Draw your prayers

For me it started last year with a bulletin notice about an "Artful Praying" class at my church, Faith Lutheran in O'Fallon, Ill. But Judy Clark Murashigi, the member who leads the class, has for 10 years sat in silence several times a week with Scripture, prayer and problems.

An art therapist, Murashigi found that her thoughts manifested in images. Letting God guide her, those images progressed from line and color to shape and form. A circle, she discovered, enhanced her focus. Realizing that God used her drawing and journaling to teach her great lessons, Murashigi was inspired to create a Sunday class drawing, literally, on her experiences.

Sunday Scriptures often serve as a springboard for class meditation. Starting with breathing relaxation, Murashigi guides the group through prayers and increasingly longer silences.

Silence continues while the images are translated onto textured black paper — within a 2-inch white circle. Members choose to share their drawing, or not, with the class.

During the first session Murashigi said, "We don't draw to make pretty pictures, we draw to remember." Those words made me — who remembers getting a D- in art as a third-grader — want to come back.

The process of drawing often moves me to tears. It allows me to see things deep inside myself that I didn't know were there. Anger comes out, and so do whimsy, playfulness, overwhelming calm, joy and peace.

One Sunday when I was trying to explain my drawing, Murashigi quietly said, "God loves you." For most of my life I'd had a fear and trembling of God as terror. Suddenly that fear became awe. God's love, which always had been words on paper meant for others, was now part of me. I wrote a Haiku that day to go with my drawing:

Singing in my heart
Energy flowing from depths
God is smiling now.

Trust of the process, of putting such intimate thoughts on paper and of the other participants are important in this class. It was supposed to run for six weeks but continues more than a year later.

At times the white circle seems confining and it's necessary to go outside the lines. It took several months until God was inside the circle — and me. Sometimes only words come; other times only pictures. Themes develop from month to month — rocks and water and good wood. I note their importance in my life: solidity of rock to sit or stand on; peacefulness, power and colors of water; and the wood, worked in cabinets and drawers offering safe places for my thoughts, feelings, fears and heart.

Each Sunday I'm pulled toward a new pathway for my life. Learning to pray artfully, I've come to see into myself and my relationship with God. I've learned a new form of expression. I recall the week we ranked five shapes. The spiral was my favorite. With its constant movement, it's a place I can't get stuck.