The Heavenly Spheres

I recently wrote an article for my church magazine, which just came out, and thought I would also post it here to share with everyone. Thank you for being here, dear reader.

Where ever-present joy knows
naught of time.
- Paradiso, Dante

Paradiso is a long, poetical allegory of paradise written by Dante, completed in 1320. In this, the last of the books of The Divine Comedy (Dante has already been through hell and purgatory), we travel along with Dante as he and his beloved Beatrice travel from sphere to sphere through the realm of the moon, planets, and sun (ie. the seven heavens via the medieval cosmos model). They move closer and closer to God, to paradise. As they move outward through the spheres, are they moving away from the center? If we view it from our earthly perspective, it looks outward, and yet we find that all along as they move through the spheres toward paradise, they are drawing closer to the true center, that is, Christ. It is the paradox of the heavenly kingdom. Could moving outward from ourselves, through the difficult spheres of life cause us to, at the same time, draw nearer to the true center?

Perhaps the Love that moves the spheres moves us as well, in ways we would not be able to imagine ourselves. We ponder this as we study Jesus’s teaching from the beatitudes. Paradoxical in nature, Jesus calls us to turn our perspective over on our heads to think differently about mourning, being poor in spirit, being reviled for our faith, meekness, mercy, purity, hunger, and humility.

Could it be that as we move through such various experiences of life we might normally view as a negative (a downward conical shape into hell), they become the opposite - a positive shape of heaven like a mountain top? Gaining eternal perspective, we see the true value of maintaining a spirit that is fully dependent on the love of God.

Follow the teachings of Jesus and the mystery of love as it melds into the eternal. We are limited in our place and time to fully understand this brush with the eternal, but we can look at Jesus, who was both human and divine. In Jesus we can see the elements of humanity - mourning, suffering, being persecuted, hungering, and being tempted. Through these human experiences Jesus endured, we can trust Him and know that He goes before us, and also with us as our companion. Dante had Virgil along his journey. We have Jesus.

These mysteries of God are revealing pieces of the heavenly kingdom when we follow and do what Jesus teaches. When we live ‘in-other one another’, we live in coherence of the Trinity. When we are salt and light, we are cracking open the door for a little glimpse of the heavenly kingdom. When our hearts and minds are dwelling on the goodness we can do here and now, we are letting Christ’s love dance among the tasks we do.

Their measure done of dance and melody,
The sacred fires again gave heed to us,
Turning from task to task with right good glee.
-Paradiso, Dante

It takes a harmonious dance amongst the participants of love to make the spheres go round. Captured in the rings is love and light, and each sphere is drawn to the center by those things. Each task at hand is part of the circle and a piece of the divine. Each task is to be turned with a right good glee. We don't always smile at tasks or take them on with glee. But each good thing we do for God, for others, and for ourselves is part of the heavenly realm that has already begun here, started by Christ. Could this be what Jesus is saying in His teachings?

This mingling of the eternal that Jesus teaches, in my imagination, helps me see the glimpses of the heavenly realm in the here and now. Some days we feel upside down and can hardly make sense of the world full of evil, pain, and suffering. Each day goes against our practicality in many ways and facing it with the so-called practical sense is like facing a giant with a pea. We need to go beyond the practical, and sometimes look at the world while standing on our heads, which perhaps is the right way to see, as if for the first time.

The journey to God, is the journey into reality. 

-Dorothy L. Sayers

Cosmic Coffee

If you have a religion it must be cosmic.
- C.S. Lewis

Upon my glancing down this morning, I spotted a spiral galaxy of oat milk in my coffee mug. My imagination immediately begins to swirl awake. I can see the stars sparkling in the galaxy. Did our Milky Way galaxy appear in my coffee? For a few moments it swirls like the movement of the cosmos over thousands (millions?) of years. A little splash of milk formed a beautiful little reminder that we are part of something so much bigger than ourselves.

Our struggles and our problems are tiny when we look at the scale of the cosmos. Do we doubt that God can handle our small issues? We are pulled evermore toward the center  (like the pull of gravity into the center of an object of mass) if we look to God and recognize His presence in this grand cosmos. 

