Too Literal

We Westerners tend to take things too literally, in part because we know little about myth and storytelling as a way to express truth.  We tend to the scientific.  The Ancients did not do this.  They spoke in metaphor, or symbol because truth is hard to pin down literally.  Example: in Psalm 119 in the Bible it says, "How sweet to my palate are your promises, sweeter than honey to my mouth."  This refers to the idea of examining closely some piece of scripture.  The metaphor is that you "eat the scroll."  Eating means meditating or pondering some truth to get at its deeper meaning.  The prophet Ezekiel is told to eat the scroll and then to proclaim it.  Westerners would assume today that you eat the paper.  If I were to tell someone new to AA that they should "eat the Big Book," they would probably begin to tear pages and eat them.  What I would of course mean, is that they should read the book closely, slowly and more than once, stopping when something strikes them and ponder it.  Science can give up facts, but meaning is something else.  You have information, but what does it mean?  For this you have to "eat" of what you hear, read and experience.