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Word-Weary

February 16, 2015 by Sybil Macbeth 3 Comments Leave a Comment

Once again I find myself in a word-weary frame of mind. Being word-weary was the reason I started praying in color in the first place. Now after spending over a year writing The Season of the Nativity and promoting it for four months, I am again sick of words– especially my own. I am also weary of most of the words I hear and read about God and Jesus–especially the kind where God is deemed knowable and definable by a finite set of words, maybe even just a few paragraphs. And then more words get hurled around amongst believers about who has the best and most correct words to define God. And about who God loves. And about what God thinks. Is the desire to make definitive statements about God a way to defend God or is it a way to find safety and control in a chaotic world?

A very close friend of mine does not believe in the existence of God. He is not an atheist exactly, more of an agnostic. He is also a scientist. “I don’t believe in God,” he says, “but I believe in Awe and Wonder.” A spectacular sunrise, a beautiful mathematical equation, the paradoxical physics of the cosmos and the mere existence of his young daughter all render him awestruck. His comment made me wonder if maybe he isn’t really more of a believer than I am. When it comes right down to it, no amount or precision of words is adequate to describe God. And though I will continue to try to lasso and corral an infinite God with a finite number of letters and sentences, my bottom-line, most-humble response to God is Awe–to fall on my knees or lie prostrate with my jaw dropped and tongue stilled by the magnitude and wonder of it all.

Colorado Sunrise resized

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Filed Under: Praying in Color Tagged With: awe, Season of the Nativity, word-weary

Learn about Mary with Heart and Body and Voice

December 15, 2014 by Sybil Macbeth 1 Comment Leave a Comment

One of the ways to really learn the stories of the people of Scripture is to implant them in your body and recite them with your voice. My friend Roy DeLeon, author of Praying With the Body: Bringing the Psalms to Life, graphic designer, yoga teacher, and joyful mystic, collaborated with me to bring some of the Advent characters to life with words and gestures. He has done a great job of creating and enfleshing the stories with his pen and ink figures. Below is an excerpt of his Mary story from the Season of the Nativity. And even further below is a group of parishioners from Holy Cross in West Memphis, Arkansas who were reciting and dancing the Mary story. (suitable for ages 3 to…!)

Mary Excerpt from Season of the Nativity

Mary--Holy CrossWest Memphis 2014

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Filed Under: Praying in Color Tagged With: Mary, Praying With the Body: Bringing the Psalms to Life, Roy DeLeon, Season of the Nativity, Season of the Nativity: Confessions and Practices of an Advent & Christmas & Epiphany Extremist

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