The Secret of The Divine Comedy

Many folks who suffer strokes can never read again. Their eyes just won’t focus on a page. That I could read four months out from the stroke is quite a wonderful thing.

The nursing facility I was in at the time had a library of sorts, and it featured a book about Andy Warhol that I read. I hate Andy Warhol. But it was the most interesting book they had, and I was really excited that I could read.

I remember that one of my goals in retirement was to read all the books I didn’t have time for earlier, and that part has been coming true. I now sit around reading a lot, with much joy and gratitude.

One of the main books I read early in the process was  the 3-volume Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri.  It turns out that I had only read The Inferno previously (I had no idea) because Purgatory and Paradise were pretty boring. If I ended up there (if Dante is recounting a real trip, and it’s not just an allegory) I think I’d spend the night back in Purgatory or Paradise, going down to Hell daily to visit Virgil and Francesca da Rimini.  What seems so unfair are the punishments people have to bear. They just seem unfair. That their sins aren’t bad enough to merit the punishment they have to endure

I was told that The Divine Comedy could rearrange one’s head. I get it. First of all, it is the first work of literature written in a vernacular language (Italian), then we notice that the worst sins could change over time. Then we are actually surprised at what was considered really bad in Dante’s time versus what’s considered really bad now.

Then we hear the word “love,” in the last few words of  the Paradisio, and we are transformed. In the last lines of the book, Dante acknowledges “the love that moves the sun and other stars.” And I think those lines can be said to contain all 3 Books.

That’s it. There is only one force.  Love is only one  inadequate word but is the only force that moves the universe. Or that causes us to feel for our brother or sister by finally understanding that there is no essential difference between you and them.

I think back to the mentoring in writing I used to do. I told folks that whatever copy you are writing, it has to be about love. Doesn’t matter if it’s about a Brylceem ad or a description of a book you really get.  You are attempting a transmission of mind-to-mind or heart-to-heart, and that changes everything.

The “love that moves the sun and other stars” runs between the planets, between us and our fellow human, and between a cucumber and pear. Let us vow never to lose sight of it.