Ingredients
Thurman Quote: “But life is not like that. The future is never quite a thing apart from all that has gone before. We bring into the present ingredients and cargoes from the past, and these are with us as we take the unknown road. All that we have learned, felt, and thought, all our experience from birth to now; all the love that nourished us at other times, all the yearnings rooted in our spirits--all these are with us as we move into the unknown way.”
Citation: “...Paths We Did Not Know,” in The Inward Journey, p. 54.
Description: Thurman calls the stuff of life that is with us in the interpretive task “ingredients” we bring with us into the present. In this case, they are ingredients we bring with us as we interpret scriptures, sacred texts, visual art, life, history, culture, and even ourselves.
Reflect on: The ingredients and cargo you bring to the task of interpreting. What are the ingredients you need to keep and what are the ingredients you may need to swap out for new components to make a new dish of meaning and meaning effects in the present?
