When we went to Stony Point Center in NY at the end of May to lead a 3-day retreat on biblical storytelling as a strategy for peace, I bought a book in the gift shop called Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God by Sybil MacBeth. It describes a creative way of praying that I thought might be good for my spiritual life, but also that might be adapted for Circle of the Word.

I tried it out this past Wednesday. I wouldn’t say it was a unqualified success since none of the women offered to talk much about what the process had been like for them. But they all paid close attention to the instructions I gave for getting started. They colored diligently with the new markers I had gotten that were definitely appreciated. While they colored I played a seven-minute piece of music downloaded from iTunes for the occasion.

The music was from an album titled “Call of the Mystic” by Karunesh, a piece called “Hearing You Now.” I thought that was a perfect title given the story was about God “hearing the voice of the boy.” I picked the piece because it was Middle Eastern sounding, meditative, and instrumental (less distracting than vocal would have been).

Shown here are the fruits of my co-Circlekeepers’ praying in color exercise. Our story of the day was “God Saves Hagar” (Gen. 21:8-15) so we started out by creating a space for every character in the story.

If possible I use a talking piece that somehow connects with the story of the day. I always tell the story early in a class, before introducing the talking piece. If the connection is obvious, I ask participants why they think I chose that particular object for a talking piece.  It’s a simple way to get them focused on the story and have an easy success engaging it.

But I had trouble coming up with something for the story of “Sarah Gives Birth” that was an obvious connection. I just didn’t have any baby things around the house.

Then I remembered an eyeglass case I got in Cameroon a few years ago. I have never used it much, but I love it because of the memories of that trip (a biblical storytelling mission) and the wonderful painted design that decorates it: mother with child. Perfect! The soft cloth felt gentle to hold as we passed it around the Circle.

For the About the Story activity on the story of Sarah’s Laughter (Gen. 18:9-15) I decided to focus on the word “lord.” It was challenging to sort out and clarify the various uses of “lord” and issues related to translation. There is “the LORD” and then there is “my lord.” There is adonai, elohim, Yahweh, and Jehovah. And then there is that mouthful of a word, tetragrammaton. I ran short of time in class and almost skipped this segment, thinking it was too esoteric for these women, not all that confident I understood it myself, and figuring they wouldn’t be interested anyway.

But I had printed the tetragrammaton in large Hebrew script on card stock. I had lugged a Hebrew Bible along with all my other materials.  I didn’t want to waste all that effort! So I attempted a quick oral explanation, handed out About the Story, displayed the Hebrew Bible, and showed the graphic of the tetragrammaton.

To my surprise the women were very interested. A older woman who clearly struggled with English literacy was fascinated and copied the tetragrammaton onto her story paper. I never cease to be amazed at the things that happen in Circle of the Word.

“The Bible calls us to hope—to persevere and have faith in things not seen.”

When I heard this opening statement of President Obama’s eulogy for the Rev. Clementa Pickney I immediately thought of our circle of women in the jail. I share this understanding of the biblical witness, which is why I developed and lead Circle of the Word. It’s a witness strongly evident in the stories we are learning this summer about the promise of a son to an elderly couple and the promise of life for the son of a desperate slave girl.