He thinks he became most aware of scripture as
metaphor when a ministerial buddy of his once
asked, “Do you want to stump a fundamentalist?”
“Sure. Who wouldn’t,” he lamely replied. “Just
ask them how exactly Jesus is a door. Well,
they might not use the term metaphor, but they
will say something like that’s an image not to
be taken literally, to which you can then say,
‘Gotcha!’ Then you can ask, ‘When is a door
not a door? To which you can say, ‘When it’s
ajar, preferably a Jesus jar of holy water.’”
To which he said, “Maybe I should just stop
after the first question.”