Lent with Dante
Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path. I first read this opening sentence of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri when I was 19 with the first book in the Comedy, Inferno , an assignment in my Western Civ class. The work was characterized by my professor as the 13th Century Synthesis, an encapsulation of the political and theological worldview of the day. We read it (or the Cliff Notes) to understand the dynamics of Florentine politics, the intrigue surrounding the papacy, and the medieval man's view of the universe. I reread all three books in the Comedy a few years ago and was shocked. How much different do those first lines seem now that I am past "midway along the journey of our life." With a retrospective lens not possessed by a college student, I am now able include myself within the Pilgrim's journey ...