Prayer

Depending on who sends it, 🙏 means thank you, please, praying for you or, for some, a high five. Its official name just mentions folded hands, without saying who they’re addressed to. For Christians it has become the default prayer emoji, for lack of anything better. It does the job, but it does it alone, while prayer has many other postures.

In the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome, a woman painted more than seventeen centuries ago prays standing up, arms raised, palms open: the orant, one of the oldest figures in Christian art. There’s also prayer on your knees 🧎, prayer murmured over the beads of a rosary 📿, prayer entrusted to a candle 🕯️ lit at the back of a church. Thérèse of Lisieux called it “a simple glance directed toward heaven.” No need for grand speeches, then, or even folded hands.

What’s missing is a sign for those prayers: the orant with arms raised, a figure sitting in silence, hands open rather than joined. Something to send a friend going through a rough patch, other than the same 🙏 you use to thank the delivery driver. Your drawing could fix that: submit it just below.