ESSAY – RANDOM THOUGHTS
The First Encounter – Lost in the Woods (and the Footnotes)
The first time I read The Divine Comedy was sparked by an argument—an intellectual back-and-forth with someone who, as it turned out, didn’t know much about the book. But he was passionate. His conviction was hypnotic. I didn’t buy his analysis, but I understood why he was obsessed.
I picked up the book out of curiosity and a little competitive pride. I didn’t finish it. We got called out on a mission, and you don’t take library books on missions. Fines are one thing—charred pages are another.
Still, even unfinished, it stuck with me. Something about Dante’s voice—strange, serious, deliberate—lingered.
That first attempt, though brief, planted a seed. When I returned to it later, I had more patience, a better dictionary, and no librarian breathing down my neck.
Even then, Inferno was dense. Layers of references. Historical names I barely recognized. Theology deep enough to drown in. I was flipping between footnotes and old library texts like I was defusing a bomb. The nine circles of Hell were vivid, yes—but they felt more like a museum exhibit than a lived experience. I was watching Dante, not walking with him.
It felt like homework. Necessary, maybe. But distant.
Still, something about the structure—the cold logic behind every punishment—got under my skin. Sin wasn’t just bad behavior. It had a shape. A weight. I didn’t have the words for it then, but the idea that justice wasn’t arbitrary began to settle in.
I didn’t love the poem yet. But I was starting to hear it.
Warzones and Infernos – Dante in Combat Boots
When I returned to The Divine Comedy after combat, it hit differently. Dante wasn’t just a poet anymore—he sounded like someone I knew. Maybe even like me.
Inferno started to make more sense. Hell wasn’t about fire and demons—it was about clarity. Brutal, stripped-down moral logic. A world where actions had consequences that couldn’t be bargained with.
In combat, you live in that gray zone between judgment and survival. Right and wrong don’t show up in clean lines. Sometimes you do the right thing, and it haunts you. Sometimes, it felt like there was no God—at least not the one we heard about in Sunday school. We believed in the integrity of what we were doing. We questioned it, sure. But our resolve stayed intact. Sometimes, surviving was all you could do. And that didn’t always feel like redemption.
Dante’s Hell isn’t just punishment—it’s paralysis. People stuck in their choices, their pride, their rage. No growth. No movement. Just a reflection in the worst kind of mirror.
That rang true.
Some turned to a higher power for guidance. We knew—we were fighting for God. But we also knew the limits. We were required to do what was asked of us—but no more. We fought for God. And we had to answer to Him too.
Not just for the people we encountered. Sometimes for what we became.
Purgatorio – The Long Climb Back
Purgatorio doesn’t get the same attention as Inferno. It’s not as dramatic. No fire. No famous sinners frozen in ice. But it’s the part that felt most real to me.
Because after war, after any real descent, what follows isn’t glory—it’s work. Quiet, repetitive, soul-grinding work. That’s Purgatorio.
Dante climbs a mountain, terrace by terrace, confronting the seven deadly sins. Each level is a mirror—less about judgment, more about recognition. It’s not punishment anymore. It’s penance. The difference matters.
After combat, reintegration isn’t just about coming home. It’s about stripping away the armor you lived in. Unpacking things you didn’t have the luxury to process while they were happening—and you don’t have the luxury to process them now. You’re thrust back into your life like nothing happened. You lie to the ones you love to keep them safe, to spare them from the world you know exists but no one is talking about. You keep that secret.
You make a valid attempt to let go of habits that kept you alive but will not help you live. It’s exhausting.
That’s why Purgatorio hit me so hard. I didn’t expect it to. But there’s something deeply honest in the idea that healing doesn’t feel holy. It feels like discipline. Like carrying your own burden up the hill with no end in sight. Some days, you move a little higher. Some days, you just don’t slip backward.
There’s no audience. No headline. Just effort.
And yet—it’s hopeful. The whole mountain is built on the assumption that you can be made whole. That ascent is possible. Redemption is a process, not a prize.
Paradiso – The Light We Try to Name
Paradiso is the hardest part.
Not just to read—but to believe in. It’s abstract, layered with theology and geometry, full of light and music and spheres. Dante is trying to describe the indescribable. He’s chasing God through language; the closer he gets, the less the words hold.
For a long time, I didn’t connect to this part. It felt like too much, too far, too clean.
But after Purgatorio, after the work of climbing, carrying, and unlearning, I started to understand what Paradiso was reaching for—not perfection, not purity, but peace.
And peace—real peace—is foreign when you’ve lived inside chaos. It’s not some cinematic moment of triumph. It’s quieter. It’s the ability to be still, without needing to be numb. It’s presence, not performance. It’s the moment you stop bracing for the next thing to go wrong.
Dante meets Beatrice here—his guide into the divine, his symbol of grace. We all have our Beatrices, if we’re lucky. People who held the line for us when we couldn’t. People who reminded us we weren’t lost forever.
Am I worthy of this grace? Will God forgive me for what I’ve done? I find myself waiting—searching—for that one thing that could wipe away all the havoc of my making. Is that a thing? You know the scales will have an answer.
In the background of all this light, I still imagine the scales. The old ones—Egyptian, Christian, Islamic. The image of your life being weighed. Every choice, every silence. Your hands held out, waiting to see which way it tips.
We fought for God. We made peace with that. But we also knew we’d stand in front of Him one day. And maybe that’s what Paradiso is really about—not escaping judgment, but understanding it. Accepting it. Trusting that there’s a kind of justice that doesn’t crush you, but completes you.
I don’t claim to understand everything Dante saw in Heaven. But I understand the desire to see it.
And that’s something.
Full Circle – Still Listening
I’ve read The Divine Comedy more than once now. Not in a straight line, not as a scholar, but as someone who’s lived with it—left it, returned to it, wrestled with it. And the strange thing is, it keeps changing. Or maybe I do.
What started as a challenge—half a debate, half an ego trip—turned into a mirror. Dante’s journey through Hell, up the mountain, into the light, isn’t just theology or poetry. It’s a blueprint. A map of what it means to go through something, to come back from something, and to wonder if you’re still whole on the other side.
I never read it looking for answers. Not really. But I keep coming back to it for the questions.
Am I worthy of grace? Is peace possible? Can the scales ever truly balance?
I don’t know.
But I’m still listening.
And that’s something too.
Author’s Note:
This was written as a result of a post by alexander87writer. I was going to leave a comment, and just kept writing. My two sentences became this. I’m so extra at times.
Memoirs of Madness 