100 Days of Dante - Again!

  Baylor's Honor's College is doing 100 Days of Dante again. For those of us who missed it last year, here's another opportunity. Since I started late last year I had to play catch up, but it was worth it and I plan on taking the journey again beginning August 31. 

For the most part, the presenters are very good; there were a couple that weren't. Each presentation usually lasts from 7 - 12 minutes, some are a bit longer. The presenters come from various traditions, Protestant and Catholic, and from both North America and Europe.

This is unfamiliar territory for most of us, but that's the way we learn and are challenged. For sure, the Inferno ought to remind us that sin is real and not to be trifled with. As for Purgatory, the principles contained in it are well worth pondering; frankly, at this stage of my life I am convinced that we experience Purgatory one way or another. And by the way, just to clear things up - and even some of my Catholic friends don't know this - Purgatory isn't about getting a "second chance at salvation." Only those who know Christ already can enter Purgatory. I've experience a good bit of Purgatory in this life...what about you?

As for Paradise, I dearly love this section of the Divine Comedy - can you possibly improve on, "In His will is our peace"? This is a wonderful taste of God's glory and our eternal destiny.

Okay, that's my pitch for Dante!

Info is below - you may have to click on the Baylor link twice, once on this page and once on the next page.

Much everlasting love,

Bob

Dante Lovers, We are back! Maybe you made it all the way through Paradise, and want to make the journey again. Or maybe you got bogged down in Purgatory and want to start over. Either way, we are inviting you to participate once again in the world's largest reading group of Dante's Divine Comedy.   Starting August 31st, we are going to be sending emails with videos and questions every Monday/Wednesday/Friday, until Easter. If you want to join, head over to our newly redesigned website and sign up with your email for the reading plan that starts on August 31st. If you don't, you will not hear from us again until we have some new, cool project that we want to tell you about. That's right: you will only receive emails if you sign up again at 100DaysofDante.com. When you get there, you'll discover that you can also sign up for the "power user" plan, which gives you 100 emails in 100 consecutive days. Go for it! Whatever you decide, we would love it if you would forward this email to three friends from church, work, or school and help us form the world's largest Dante reading group (again). Until our paths cross again, then, thanks for your support of this project. Let's keep reading together. -The 100 Days team

Dante Anyone?

 Good morning friends,

 

A friend of mine recently made me aware of a project between six universities on Dante’s Divine Comedy that I want to pass on to you. While the list is below, I’ll point out that they include Baylor (a Baptist school) and Gonzaga (a Roman Catholic school) – yes, they both have good basketball teams but more importantly, if you can believe it, they also have great professors.

 

Three times a week the project sends a link to a short video by a professor, usually less than ten minutes, that leads participants through the Divine Comedy (they also provide the text from the Divine Comedy for each presentation). Previous videos can be watched anytime. These men and women know their material and they are great to watch – they are more excited about Dante than Gonzaga’s basketball fans are about their team (well…maybe that was hyperbole).

 

There is a reason Dante is considered one of the greatest poets of all time; and there is a reason he is considered an amazing Christian thinker. It is said that he was C.S. Lewis’s favorite poet, this means that Lewis not only appreciated how Dante wrote, but what Dante wrote.

 

I hear a lot about “worldview,” and yet our worldview seems to change with the newspaper headlines, and what we value today we are fully prepared to discard tomorrow if it suits our agendas. Dante presents a Biblical worldview that is focused on the glory of God and the transformative glory of Jesus Christ. He not only calls sin “sin,” but he unpacks how sin corrupts mankind. Thankfully, he also shows us the way of transformation into the image of Christ and portrays the glory of God in a fashion that leaves even him at a loss for words.

 

In a season of history in which our teeth are rotting from cotton candy, I hope you will consider taking this journey through the Divine Comedy; Baylor and the other schools have done an amazing job on this project.

 

Here is a link to the website and below is an excerpt from the website:

 

https://100daysofdante.com/

 

From the Baylor University website:

 

100 DAYS OF DANTE

 

A Presentation of

 

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY HONORS COLLEGE

 

With Support From

 

TORREY HONORS COLLEGE AT BIOLA UNIVERSITY

TEMPLETON HONORS COLLEGE AT EASTERN UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS

WHITWORTH UNIVERSITY

GONZAGA UNIVERSITY/ GONZAGA IN FLORENCE

 

 

At some point, we’ve all been lost, or looked up to see the path ahead dark and unclear. For some of us it’s at the beginning of our spiritual journeys or when we face a hard decision. For others it’s after many years of life, when we wonder what might be coming next.

