Road to Salvation or Ruin?

I heard this quote on NPR this week.

 "I couldn't have done it when I was younger. I had the energy, but not the knowledge, and not the knowledge of myself, because Dante is worried about himself. Dante is in a spiritual crisis, and I think you have to have been in one of your own to understand what he's talking about. 

He's seeking absolution, redemption and certainty.

 He's seeking a knowledge that his life has been worthwhile. Which I still am."

I am not a writer, or a poet and I am particularly bad with the written English language.

So, I feed off of others to write this blog. 

This quote is in reference to Dante's Inferno and the difficulty in translating it to English, by the author Clive James. It was very interesting to me. I have not read the book. But I have seen the the Duomo in Florence. The art is an unbelievable representation of the book by Dante that describes  hell, heaven and redemption.

Within the Florentine Duomo, and you look up and see Dante Before the City of Florence by Domenico di Michelino (1465). These frescos/paintings fill the dome of the church. They are a circular story told in very vivid  scenes, from the Divine Comedy. 

If you were a simple working man in the 1400's in Florence and you saw these graphic images and the church reinforcing these thoughts, what would YOU think?? 

My point is this…. I am

"... seeking absolution,redemption and certainty.

 He's seeking a knowledge that his life has been worthwhile. Which I still am."

And as I grow older I have grown more confident in myself. I also have become wiser but not less curiosity about my faith. I wonder, if the church used these images to manipulate the masses, what are they doing now that I am not aware of?

Vic and I have this indescribable need to walk the path of St James.  I don't think that God will suddenly take time for me and answer all of my questions. But I do look forward to having time to reflect on these questions and meet others that have the same quest.

Enlightenment, that would be a bonus.

"Here before me now is my picture, my map, of a place and therefore of myself . . . much of its reality is based on my own shadows, my inventions.” M.f. K Fisher