The Art of Community

SevenThe Symbols Principle

Symbols are powerful tools in building community because they quickly remind us of our values, identity, and commitment in a community. Using symbols is a way to make communities stronger. Symbols represent a set of ideas and values, which is to say, they often represent many things at once. They can conveniently stand in for many words.

Anything can be a symbol. This includes the flame symbolism in the Unitarian Universalist tradition and the purifying water in Hindu tradition. In consciousness traditions like Taoism and Buddhism, symbols tend to be more abstract. For example, the yin and yang represent in part how things that may appear opposite are in fact complementary. In theistic traditions, such as Christianity ...