 

And for one poet, over 700 years ago in Florence, Italy, it was midway through his life’s journey.

 

Welcome to One Hundred Days of Dante.

 

Baylor’s Honors College, with support from five collaborating universities, will lead the world’s largest Dante reading group this fall in honor of the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death. Through a beautifully designed, engaging website, we’ll read Dante’s wondrous poem, the Divine Comedy, and discover how it can change our outlook, love of God, and embrace of neighbor.

 

Through 100 short, accessible videos led by our faculty and others, we will guide readers around the world through the poem. Starting this September, tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear from a great teacher who shares their love of Dante with us, and then share your insights with all of us through conversations on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #100daysofdante.

 

100 Days of Dante is for all of us who want to read a great poem accompanied by a guiding light. For us who want to read not just for careful thinking, but for thoughtful living, applying the wisdom of the past to our own lives.

 

Visit the website now to watch a brief video and sign up for updates. This is 100 Days of Dante: let’s read together.

 

https://100daysofdante.com/

In His Will Is Our Peace

Nay, ‘tis the essence of our blissful fate

To dwell in the divine will’s radius,

Wherein our wills themselves are integrate;

Whose being from threshold unto threshold thus

Through all this realm doth all the realm so please,

And please the King that here in-willeth us

To His own will; and His will is our peace;

This is the sea whereunto all things fare

That it creates or nature furnishes.

Paradise, III.79 - 87

Lord of the Cloud and Fire

My readings this morning included Ezekiel chapters 1 and 2; Ezekiel’s vision of the glory of Yahweh with living beings with wings and multiple faces, wheels within wheels, fire, lightning, an expanse of crystal, a heavenly voice, a throne with a Person on the throne, a rainbow – no wonder Ezekiel writes, “I fell on my face!”

I had great pleasure in this reading as I relaxed and received our Father’s grace through Ezekiel’s vision.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been revisiting Dante’s Paradise, with the help of a dear friend as we both work through Hans Boersma’s chapter on Dante (Dante’s Transhumanizing Journey) in his Seeing God, The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition, (Eerdmans, 2018).

On page 244 Boersma writes, “Dante remembers his vision of the cross; it is just that he cannot find the words properly to give expression to his memory. Similarly, Dante explains that his sight of Beatrice’s smile in the Primum Mobile has left an impression on him that endures, even though he cannot express it in words…” (Italics mine).

There are times when words indeed fail us, and I think in those times that it is better to ponder the vision, the image, the memory, than to risk desecration by reducing what we have seen and experienced to words which fail to transmit the grace and glory of the experience. I need not feel pressure to reduce Ezekiel’s vision to an explanation or a schematic, and I need not, indeed I should not, deconstruct what is holy…which is certainly to profane it.

On page 245 Boersma observes, “It is precisely when the light overcomes the power of his [Dante’s] sight that he is “transhumanized” [into the Divine life; Italian – trasumanar]…these encounters with the light strengthen his vision…” I am reminded of 2 Corinthians 3:17 – 18 and 1 John 3:1 – 3.

“Whether we use the discourse of seeing or of hearing, God must supernaturally and graciously transform us” (page 248). Yes indeed.

After my Scripture readings this morning, and then after my readings in Ephraim Syrus (a Church Father), I turned to The Valley of Vision with the intention of praying a particular prayer. However, when I opened the book I saw another prayer which I had not prayed for quite some time, and as soon as I saw the title I knew that turning to the page was no accident – for it was along the very lines of my reading in Ezekiel:

Lord of the Cloud and Fire

Lord of the cloud and fire I am a stranger, with a stranger’s indifference;

My hands hold a pilgrim’s staff,

My march is Zionward,

My eyes are toward the coming of the Lord,

My heart is in thy hands without reserve.

Thou hast created it,

redeemed it,

renewed it,

captured it,

conquered it.

Keep from it every opposing foe,

crush in it every rebel lust,

mortify every treacherous passion,

annihilate every earthborn desire.

All faculties of my being vibrate to thy touch;

I love thee with soul, mind, body, strength,

might, spirit, affection, will,

desire, intellect, understanding.