We wake up each day on this little planet that was made with the elements exactly perfect for us to live, to breath, to work, and to think. We ruin our own home by blackening it with hatred and anger. We ruin a beautiful earth by destroying the good gift that is ours to enjoy. Look at it from the heavens. A vast expanse of a galaxy we are part of. A beautiful globe we live on. We are all one human race graced with the home we call earth. Why can we not cherish it all?

Words, Words, Words

They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects.
- Dorothy L. Sayers

I drink a pot of earl grey. Tea is always the perfect companion for thinking.

A huge part of what I write about and care about looks at the importance and power of words. Dorothy L. Sayers, of course, is a source of profound observation and voice from her time (1920's-1940's) and what she saw happening in culture. It had come to progress into a shift where children were not taught or encouraged to think, but only be stuffed with knowledge on "subjects", enough to pass the required exams but not to retain or actually understand any of it, and worst of all, not engaged by it or think about it. That ultimately leads to a lack of thinking for themselves, which is of great importance for our future. If we are not masters of the words we use, we display no deep understanding, and we follow others just because it is what was always done, without questioning or thinking about if that is best. If we have no base of internal storage of knowledge, we rely solely on external knowledge and words that often deceive, or that we do not understand.

We do not seek, therefore, to broaden or improve ourselves and the world, if we do not think for ourselves, and do not understand the true meaning of words we use. You may be surprised how many people use words they do not understand. We have the responsibility to know and be aware of the original meaning of words. They can do more harm than good if we mis-use them.

It all begins with words. Reading good books and thinking deeply, especially using goodness, beauty, and imagination as the sources of nourishment, because as we read and learn we are going to encounter darkness, as our world has dark things lingering in its past. We do need to learn and know about such things, and then we need to counter that with truth of beauty and goodness that is also present and can be overlooked.

What is why I write along these lines - focusing on imagination and beauty because our souls need nourishment. There is so much darkness in the world - things we have to deal with, which I cannot take away, but I can write to invoke goodness by way of provoking a reader's imagination to awaken and pay attention, for there is something good to be brave for. You can be a light in the darkness.

Words are a powerful tool we can use for good or ill. It breaks my heart to see words used for ill purposes, and the mis-use or purposefully misleading allocation of words, which is something so deceptive, most people would never notice the techniques used. If we become deep readers, thinkers, and learners, we will question what we hear or read, comparing it to what we know to be true. We shall be better equipped if we read deeply and become acquainted with past thinkers. Even if we do not agree with them, we will know what they proposed, why it worked, or did not work. We need to be aware when we are being deceived, so we can blunt their edge, and fling it back.

The Door on Half-Bald Hill

My satchel is a burden. Every day it grows heavier on my shoulder, and sometimes the mirror clanks against the stone blade and the candlepot threatens to crack. But I would not be without this burden. During the nights, I lie against it. In the mornings, it is the thought of those I carry with me that gives me strength to rise.

- The Door on Half-Bald Hill

I finished reading this newly released novel last week, and my mind keeps going back to it. The old-world ancient Celtic-rooted aspect of the book and the atmosphere reaches deeply into me. I love the old tales weaving in myths, beautiful names, and connection with the nature of a world so much simpler than our own current age. A place where trees are ways of life, and vocations mean a responsibility in a village to its people. 

The atmosphere is dark in Tír Ársa, as the bloodmoon continues to hover over the people and the poisoned water, bitter as it is, spreads more each year, causing more crops and animals to be lost. An impending doom seems to rest over them all, and the people begin to embrace the coming doom with no hope. The ancient crafts and celebrations are kept, though, recognizing the turn of the seasons, the turn of the wheel. 

The hero, Idris, is the keeper of the Word in the village of Blackthorn, and he is tasked with discovering who he truly is and figuring out how to fulfill his purpose. Whilst the druids and the ovates predict death for them all coming soon, Idris does not believe that. He sees there is light, and it can be used for good. He sees hope when all others see darkness and the end.

