Revelations with Dante
Sophomore year of college I took a World Literature class. One of the books we read was Purgitorio by Dante, translated by John Ciardi. I hated it. The flow of the poem and the footnotes that went with the translation were choppy and hard to understand, but I pushed through with help of my roommate who was taking the class with me.
I finally got to the end of Purgitorio and was struck by the last few stanzas which describe Dante's the heavens opening for Dante to leave Earthly Paradise and move onto Heaven. All I could think about, sitting in class, was "Wow, I wish I could say that about my life."
Because I was struggling. Looking back I can see I was at the top of the precipice that I would soon fall from, hitting the ground far below by the time I left college. As I finished reading Purgitorio, my heart and mind recognized that, spiritually, I was not where I was supposed to be; and as my college career continued and I fell further and further from the precipice and away from God those last stanzas staid with me, almost like a taunt. A taunt that turned into a dream that I longed for but did not believe I could ever reach or achieve.
Fast forward to a year after I've graduated college. I had started returning to church. I was slowly beginning to think maybe God would accept me back, I was taking a class at the church about the history of Anglicanism, the history of the Christian church, how our local church began and the vision the local church has for its parishioners and the surrounding area. I was starting to believe that maybe God would accept me back as a daughter of His, and I still had a lot of baggage with me.
Then I read a book.
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl followed Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his fellow Fireside Poets as he completes (with their help) the first full American translation of the Divine Comedy. The book focuses on his work with Inferno and follows Longfellow and his friends as they try and catch a serial killer who kills mirror a different level of Hell.
After reading this book (GO READ IT) I decided that I had to go back and read the Divine Comedy starting with Inferno and finishing with Paradiso. So I found all three books translated by the Hollanders for the Dante Project and began reading.
"Midway in the journey of our life
I came to myself in a dark wood,
for the straight way was lost."
It took me several months to read the Divine Comedy. In that time I encountered God in a radical way. I was prayed over numerous times, at the church's women's retreat I was given, prophetically, a new name: Overcomer. I continued living my new life in Christ. Some days were better than others. People in my church continued to pray with me, for me, over me.
And that's when it hit me. Months after finishing the Divine Comedy.
I had what Dante had. The faith and belief in Jesus Christ as my Savior, my Messiah. I had been washed clean by the blood of Christ and made acceptable in the eyes of God. I had been through hell and struggled through a purgatory and someday I too will enter paradise. And my mind went back to those last stanzas of Purgitorio, of the translation I slogged through years ago as a 20-year-old in college about to fall off a precipice:
"I came back from those holiest waters new,
remade, reborn, like a Sun-wakened tree
that spreads new foliage to the Spring dew
in sweetest freshness, healed of Winter's scars;
perfect, pure, and ready for the Stars."
I finally got to the end of Purgitorio and was struck by the last few stanzas which describe Dante's the heavens opening for Dante to leave Earthly Paradise and move onto Heaven. All I could think about, sitting in class, was "Wow, I wish I could say that about my life."
Because I was struggling. Looking back I can see I was at the top of the precipice that I would soon fall from, hitting the ground far below by the time I left college. As I finished reading Purgitorio, my heart and mind recognized that, spiritually, I was not where I was supposed to be; and as my college career continued and I fell further and further from the precipice and away from God those last stanzas staid with me, almost like a taunt. A taunt that turned into a dream that I longed for but did not believe I could ever reach or achieve.
Fast forward to a year after I've graduated college. I had started returning to church. I was slowly beginning to think maybe God would accept me back, I was taking a class at the church about the history of Anglicanism, the history of the Christian church, how our local church began and the vision the local church has for its parishioners and the surrounding area. I was starting to believe that maybe God would accept me back as a daughter of His, and I still had a lot of baggage with me.
Then I read a book.
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl followed Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his fellow Fireside Poets as he completes (with their help) the first full American translation of the Divine Comedy. The book focuses on his work with Inferno and follows Longfellow and his friends as they try and catch a serial killer who kills mirror a different level of Hell.
After reading this book (GO READ IT) I decided that I had to go back and read the Divine Comedy starting with Inferno and finishing with Paradiso. So I found all three books translated by the Hollanders for the Dante Project and began reading.
"Midway in the journey of our life
I came to myself in a dark wood,
for the straight way was lost."
It took me several months to read the Divine Comedy. In that time I encountered God in a radical way. I was prayed over numerous times, at the church's women's retreat I was given, prophetically, a new name: Overcomer. I continued living my new life in Christ. Some days were better than others. People in my church continued to pray with me, for me, over me.
And that's when it hit me. Months after finishing the Divine Comedy.
I had what Dante had. The faith and belief in Jesus Christ as my Savior, my Messiah. I had been washed clean by the blood of Christ and made acceptable in the eyes of God. I had been through hell and struggled through a purgatory and someday I too will enter paradise. And my mind went back to those last stanzas of Purgitorio, of the translation I slogged through years ago as a 20-year-old in college about to fall off a precipice:
"I came back from those holiest waters new,
remade, reborn, like a Sun-wakened tree
that spreads new foliage to the Spring dew
in sweetest freshness, healed of Winter's scars;
perfect, pure, and ready for the Stars."
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