Thou art the very perfection of all perfections;

All intellect is derived from thee;

My scanty rivulets flow from thy unfathomable fountain.

Compared with thee the sun is darkness,

all beauty deformity,

all wisdom folly,

the best goodness faulty.

Thou art worthy of an adoration greater than

my dull heart can yield;

Invigorate my love that it may rise worthily to thee,

tightly entwine itself round thee,

be allured by thee.

Then shall my walk be endless praise.

    The Valley of Vision, Arthur Bennett, editor, The Banner of Truth Trust, pp. 198 -199.

Dante – The End Of Another Journey

This morning I read Cantos 32 & 33 of Paradise; this morning I concluded another journey – two conclusions within one week; both journeys took 3 – 4 years.

My journey through The Divine Comedy was instigated by my dear friend Michael Daily. A few years ago he mentioned a piece he read about Dante’s Purgatory and spiritual formation, that while Protestants don’t share the Roman Catholic view of Purgatory that there is much to commend Dante’s work if taken as it was written (these italicized words are actually my thinking); it is not written as an argument for Purgatory in the afterlife, but rather as an account of our transformation into the image of Christ through seeking what C.S. Lewis called “joy” and others term “a desire for beauty” – Purgatory leads to Paradise and Paradise leads to the Presence of the Trinity. While Dante believed in Purgatory, arguing that belief was not the purpose of his volume.

There wasn’t one time when Dante’s theology bothered me in the least; here I am in the 21^st Century reading the words and images of a man who lived hundreds of years prior to me and who is expressing his desire for Christ in images and terms and paradigms which he knows and lives within. How can I quarrel with such a man? On the contrary, I found myself enjoying an education – as Virgil and Beatrice guided Dante, so Dante guided me – though Virgil and Beatrice had a more enlightened pupil in Dante than Dante had in me. Had it not been for the notes of Dorothy L. Sayers (and Barbara Reynolds) I would have been helplessly lost in the classical world of Dante.

Michael shared with me that the article he read suggested using Dorothy L. Sayers’s translation (completed after her death by Barbara Reynolds); since I’m a Sayers aficionado that was a suggestion I readily adopted. Knowing that Sayers was influenced by Charles Williams, in addition to reading Dante I read Williams on Dante, Sayers’s first series of lectures on Dante, and Barbara Reynolds on Sayers’s encounter with Dante – this all helped immeasurably.

Of The Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise, I’m most likely to revisit Purgatory; but all three volumes have sections I want to return to and contemplate. I wish I had read these as a young man for I think it would take me a lifetime to appreciate the passageways of this grand house, from basement to top floor.

I recently began a rereading of The Pilgrim’s Progress – time for another journey.

Dante and the Specificity of Sin

In my journey through Dante’s Purgatory I was struck by how general we’ve become about sin as opposed to Dante’s specific approach. In becoming general we have lost our understanding of sin, removed it from our spiritual formation, and also provided ourselves with a convenient excuse to do pretty much what we want, as long as it’s a respectable sin, under the rubric, “Well, I’m a sinner, what do you expect?” Our repentance has become general, not specific. Our general repentance, which is ambiguous, hinders our understanding that we are saints in Christ and no longer sinners; while specific repentance underscores that when we come to know Christ that we have a fundamental change in identity.

Purgatory works through the seven roots of sin:

1. 
   
   Pride or Vainglory
2. 
   
   Envy
3. 
   
   Wrath
4. 
   
   Sloth
5. 
   
   Avarice – Covetousness
6. 
   
   Greed – Gluttony
7. 
   
   Lust

Seven penitential virtues are juxtaposed:

1. 
   
   Humility
2. 
   
   Generosity
3. 
   
   Meekness
4. 
   
   Zeal
5. 
   
   Liberality
6. 
   
   Temperance
7. 
   
   Chastity

Pride, Envy and Wrath are classified as Love of Neighbors’ Harm, they are Love Perverted. Sloth, Avarice, Greed, and Lust  are classified as Disordered Love of Good, they are Defective Love and Excessive Love of Secondary Goods. The scope of Dante’s Purgatory exceeds these sins and virtues, for the Comedy is first and foremost a Divine Romance, but my focus here is on the specificity of sin.

