said, “Follow me.” “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:14 NRSV). (But this is Jesus, mom, okay?)

He is the Way. Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness; You will see rare beasts and have unique adventures. These are the stunning words of the poet W.H. Auden. This wild Jesus who calls me beyond my familiar boundaries is the one I want to follow–but I am so afraid to do so.

 

Monday’s word was CRY.
CRY
I almost never cry. Not at funerals, not at weddings. Except recently, at the drop of a hat, at the movies, at pictures of my granddaughter, at funerals…. I have wondered: “Why all the crying? Did I have a stroke? Or is my heart actually softening?” In one of those strong, rare, inaudible voices I heard: “Doesn’t matter. Trust the tears.”

 

 

Leslie Lepage is also combining #AdventWord with a calendar template. Here are her visual prayers/meditations on the words.

More Advent Calendar Ideas

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Besides drawing an Advent Calendar using the templates for this year (see the bottom of this post), here are several other ideas for creating a daily visual Advent calendar.

Draw your own calendar. My first praying in color Advent calendars were drawn one-day-at-a time. From one day to the next, I never knew what shape I was going to draw. I had a large piece of paper and prayed for a new person or prayed an Advent word each day. I loved paying attention to the improvisational inspiration of the new day.

Start with a large blank piece of paper. Every day, draw a shape: square, circle, triangle, rectangle, blob…. Write an Advent word or phrase in the shape. Or pray for a person. Add lines, arc, dots, squiggles, color….Let this be an opportunity for reflection and silence in your day.

Create an Advent tree calendar. Use paper shipping or merchandise tags. Each day write an Advent word, a “hope”, a thanksgiving, or a person’s name on a tag. Draw around the word or name as you ponder and pray. Add doodles and color. Tie the tag on the tree. This could also be an #AdventWord tree. See November 26 post about #AdventWord.

Make a clothesline calendar.  Attach small envelopes to a rope or string with clothespins. Each day ask one family member to choose a word or name for the envelope. Doodle and color around it. Put dollar bills or loose change in the envelope of the day. When Advent ends, send the collected money to an organization or charity of your choice.

Make a participatory Advent Calendar/Wreath. Place a piece of white butcher paper or poster board on a table. Add four candles–four blue or four purple (or three blue/purple and a pink one).Use some artificial greenery or greenery from your yard to decorate. Each day invite someone (or everyone) in your home to add a word or name or piece of “artwork” to the calendar. Provide stickers, markers, ribbon, and colored paper. Give small children a chance to scribble or draw. At the end of Advent a wonderful, intergenerational collage of doodles, prayers, words, and designs will announce the arrival of Christmas.

Plant bulbs in stones or water. This is the time of year to buy Paperwhite narcissus and amaryllis bulbs. You can practically watch them grow. I like to plant them in a clear container so I can see the roots grow downward as the plant grows upward. This is a great way to teach children about waiting but not waiting in vain. Daily watering can be the task of a child.

Here are this year’s templates and the links to download them. For more information and instructions, see the November 12 post.

Gratitude Gobbler 2018

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“Let us come before God with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.” (Psalm 95:2 NIV)

For a family activity on Thanksgiving Day or during the holiday weekend, hand out colored pencils, markers, and a turkey template.  In the spaces within the turkey and on the sides of the page, write, doodle, and color your “gratitude list.”  If that seems too daunting, just notice the small things you are  enjoying from the weekend–the smell of turkey, the colored leaves on the ground, the football games…no matter how small or insignificant they seem.In the center of the turkey choose a name for God: “Loving God, Gracious God, Holy One, Jesus….” Recite the above Psalm as you write words and color. Add more lines, dots, and designs to the page.

Below are examples of finished templates from past years and a template for this year.

The black and white turkey is this year’s template.  You can download it by clicking on the link below it. Click on the .pdf or.jpg version below the template. Download first, then print. Feel free to make multiple copies and to share it with others. You can Share this post on Facebook, Twitter,…. If you receive this post as an email, you will need to go the actual blog site to Share. (https://prayingincolor.com/blog)

Expand it to 11×17 card stock and pass it around the table as a group project.

Happy Thanksgiving.

2018 Gratitude Gobbler

.pdf    OR    .jpg

Templates for earlier versions of the turkey are available for download on my Handouts Page.

Advent Calendar Templates for 2018

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If I had to choose just one Advent discipline or activity, it would be a doodled Advent calendar. If you have never done this before, it is a simple, daily but satisfying spiritual practice. This kind of calendar is different from the Advent calendars you buy in a store. You create this one with words and doodles. Instead of opening the door of the day with pictures or retrieving small gifts or candies from pockets, the calendar marks the daily journey to Christmas with your prayers and simple drawings.  I like to think of this calendar as a “count-up” to Christmas rather than a “count-down.” It is a building up, rather than a tearing apart. The finished Advent calendar is a colorful reminder of what was in your head and on your heart each day. It is a record of the daily spiritual journey through Advent.

