Quotes about Interpretation

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

The book of Revelation is written largely in symbols.

most people do not see things as they are, they see things as they are!

We see what we are ready to see, expect to see, and even desire to see.

It's not the idea that we hear, as much as the positive or negative energy behind it.

I hope we can inaugurate a new humility in our use of religious language, which for me is the very proof that it is authentic.

Remember this: pure literalism always leads to a decrease in meaning. Mythology and sacred texts try to lead us and allow us to have the experience for ourselves. Through our experience we discover that encounter is not only possible but desirable. So often we struggle with experiencing our experiences.

To take the Scriptures seriously is not to take them literally. Literalism is invariably the lowest and least level of meaning. Most

For all who have tried to know Jesus without Christ, many of the core church teachings offered a disembodied Christ without any truly human Jesus, which was the norm for centuries in doctrine and in art. Art is the giveaway of what people really believe at any one time.

reality itself, our reality, my limited and sometimes misinterpreted experience, still becomes the revelatory place for God.

What Richard does is more like what Jesus did when he spoke in parables: He takes you to see from one angle, and then backs up and brings you to see from another angle, and then another, and then another, until a whole new way of seeing begins to dawn on you.