Day Fifty-Three
The Divine Comedy Page: 455
I think today is my worst day so far in total pages read. However, I’m hoping to have plenty of time tomorrow, and maybe even some late this evening while I wait for Luc’s 11pm feeding. The boys were a handful today and I found myself laying on the floor behind the bookstore counter with Alex crawling all over me several times. He wanted to be played with pretty much all day and as he is far more important than a book…I only read 94 pages. Quinn and I went shopping briefly this evening and then after I got home at about 8 Luc was hungry then fussy and Alex was full of energy. He enjoys nothing more than emptying drawers, dumping out trash cans and pulling books off shelves. His favorite thing is to empty his laundry basket by flinging clothes over his shoulder and then empty his dresser drawers on top of that. Sorting out clean and dirty is difficult at best and I think some things get washed before they’re worn; hopefully the environment doesn’t get too pissed about it.
As I’ve been reading Dante I’ve realized that even though I grew up in the church I haven’t had a good imagination of Heaven and Hell; and for those outside Christendom the lack is even greater. Perhaps Catholics are better versed in both the theology and the imagery but I think that we live in an age that doesn’t imagine the afterlife much at all. Dante’s descriptions are almost shocking, both the horrors of Hell and the wonders of Heaven are so unfamiliar. And, of course, growing up Protestant, Purgatory should be entirely foreign, although I’d be interested to hear how many that spent time in an evangelical church actually felt that the doctrine of Purgatory was embodied in the kind of repentance that was taught there. I wonder what it would have been like to live in a culture that regularly preached and imagined the state of the soul after death.
                                   