Procrastination

Dear old SARK recommended this book in one of her books: Procrastination : Why You Do it, What to Do about it. As a bit of a procrastinator, I thought I'd give it a read. As a freelance writer, I thought I should read it for free.

So instead of heading to Borders, I checked our online library catalog and saw that it was currently loaned to someone but was due the next day. I decided to put it on hold to make sure some other procrastinator didn't get to it before I did (and because I knew if I put it off until the next day, it could be two weeks before I made it to the library).

I put it on hold a month ago, and it still hasn't been returned. Classic. Either the reader is prolonging actually reading the book or has read it and is procrastinating in returning it. If it's the return, well, I'm not so sure about this book anymore.

Hopscotch & Hula Hoops: Praying in Color

I discovered this book online a while ago and put it in my Amazon wish list. It's called Praying in Color. I was immediately fascinated by the idea of it, but I never physically saw a copy of it.

When I was in the office of one of my editors last week, however, I saw the book on her desk and got really excited. The author Sybil MacBeth had written for their magazine, so my editor had just finished looking at the book and was willing to let me borrow it. So I began diving into my childish ways and let coloring be a major part of my prayer life this past weekend.

It's been such a neat practice. Basically you doodle around someone's name like I mastered in middle school science class. But you doodle after reading scripture, lighting a candle and preparing your heart for prayer. When you finish a doodle for that one person, you write another name and begin doodling around theirs on the same piece of paper (or journal page, as is the case with me). Eventually, your doodles create one image, which serves as your prayer icon for the day. Then during the day, I remember this image, I remember the people and their prayer needs, and I'm faithfully offering intercessory prayers for my family and friends (and even for my own prayer needs). I love it. You don't have to know how to draw, and your icon doesn't have to be a coherent picture, though some of mine have been.

Sunday I colored a prayer that was kind of a coherent drawing when I decided to doodle flowers around people's names. I'm having a hard time with one of my housemates and her boyfriend. We were addressing some house issues on Sunday, so I decided to add his name to my doodled prayer. While it didn't fix the problem, it definitely calmed me tremendously to enter into conversation about him after I had prayed his name on a page filled with flowers.

Sunday's colorful prayer

Experiencing that with my prayer for him reminded me about one of my favorite quotes from Dawson's Creek (Hey! No snickering . . .) that said that prayer isn't about changing God's mind, it's about changing me. Even though the situation still stinks, my attitude about it became a bit more flowery--even if only for that day.

Praying in color . . . there's much joy to it.