Here’s an excerpt from a presentation by Dorothy L. Sayers titled, The Other Six Deadly Sins:

Perhaps the bitterest commentary on the way in which Christian doctrine has been taught in the last few centuries is the fact that to the majority of people the word “immorality” has come to mean one thing and one thing only…[sexual sin]…A man may be greedy and selfish; spiteful, cruel, jealous, and unjust; violent and brutal; grasping, unscrupulous, and a liar; stubborn and arrogant, stupid, morose, and dead to every noble instinct – and still we are ready to say of him that he is not an immoral man. I am reminded of a young man who once said to me with perfect simplicity: “I did not know there were seven deadly sins: please tell me the names of the other six.”

Dante, Sayers, and historic Christianity will not let us escape the specificity of sin.   Biblical Christianity insists that we put off immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed (equated with idolatry), anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech – see Colossians 3:5 – 8.

I’m not sure why we have stopped identifying and preaching about specific sins. If it was from a desire not to “be negative” we have done the same disservice as a physician who either fails to diagnose a disease or, worse yet, knows the diagnosis but fails to tell the patient so that the patient can seek treatment.  Better to hear the “c-word” and seek treatment than to go on one’s merry way thinking that one, “Just isn’t feeling well, but it will pass.”

Dealing with specific sins reinforces my identity as a saint in Jesus Christ; generalizing sin treats me like a sinner and reinforces a sinner’s mentality and identity.

The New Testament is clear that when we come to Christ that we exchange our old identity as sinners for a new identity in Christ as saints. I am unaware of any instance in which Paul addresses his readers as sinners, quite the contrary, he terms them saints and stresses their completeness in Christ and the completeness of Christ’s work in them. When Paul calls himself, “..the foremost among all sinners…” he is using that term in context to make a point of God’s amazing mercy and grace.

Paul can deal with the specific sins of the people to whom he is writing because he has established their identity in Christ (I can think of no better example than 1 Corinthians 1:1 – 9).

However, if I am saddled with a general mentality of sin, and a primary identity of being a sinner saved by grace, then I am told that I am a generally sick person without specific diagnoses and I can really expect no better in this life. My life becomes one without definition and without formation into the image of Jesus Christ. As a by-product I am also given a free pass to do what I want as long as it’s socially acceptable, for after all, I’m just a sinner saved by grace.

For the unbeliever the issue is not “sins” but knowing Christ – though of course the Law applied to our transgressions leads us to Christ. For the Christian, the issue of identity has been settled (though we need to constantly “reckon” and remind ourselves of it – Romans 5:12 – 8:39) and we are called to embark upon a life of holiness in the image of God and Christ; not a nebulous holiness, but one with articulation and definition – the very image of the Word made flesh.

Dante’s Purgatory

I recently read Dante’s Purgatory in Dorothy L. Sayers’s translation, published by Penguin Classics, and have now embarked on Dante’s Paradise translated by Sayers and Barbara Reynolds (Sayers died during her work on this and her friend and fellow scholar, Reynolds, completed the translation).

Purgatory was a challenging read because of its unfamiliar historical references, but it was easier than The Inferno for me because I could see present-day application in terms of sin, righteousness, and obedience to Christ. I imagine that it was also easier because I’m becoming more familiar with the style and language, and also because I’m working out a way to read.

One of the wonderful benefits of the work of Sayers and Reynolds are their introductions and notes and appendices. Each canto has an introduction, and at the end of each canto there are notes which explain the images employed and the historical background and allusions. When I read The Inferno I read the introduction to each canto and then in my reading of each canto I’d often refer to the notes. I began Purgatory in the same way but then switched to simply reading the translation first and then dropping back to read the introduction and refer to any notes that provided needed explanations. This turned out to be a better approach for me because it let me encounter the “story” first as a whole, rather than piecemeal. Of course it requires the reader to accept the fact that he won’t immediately know the historical references, but if the reader is able to put his curiosity on hold for a few minutes he or she will, I think, be better able to enjoy the ride – for the story is the story is the story – and we can usually get the story of the forest without being able to indentify all of the trees. Once we’ve been through the forest then we can open our guidebook and note the unusual trees we saw and understand why the Master Gardner placed them as he did.

I look forward to revisiting Purgatory for I think there is much in it concerning spiritual formation into the image of Christ. Dante was really writing about life today, about pilgrimage today – it is not a story of speculation, it is a story designed for immediate application and Protestants ought not to be put-off with the idea of Purgatory in terms of a title because Dante is writing not to the dead but to the living – he is challenging us in our obedience to Christ today.