The mark of an excellent book is that you keep thinking about it, and the more you think about it, the more that is uncovered and revealed at a deeper level within yourself and how you look at the world. This is that kind of book. I will be going back to this one again. 

Good to Trust, and to Attend

For every morning they renewed bee,
For great, O Lord, is thy fidelity.
The Lord is, saith my Soule, my portion,
And therefore in him will I hope alone.

The Lord is good to them, who on him relie,
And to the Soule that seeks him earnestly.
It is both good to trust, and to attend.
The Lord's salvation unto the end.

- John Donne

In times of trials and difficult times, I turn to books and poetry. I always turn to books and poetry, actually, but in these days, I take extra comfort in their wisdom. A timelessness is present that speaks to us from centuries past, and it is just as relevant. No one can say that the old writers cannot speak to us because our modern age is so different. I will greatly disagree.

Shakespeare was dealing with a plague season when half of London shut down and all the playhouses closed (causing his work to stop). George Herbert lived in such times. John Donne wrote during the plagues and even seemed to have coronavirus himself, having a fever so severe, the physicians said he would soon die from the fever. He wrote the most beautiful poem  on that such instance - "Hymne to God, my God, in my sicknesse". Here is first stanza:

Since I am coming to that Holy roome,
Where, with thy Quire of Saints for evermore,
I shall be made thy Musique; As I come
I tune thy Instrument here at the dore,
And what I must doe then, thinke here before.

We are not living something totally new. Look back to the writers from history and see what they have to say about the experiences of viruses that came about. Perhaps our connectedness today and ease of travel has made our pandemic even more global than ever, but that also shows our reliance on each other. We need to experience life together amongst others, and that spans that globe.

Writers can teach us so much if we pay attention to it. It might take more effort. It is easier to turn on the television to hear what the news wants to tell us, but what about the voices from the past? They already went through similar struggles. Hear the wisdom they have to give.

Our Lord is always present and with us, through all of history. He was there in the 1500s, and He is here today. 

The Wood

The character of trees depends on the season; in spring they watch you. In early winter, in solitude and great empty skies, they have no more botany than stone.
Tonight, the seven oaks are the temple pillars of a lost civilization. 
- The Wood, John Lewis-Stempel

Ahh, the wood. When I cannot get there in person, a book will bring me there in my imagination. This book was a perfect immersion into the environment of Cockshutt Wood, located in southwest Herefordshire in England. I was transported to England by way of these pages.

Here in these pages, I got to commune with nature by way of wonderfully descriptive words that built out the world of the wood for me to imagine. Told in a diary form, each day John wrote about what he encountered as he managed the wood. Old Brown (the tawny owl) was a frequent character as his life played out amongst the ancient tress. The frosty, frigid experiences as his hands froze but the work went on because the woods are always in motion. 

The wonder and glory of the spring when bluebells erupt from the ground and I can imagine the carpet covering the land with a wonder I hope to one day see myself in person. The heat of the summer, and the shade offered by the graceful limbs of the trees, covering the land as havens to mushrooms, ducks, rabbits, and owls. The nuts of abundance to collect a roast in the autumn time when leaves turn into magical hues before they fall in showers.

Speaking of trees, the wonder of all these trees in this wood growing in harmony, native to the land, fills me with joy. Their names:

oak
beech
sallow
hazel
wild cherry
silver birch
ash
larch
alder
elder
elm
service
holly

I agree with John as he writes many times how when we care for nature, nature cares for us. I think that when we care for the woods, we are caring for God's wonder-filled creation.

Trees are musical instruments. Each tree, like each human-fabricated musical instrument, is made different by design.

Beautiful and Bright

Beautiful and Bright

A set of arcane thoughts rain
like bits of glass, shards that again
recess into a troubled world,
where days have whirled
into bifurcated voices, actions, and clips.
Gentle people seem to forget their lips
are the source of goodness and grace,
only if one dares to stand and face
with ears alert to listen and hear
the story of another, a clear
approach to bridge the gap of divide
is to let our senses work, lest we not hide
our ears to the stories, or our sight
to the people - beautiful and bright
are all the souls of God's creation.