CoL49 - and ambiguity in general

[Michael Bailey]

http://blog.sojo.net/2009/05/15/biblical-ambiguity-doesnt-diminish-authority/

just replace the "scripture" references with "text"...and "God" with
"intelligent author", church with "perceptive reading", Spirit with
"rose window of shared appreciation, "the faithful" with "the
literate", sacred with "critically acclaimed"; "prayerfully" with
"imaginatively"; "love lives with God" with "lifelong relishing of
well told tales"

eg:

And to acknowledge ambiguity in [a text] in no way diminishes its
authority. Indeed, its ambiguity and paradox are necessary instruments
of truth:  Truth will not let us limit or diminish the complexity of
what comes from the hand of a[n intelligent author].  Ambiguity is not
vagueness, but rather a form of precision.  Plurality of interpretive
possibilities is not the same as rampant relativism.  Criteria of
validity always apply, and always entail some understanding of the
contexts and purposes of both writer and reader.

Within the broad embrace of [perceptive reading], under the [bright
rose window of shared appreciation] wh[ich] breathes life into the
conversation that takes place among [the literate], right reading of
[critically acclaimed] texts is not necessarily uniform reading. To
read faithfully is to read [imaginatively], not necessarily
consistently.  “Love changes,” Wendell Berry writes, “and in change is
true.”  In its way, this claim applies as much to [our lifelong
relishing of well told tales] as to the long love between spouses, the
focus of Berry’s poem.



-- 
"For the moment not caring who you're supposed to be registered as.
For the moment anyway, no longer who the Caesars say you are." - GR, p
136