I read recently that pain can only be described in metaphor.
“A drum pounding in my head.”
“A needle is stabbing behind my eye.”
“There’s a brick in my stomach.”
“My skin is on fire.”
Pain, it seems, can only feel like something else if we’re going to communicate any sense of it at all.
Prayer, I think, works the same way. If we’re going to make any sense of it at all, it is only going to be in metaphor. Prayer is not a math problem or a geometry proof or a chemical formula or a secret code—up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, Aselect, start—and then you get 30 extra lives.
No. Those are metaphors, but probably unhelpful ones. But maybe they’re helpful to someone else. To me, prayer is more mysterious than mathematics, or science, or coding.
Prayer is a candle on a dark, winter morning.
Prayer is a bird harnessing unseen wind in order to defy unseen gravity.
Prayer is a leaf on a creek, bumping from rock to rock, drifting from shore to shore.
Prayer is a cloud that is never the same shape for more than a few seconds.
Prayer is a book resting on the coffee table, just waiting to come alive the moment it is opened.
Prayer is a baby the moment it emerges from her warm, safe womb out into the cold, exposed world, and then into her mother’s warm, safe arms.
Prayer is a dog dreaming on the rug, his paws chasing ghosts of squirrels.
Prayer is an old home, with the smell of generations emanating from its walls and the creaking of miles upon miles of footsteps in its floorboards.
Prayer is a non-native, invasive vine on a fence.
Prayer is a hospital waiting room vending machine.
Prayer is a tree that falls in the woods that everyone wonders if it ever made a sound.
If you’re having difficulty praying, maybe all you need is a metaphor for prayer. Maybe one of these. Probably none of these. Likely something else. Whatever wild metaphor works for you.
“Maybe the wilder the metaphor the nearer the wildness of truth.”
Frederick Buechner
