Thursday Thoughts - August 3

Hermeneutics plays a central role in our lives, and it is important to be aware of this for the following reasons. First, the general action of interpreting anything is part and parcel of what it means to be a human being. Second, we can think of the interpretive act as part of our hardwired neural functions that assist our quest for optimal understanding. Third, this quest can be viewed as a circuitous passage that takes us through an encounter with different kinds of worlds; spiritual, natural, cultural, textual, and otherwise. Fourth, along the journey, discordant thoughts are garnered and imaginatively woven together into a reflective concordant whole. It might be said this way: an unfolding picture of reality, including our place in it, begins to surface out of the mist of a life being interpreted.