Over the past few months, I’ve run into several people who
have told me that they read and appreciate the stuff I write here. This always leaves me surprised and humbled. It also makes me feel guilty for
how little I’ve written the past year or so.
I have a trunk full of excuses for why that might be: too much work, too
many early morning meetings, too much going on with the new house, etc.
I also think that living in the US again changed the way I perceive
things, moreso than I thought it would. I recently
read an interview with Wes Anderson, who talked about living outside one’s home
country: “I think there’s something about when you’re living in places where
you don’t really speak the language…There’s something that isolates you…You’re
sort of an observer…Every day that you’re abroad, you’re discovering something
new. It’s sometimes challenging to do
basic things. I remember when we were
doing The Life Aquatic [in Italy] I had to go buy lightbulbs. I was able to communicate what I needed to
communicate in order to find a buy the right lightbulbs. In America that would not be a particularly
rewarding experience.”
In any case, perhaps most importantly, this website is supposed
to have something to do with spirituality, and, for whatever reason, I’ve
been feeling pretty spiritually languid lately.
I still say a small prayer of thanks most mornings, but I’ve been going
to church like once every two or three months.
The “spiritual” books on the shelf next to my desk at home sit there untouched. Nothing seems really novel or energizing,
God-wise.
I read Dante’s Inferno over my summer holiday, an
appropriate choice for a heat wave, or a rapidly overheating planet, or a society
plunging ever deeper into a spiritual abyss.
I had read at least part of it years ago
for a college class, but I didn’t remember much. I suppose the Divine Comedy wouldn’t be labeled a “fun vacation
read,” but there’s a reason why people make such a big deal about Dante. Granted, he plays to the LCD a bit with some
of the gory punishments he inflicts on the eternally damned. His hierarchy of sins can also seem puzzling (do
alchemists and counterfeiters really belong on a lower rung of hell than murderers?). But structurally,
thematically, symbolically, it’s hard to find any work of art so rich and
rewarding.
Dante drops us right into the action in Canto I, where
the narrator finds himself in midlife/spiritual crisis. Volumes could (and probably have been)
written about the opening line alone: “Midway in our life’s journey, I went
astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.” His gently sloping but straightforward path is suddenly blocked by three beasts -- a she-wolf
(understood to symbolize the sins of incontinence), a lion (violence and
bestiality), and a leopard (fraud). His
path to salvation must pass through the recognition of sin (Inferno), the
renunciation of sin (Purgatory), before finding the rapturous presence
of God (Paradise). He can’t make this
journey by himself: first Virgil (human reason) and then Beatrice (divine love)
must guide him.
This preceding paragraph was liberally plagiarized from the
fine “How to Read Dante” by John Ciardi, who translated the version I borrowed from the Cambridge Public Library. Discussing
the key themes introduced in these first Cantos, Ciardi talks about sin,
specifically the deadly sin of acedia. This is better known to us as “sloth,” and
we typically associate it with being lazy, sitting around staring at your phone,
that sort of thing. But to Dante, Ciardi
argues, acedia was the central spiritual failure: “the
failure to be sufficiently active in the pursuit of the recognized Good…to acknowledge
Good, but without fervor…The Divine Comedy is the zealous journey from man’s
recognized spiritual torpor (neglect of God) to the active pursuit of his
soul’s good (love of God).” Emphasis mine.
* * * * *
I’ve been sick for the past week. Not Covid, one feels obliged to say these
days. It was one of those old-fashioned
upper respiratory things which starts out with a nasty sore throat, then
spends a couple of days in your sinuses, then spends a couple more days in your
chest. Nothing serious, and almost quaint
in its course, recalling a time when a tickle in your throat did not come with the
psychological and logistical baggage of a global pandemic. Still, I was pretty tired for a few
days.
This morning was Thanksgiving and I woke up early and fed
the cats. Then, rather than doing what I
usually do (eat breakfast while staring at my phone), I meditated and stretched
and did a little Pilates and tried to write something about Dante and I started
to feel better again.
