Well-meaning and faithful exegetes have been grappling with scriptural interpretation for centuries. In modern times, there is form criticism, historical criticism, literary criticism, etc. Among ancient approaches are Jewish midrash, and similar methods for reading “down into” the texts by early Christian exegetes. There are also more personal reading strategies, such as contemplative lectio divina.
What Kirk has offered is a kind of meditative reading, akin to lectio divina and cast in a form to be shared with others whose own mind might thereby be touched and stimulated. It is generally couched in terms that a Jewish midrashist would call remez: the homiletical possibilities underneath the surface of the plain text p’shat—but his note about there being a little of every character in all of us points us, the readers of Kirk’s remez toward the deeper levels of d’rash (allegory) and sod (the mystical level). As I said, early Christian exegetes had similar formulae: Origen’s was three-fold, rather than four-fold; others had different schema. [I frankly do not think that sod can be shared on here at all, except perhaps in poetry, Zen koans, and other such evocative language—which cannot then be explicated through “normal” discourse without defeating its purpose.]
He offered it as that kind of meditation on the text; he understood that that was what I was asking for. Actually, I would call such a meditation—so offered to others—a therapeutic meditation on the text: again, what I was asking for.
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With that said, I have no further interest in discussing/debating “proper” exegesis here. My task is now to do my own contemplative work with what Kirk has offered. It begins with noticing how all three of those principal characters (or their “archetypes”, so to speak) voice themselves in my own head, creating a whole perspectival (melo)drama that, in my case, can sometimes run over and over on its own (to use bbarr’s term) epicycles, that I from time to time become lost in. It is also helpful, once I am given the needed “clue”, to see how my own accumulated thinking can “narrow the window of grace” if I don’t keep things sorted out.
I am sometimes accused on here—fairly, I think—of “over-intellectualizing” spiritual matters. That is partly a matter of the kinds of discussions we have on here, partly my intellectual interest in differing religious paradigms, partly my use of this forum as a place to test my own thinking. Sometimes I get caught in that, to the detriment of my own contemplative/meditative spiritual life. Sometimes, it takes me awhile (spinning in those epicycles) to realize that. This time, I took a short retreat to try to clear it out. Often, that’s all I need to do. This time, I decided (when I realized that I was still caught in the same intellectual soap-opera as I posted on here again) to ask for help—from a contemplative mind (from outside my own religious paradigm, sort of) that has helped me to clear things out before.
Now, as I say, I have to go and do the necessary work of getting to that clear ground again. Thanks, Kirk, for the help.