Advent calendars are for adults and children. This year’s calendar templates at the bottom of this post are downloadable for free.

Ways to Use the Calendar Templates

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) Combine your calendar with one of the many wonderful Advent books of meditations and reflections. Read the entry for the day. Choose a word from the reading that jumps out at you. Write it in the shape and start to doodle and color around it. 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, wait, pregnant, hope, watch, darkness, longing, light…—as you doodle and color.

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

5) Advent means “coming,” and specifically the coming of Jesus. Write one of the many names for Jesus in the daily box. Here are a few of the many ways we refer to Jesus: savior, messiah, friend, Prince of Jesus, Emmanuel…. Use the Bible, Handel’s Messiah, Christmas carols, and hymns to uncover those names. Pray and ponder how that name for Jesus stirs, affects, annoys, delights, or inspires you.

6) 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. The Tree template might be a simple one for a child to use.

This is not supposed to be a great work of art. Enjoy the process. The words, marks, and color end up creating a beautiful tapestry in spite of your skill level! Advent calendars can also be just black and white. No color necessary. Here are some samples of completed Advent calendars from past years. Thanks to Cindy O. and Connie D. for their calendars.

Candles–Connie D, Box Calendar–Cindy O

Cindy O

Sybil

Here are six 2018 Advent Calendar templates in .pdf  form.

Click on the links below the pictures for the one you want. When the image appears as a  google doc, click on the download button at the top (the square with the downward facing arrow). Download first; then print. Feel free to share the calendar templates with others, for individual or group use.

 

Notes:

  • Advent is short this year. It starts on Dec 2 and lasts 23 days.
  • Each calendar has a space for Christmas. On the Tree Calendar it is the star. The Box Calendar has a space dated Dec 25. The area surrounding the circle and/or the circle itself on the Stained Glass calendar can be used for Christmas. The Double Arc calendar has its own space in the center for Christmas. The Star Calendar has the large Star of David in the center.
  • 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.
  • Thanks to Cindy O. for the 2018 Box Calendar template. Notice the Sundays of Advent are larger than the other spaces.

P.S. If you have trouble downloading the template, send me an email from the Contact page and I’ll send a calendar template to you directly. Sometimes school and church computers or accounts will not allow you to download things from unknown sites on the internet. If you contact me, use your home email instead of a school or church email. If you would prefer a .jpg, contact me.

Phyllis Tickle: A Life

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When I first opened Phyllis Tickle: A Life and landed on the Chronology page at the beginning of the book, I started to cry. Here was a quick summary of Phyllis Tickle’s bio in three pages. It was a life I had been privileged to be part of for a dozen years.

From Jon Sweeney’s new, official biography of Phyllis, I learned so much more about the complex woman I loved, admired, and respected. Jon tackles the difficult task of organizing and analyzing the life of a woman who cannot be boxed in. There are so many overlapping and contrasting circles that describe her but do not contain her: Christian, spouse, mother, teacher, lecturer, analyzer, visionary, thinker, evangelist, sociologist, writer, poet, mentor, monk, extrovert, friend…. But Jon’s book does not just send out accolades on every page. It is an honest look at an amazing woman who struggled to juggle and balance those demanding and often conflicting and controversial roles. Phyllis Tickle: A Life expands my admiration for the breadth of her professional accomplishment and for the depth and discipline of her personal faith in God.

P.S. Without Phyllis Tickle, Praying in Color might still be just a secret prayer practice in my personal journal. When I met her in 2004 and showed her the way I prayed with doodles and color, Phyllis said “You’re going to write a book!”  Being in the South, I said, “Yes, m’am” and went to work. She was my encourager, my mentor, and my writing midwife/doula. Through emails and conversations, Phyllis helped me to birth a book–as she did for dozens, maybe hundreds of other writers. Phyllis Tickle: A Life is not a series of testimonials by grateful friends and authors, like me. That may yet be another book.

Lenten Calendar Templates 2018

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Using a calendar template is one of my favorite ways to keep a daily discipline during Lent.  The discipline can take three minutes or thirty. What matters is the daily regimen of participation and presence.

Each day I choose a word to ponder or a person to pray for. I write the word or name in the allotted space and draw or doodle around it. If words come to me as I draw I pray them. If not, I stay quiet. Returning to the calendar each day helps me to create a hallowed place where I can be present to God and listen. Each mark or stroke of color is a small movement prayer. It is a one day at a time, visual and kinesthetic way to have a Lenten practice.

The accumulation of words or peoples’ names is a visual tapestry of my mini spiritual journey through the forty-plus days of Lent.

Below are four templates to choose from in jpg or pdf form. Each calendar has 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 the spaces empty.) On the Cross Calendar, the spaces on the cross itself are part of the 46 count. The traditional Box calendar is dated; the Tears template suggests a path to follow. The other two allow you to move around and choose the space you want to use on a given day. Date them as you go. 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. Staying inside the lines is not a requirement! Add words or draw around the designated spaces.

