Midsummer blessings and greetings to you. Just a couple of announcements. This coming Saturday, July 31, I will be leading a 1 1/2 hour Zoom Praying in Color Workshop called Praying in Color: Prayer for the Visual and Kinesthetic Learner. It is sponsored by the Jordan Ministry Team and is geared for is for all “those who work with young people, including teachers of all grade levels and disciplines, catechists, youth ministers, and deacons.” Here is the link for the $20 REGISTRATION   2.  By the end of August, I will have a new Praying in Color website.  It will be the f ..read more

A Joyous Easter to All ..read more

I used the templates for Holy Wednesday through Holy Saturday with words from the Holy Week Lectionary readings Year B. Holy Wednesday     Isaiah 50:4-9a    Psalm 70     Hebrews 12:1-3    John 13:21-32  Holy/Maundy Thursday   Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10), 11-14    Psalm 116 1-2, 12-19   1Corinthians 11:23-26   John 13, 1-17, 31b-35 Good Friday   Isaiah 52:13-53:12    Psalm 22    Hebrews 10:16-25, or Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9    John 18:1-19:42 Holy Saturday    J ..read more

My Lents are well-planned. I create a calendar template or two, choose a book of devotions or set of scripture readings, and set out on my daily, pious prayer-walk through the forty days of Lent. Lent is under my control, orderly. I am in charge. But NOT this year. About day five into the forty, it all fell apart. We received a call from the storage unit in Memphis where we had stashed almost everything we own after we sold our house at the beginning of 2020. We had planned a yearlong stay in Jerusalem from April 2020-21. Covid changed those plans. And burst ceiling-pipes in the storage unit c ..read more

Here are three sets of templates for Holy Week. They are not intended as just “coloring” pages (unless that’s how you want to use them) but as a format for corralling your thoughts, prayers, and reflections about the days of Holy Week. The first set is individual, circular templates for each of the days from Holy Wednesday to Easter Sunday. The second is a single, circular calendar-page from Palm Sunday through Holy Saturday. The third is a template is for the Stations of the Cross. For the Holy Week templates, you can incorporate them with your intercessory prayers or with your current Lenten ..read more

NOTE: Lenten Calendar Templates for 2021 are on the Handouts Page & in the Blog Post for January 25. When my mother died a few decades ago, a friend said to me, “Not only did you lose your mother, but you have lost your mother’s memories and perceptions of you, things that only she knew and experienced.” When my brother Don died in December, I wanted to grab onto my memories and perceptions of him. I’m not talking about the specific things we did or places we went together in childhood or the activities our family of origin and our extended families shared, but my memories of who he w ..read more

Using a calendar template Using a calendar template is a simple, daily, and playful but serious practice for praying our way through the forty days of Lent. Each day, choose a word to ponder or a person to pray for. Write the word or name in the allotted space with a pen and draw or doodle around it. Add color with colored pencils or markers. Let the word or name speak to you. If words come to you as you draw, pray them. If not, just continue to draw, stay quiet, and let the word or name burrow into your mind and heart. Returning to the calendar each day establishes a special time to be presen ..read more

The Feast of the Epiphany was January 6, but the Season of Epiphany continues. The “shining forth” of the Light of Christ deserves more than one day. It is an infinitely expanding event. Right now, I need as much of that Light as I can collect. So I pray, “Let me be a solar panel to absorb Christ’s rays and transform me!” I love stars as templates for prayers during this season. In the prayer drawing below, I used cookie cutters for several and drew a couple freehand. It’s pretty easy to tell which is which. This is a prayer for people who also need God’s light for healing and comfort. Just in ..read more

Here are my two Advent calendars for 2020. The calendar on the left incorporates the words of #AdventWord–a ministry of Virginia Theological Seminary. The one on the right contains my prayers for others. Advent was full of illness and death for my friends and family. The daily encounter with the emerging tapestry of words and names on both calendars made me feel part of a widespread community of both hurt and hope.1 It’s the 6th day of Christmas and I want to beg my neighbors not to discard their Christmas trees so quickly. Already, there are naked trees at the ends of driveways. Not yet, ple ..read more

If Don had to die I’m glad it was in Advent Where Grief and Hope Dance My brother died a week ago. Don was my big brother by six years. His death was a surprise but not a shock. He had escaped death on multiple occasions with heart issues. Every time a family member’s name showed up on my phone, I held my breath. And then a sigh of relief followed when the conversation was about other things. But this time the phone call brought the unwanted news. Don was in a wheelchair at the hospital waiting to be picked up to go home after a one-day stay. The nurses found him unresponsive. The next couple ..read more