The Prayer Thread is a collection of teachings and practical prompts to help as we learn to pray in community. This text was originally delivered on November 14, 2025 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
If you ask “almighty Google” about the difference between symbol and metaphor, AI summarizes that “a symbol represents a complex idea with a single object or image, while a metaphor is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things.”
I confess that I recently felt unsure about outing myself for using numbers to understand my relationship to Reality and the Holy One. As part of a simple embodied ritual, I draw a shape of a diamond around me and recite, “All is One.” When I draw two diamonds, I note, “All is Two,” and so on, through Three and Four. In offering this embodied symbolism each day as part of my spiritual practice, I recognize that I am in good company with seekers of many times and in many places who grapple with the relationship between God, creation, and humanity. Yet, the Christian part of my identity thinks I should just stick with the number Three, since you know, Trinity. Nonetheless, Christian writers introduced me to the Sanskrit phrase, “neti, neti,” “not this, not that,” which has opened up my reflections on two-ness and duality. While it has been and still is helpful to use conventional Christian metaphors, like “Jesus is a shepherd” and
“God is a Creator,” my recent use of the numbers allows for more nuance in the face of complexity and mystery, just like Google reports is what happens with symbols.
One thing that AI did not include in its Google summary is Paul Tillich’s profound insight that symbols are participatory. Even if I don’t figure it all out in my head, the very act of gazing at the complexity and mystery of God, Reality, and humanity becomes a prayerful participation in my use of a number or a name to project my achy longing to know and be known. Given the difficulty in pinning down ideas about God, and the prayerful participatory quality of using symbols in prayer, perhaps I should just get over my worry about using numbers in my prayer and enjoy the embodied quality of sorting through these big mysteries on a regular basis.
May all our prayers become more and more fully open to participation in relationship with the mysteries of ourselves, with others, and with God!
