A Return to a Divine Lent


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 Volume 1: 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 person'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 to review the injustice, hypocrisy, and satire in society; I can look back on my own wanderings amidst dark woods. I can echo the opening canto's lines:

How I entered there I cannot truly say,
I had become so sleepy at the moment
when I first strayed, leaving the path of truth...

Purgatory, the second book of the Comedy, is my favorite of the three. The Pilgrim sees the consequences of earthly actions and attitudes not only in his society but also within himself. You feel the lightening of his load with the removal of each "P" from his forehead as he ascends to the next level. You feel his realization for his own shortcomings. You confess with the Pilgrim that the "things with their false joys, offered me by the world, led me astray."

 I wrote much of the above five years ago in a sparsely-read and rarely-updated blog along with a list of favorite quotes from each canto. I strive to return to Dante this year with the goal of writing a reflection on these verses.  I will supplement Purgatory's 33 cantos with a few selections from Inferno and Paradise to match the 40 days in Lent.  As I am currently in a state of professional transition and several years further past "midway", I look forward to an interesting journey.  Should you choose to have your own journey, then maybe it will bring you as it may me to yearn to drink the waters of Lethe and Eunoë, "eager to rise, now ready for the stars."

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