Highlights from Dante's Paradiso

Some of my favourite quotes from the Paradiso (Dorothy Sayers translation):

"What are the marks that show / so dusky on this body, and suggest / the tale of Cain to people down below?"

"From this new cavil, if thou have the heart / to try, experiment shall set thee free / that source whence all your science has to start"

""Let not men take vows lightly; keep your oath / but not with stubborn wall-eyed foolishness / as Jephthah pledged his first-met, and kept troth / whom more behoved to say 'I did amiss' / than keep it and do worse" (Judges 11:34)

"And when the sacred font in nuptial hour / had wed the Faith to him and him to her / with their salvation for their mutual dower"

Highlights from Dante's Purgatorio

Some of my favourite quotes from the Purgatorio (Dorothy Sayers translation):

"hard on toward the shore he steered his flight ... 'In exitu Israel de Aegypto' ... they sang their holy lay / in unison"

"'this mount is such,' he answered, 'that to those / starting at the foot it's hard in the extreme / the more they climb, the easier it grows"

"Let come to us, let come Thy Kingdom’s peace / if it come not, we’ve no power of our own / to come to it, for all our subtleties"

"I beheld a mob ... stone a lad to death ... but of his eyes / he still made gates to Heaven, and prayed forthwith / ... imploring pardon for his enemies" (Acts 7:60)

"I heard voices speak, entreating there / the Lamb of God who takes our sins away / for peace and mercy"

"I felt as 'twere a wing-beat, felt my head / fanned, and 'Beati', then, 'pacifici / who know not evil wrath,' I heard it said" (Matt 5:9)

"there followed them behind / four living creatures with green foliage crowned / each with six wings was plumed, their plumage lined / all full of eyes" (Rev 4:8)

Highlights from Dante's Inferno

Some of my favourite quotes from the Inferno (Dorothy Sayers translation):

"these doubts breed / from sheer black cowardice, which day by day / lays ambushes for men..."

"her eyes outshone the firmament by far / as she began, in her own gracious tongue / gentle and low, as tongues of angels are"

"through me the road to the city of desolation ... lay down all hope, you that go in by me"

"when on the ground the hoar-frost copies fair / her snow-white sister's image, though her pen / soon losing temper, leaves brief traces there"

The World of Reading

Another photomosaic, based on this painting:

Mateship

I was re-reading Luke 5 the other day, and was reflecting on verses 17-20:

On one of those days, as Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law (who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem) were sitting there. The power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick, and some men appeared carrying a paralysed man on a cot, seeking to enter the house and lay him before Jesus. But they could find no way to get in, because of the crowd, so they climbed onto the roof and got through the roof-tiles, lowering the man and his cot into the middle of everyone, right in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, "Friend, your sins are forgiven."

This passage is such a wonderful illustration of the power and authority of Jesus, that the friends of the paralytic tend to fade into the background. Yet it is their faith and persistence that Jesus responds to. They knew Jesus could heal their friend, and weren't going to let crowds or architecture stop them.

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends," but disassembling a roof and laying down a cot is also an act of love.

Trouble Brewing

This is my first experiment with photomosaic software.

The fabulous original photo is by Lori Mehmen of Orchard, Iowa. Images for the mosaic are examples of soi disante "hotness" from hotornot.com.