Children can mark the daily walk through Lent with the calendars, also.

This is an example of a calendar from 2017. It includes the original blank template  on the left (also available this year), the first few days of one calendar, and another finished version. Words on the third version came from daily meditations by Walter Brueggemann in his book: A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent.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, for example, is a penitential Psalm with lots of juicy (sometimes depressing) words in it.
5) Read a different Psalm each day and choose a word.
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, sorrows, and hopes around the Cross template one day at a time.
8) The Tears template provides space above the line at the top to mark the arrival of Easter. Write the word Easter and/or use words or a drawing/doodle in the space to reflect the mood of the passage from Revelation 21:4 (NRSV) “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more.”

  Tears .jpg or .pdf  Cross .jpg or .pdf  Box .jpg or .pdf  Lily .jpg or .pdf

Click on .jpg or .pdf below the desired template. Make sure to download the template with the downward facing arrow in the top right before you print. These are also available on the Handouts Page on this website.

Epiphany Word Tree

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Besides the cake, the best part of the birthday parties I attended as a child was the “tray game.” Before the party the mother or father of the birthday girl placed numerous objects on a big tray and covered it with a tea towel or large cloth napkin. During the game part of the party an adult brought the tray out and placed it on the floor in the center of a circle of chiffon-clad, giggling partygoers. With the flourish of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, the covering was removed and we had 90 seconds to memorize the contents of the tray. Giggles turned to silence and smiles to serious lip-biting and furrowed brows as we catalogued the tray’s twenty or so items in our minds: red pencil, penny, sugar cube, barrette, paper clip, comb, toothpick, bubblegum, spool of green thread,….This memorization was serious work and for the person who could recall the most objects, there was a prize at stake.

We must had been at least six or seven when we played the game because I remember writing a list of the tray’s contents when it exited the room. I was pretty good at the game and tried to get my friends to play it on a regular basis, not just for parties.

As a high school and college student I carried the idea of the tray game into the way I studied and took notes. Instead of writing on the lines, I often wrote at odd angles or in blobs.. The unusual pattern on the page stuck in my brain and helped me to remember facts, words, and formulas better. It was as if the page was a party-game tray full of ideas and images.

If this way of learning was supposed to fade as an adult, it hasn’t for me. Notes from lectures and conferences are still in blobs and odd configurations on the pages of my notebooks and journals. Colored highlighters and pencils emphasize and underline important words and thoughts. Praying in color is one of the main ways I pray because it engages my body, my eyes, and my mind, but also because the colorful and visual display helps me to remember my prayer list better.

It is January 15, Martin Luther King Day, the ninth day after the Feast of the Epiphany. Every year I mourn the passing of Epiphany as just a single day on January 6. Epiphany deserves more attention than it gets, so some of us think of it as a whole season lasting until Lent. It means “shining forth” and is really the “So what?” after Christmas. It is the story of strangers following a star to a babe in the manger, of Jesus’s baptism, and of his first miracle. Epiphany is about how this story spreads like wildfire beyond the boundaries of a small town in the Middle East and scatters the Gospel in faraway places to faraway people. Martin Luther King was an Epiphany man. He spread the not-always-comfortable good news of the Gospel in his preaching and his activism.

There are so many juicy words, ideas, and names associated with Epiphany that I want to put them on a tray and commit them to memory. So I made an Epiphany Word Tree and taped it on the wall. It will stay there until Lent. My prize for memorizing the words will be a rich vocabulary and the Gospel story that strings them all together.

You, too, may have words and stories you associate with Epiphany. Find a way to keep them in your sight and your thoughts during these next few weeks before Lent.

Third Week Advent 2017

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.Advent seems so short this year. This is the sixteenth day of Advent and already three Sundays of Advent are gone. Here are my two daily disciplines for this Advent:

1)  I have been reading Walter Brueggemann’s Celebrating Abundance: Devotions for Advent. The daily readings are challenging and loaded with fresh and surprising Advent words. Each day I choose a word that jumps out at me, write it on a small envelope, and doodle while I think about the word. I pin the envelope on the Advent tree (i.e. our future Christmas tree). Some of the words on the tree are: Relinquish, Solidarity,Protest, Welcome, Outrageous…. This collection of words and Brueggemann’s meditations remind me that Jesus’s coming into the world is meant to turn my comfy, tame life on its head, that “God’s rule of starchy justice and generous mercy will arise on the earth…” Coins and dollars we collect in the envelopes will go to some organization that witnesses to that starchy justice and generous mercy.

2)  AdventWord is a worldwide experience of prayer using social media and images. A new Advent word is posted each day.Recipients reflect on the word and share images or photos on a worldwide Advent calendar.The Society of St. John the Evangelist started this four years ago. This year Virginia Theological Seminary is contributing short meditations with the word. I’m using the word they provide in connection with one of the Advent calendar templates I created. The words from the Brueggemann book have captured my spiritual imagination more than the AdventWords, but I love the idea of a worldwide daily discipline of  prayer and collective visual response.