The Divine Comedy

At LONG last, after a month of reading, i have completed the final canto of the Paradisio, concluding my several-weeks-long study of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. The whole think is sincerely amusing, brilliant, and medieval. I loved Inferno for its gradation of sins...and if Dante were correct in his assumptions about sin, his description would be perfectly accurate. Besides, the punishments are so well thought out and cruel...
Purgatorio was interesting too, basically since i'm not catholic and have no concept whatsoever of purgatory. So just to see what a medieval Roman Catholic thought working off your sins would look like is fascinating.
Paradisio reads more like a work of philosophy than a narrative. I really liked it. Again, very medieval. Earth at center.... moon, sun, all the planets revolving around it. So once you leave earth, you begin working your way through the heavens... and see manifestations of the elect souls...and in the Empyrean heaven are the actual dwelling of all the elect and at the very top God himself. I must share a few quotes from Paradisio, simply to communicate how amusing and beautiful this piece of literature really is.
"The social relations of man demand diversity of gift, which diversity is provided for by the action of the heavens on human natures, but without regard to descent, so that natural heredity is overruled by celestial influences. Whereas we in assigning a man's place to him give heed only to hereditary position or such-like irrelevancies instead of studying his natural gift. Hence general confusion and incompetency. (intro and paraphrase to canto VII"
..."But ye wrench to a religious order him born to gird the sword, and make a king of him who should be for discourse; wherefore your track runneth abroad the road". (Canto VII, see why paraphrases are good?)

"It is devil-planted Florence that corrupts the world, both shepherd and flock, by her florins. But vengeance shall not lag" (Canto IX)

(see, medieval! Devil, vengeance, all that... we still hold on to a lot of medieval conceptions, interestingly....)

Dante has been guided through the heavens by Beatrice, the woman he loved while on earth. He directs his sight on her and pours out his gratitude, while praying that he may live and die worthy of her love, "whereon she smiled upon him and turned to God in whom alone is true and abiding union of human souls." (Canto XXXI)

Lovely. But i'm glad to be done. 'Twas a difficult read. I'm watching out for translations next time. Reading the proverbial "King James Version" of of this book (as i did) is not recommended.

parting thoughts from "revolution"

Jesus' unlikely metaphors...yeast and mustard. Jews weren't big fans of either. They rid their house of yeast, a picture of sin or evil being cleaned of their life, once a year. They also valued tidy gardens,and were forbidden by jewish law to plant mustard in the garden. (m. Kil'ayim 3:2; t. Kil'aim 2:8) Why? "I was notorious for invading the well-trimmed veggies and other plants and for quickly taking over the entire garden. (Kind of like yeast works its way through dough...hmm.)... he is using this infamous plant to describe God's kingdom subtly [my note- and perhaps not so "prettily"] taking over the world." This gets me thinking. Jesus is ridiculing the huge expectations the people had for the kingdom of God. It spreads contagiously, in ways that consume our pretty little ordered world and makes something new. Also, mustard has to be crushed in order for it to be useful, either as a seasoning or as a medicine. Yeast, also, cannot be kept separate if it is to be used in the bread... it has to be covered up by the dough, smothered in it...and then it can be infectious and spread throughout all the quantity of dough, no matter how immense; just a small amount of smothered yeast goes a long way.

Now a quote from the book on the church and the frustration that many "overchurched" people feel:
"If you have the gift of frustration and the deep sense that the world is a mess, thank God for that; not everyone has the gift of vision. It also means that you ahve a responsibility to lead us in new ways. Recognizing that something is wrong is the first step toward changing the world. So for those of us who have nearly given up on the church, may we take comfort in the words of St. Augustine, "The church is a whore, but she's my mother" [ouch! yes, i know that's strong. even i havent dared say that yet] She is a mess and has many [messy] children. But she is also our momma and managed to give birth to us and to give us enough of the truth that we have been able to ask the questions that we have..."

All in all "The Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne (Zondervan 2006) is a great read. I recommend highly. Go get a copy, read it, get mad at it, do something with it...then give it away and let it keep going. :)