More Heaven Than Hell

It feels like everyone and everything has gone darker than ever. Meaning, things that are dark and evil have more gravitas than things that are light and good. Yes, there are many dark things happening in the world today, that I will not argue, but I do wonder if we aren't manifesting some of that directly ourselves. (A remake of an old horror story, Nosferatu, about an obsessive vampire opened on Christmas Day 2024, for God's sake.)

Whatever the case, the darkness sells, and has throughout the history of humanity (we are a violent lot). An older example is one of my favorite books I read in college -- The Divine Comedy by the Italian writer Dante Alighieri. Actually a narrative poem finished around 1321, it's divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. 

Ultimately, the poem is about the soul's journey toward God and is heavily grounded in medieval Catholic theology and philosophy. Dante makes the journey through hell, purgatory, and then paradise (heaven). But the Inferno (hell) has been referenced much more over the 700+ years since than the other two poems about purgatory or paradise. In fact, I've made the mistake multiple times of referencing Dante's Inferno as the entire work, when it's made up of the three parts above. 

The Roman poet Virgil guides Dante through Hell and Purgatory. But it's Beatrice, Dante's ideal woman, who guides him through Heaven. Beatrice was a Florentine woman he admired after meeting her in childhood. She was his muse, and it's that part of the story that I aggregate to, because my wife Amy became my muse from the moment we met. She's been guiding me toward heaven ever since.

I know, kinda sappy, and while the world today prefers more hell than heaven, we don't want to live that way. I've had plenty of hell in my lifetime to know I want muses who aim for paradise, not those who wallow in darkness. This is why when we decided to have children, that if she was a girl, her name would be Beatrice. And she was and that became her namesake; our guide through parenthood and beyond. 

We always wanted the opportunity to take both our kids to visit their namesakes, but to date, have only done that for Bryce, our second child. Back in May 2007 we had taken a Southwest road trip that became the tipping point to changing our minds about having children, especially after visiting Bryce Canyon. We went again in 2021 and that's when Bryce met their origin story.

When we planned for our current winter break trip to Rome and Athens, we knew we'd have to go to Florence, the birthplace of Dante Alighieri and where Dante first met his muse, Beatrice. And that's exactly what we did. That's when Beatrice met her origin story. 

Bryce claims that the dirty old Bryce Canyon in Utah isn't as glamorous as Florence in Italy, but we reminded both kids that there would be no origin stories without that Southwest road trip back in 2007 (Beatrice arrived in September 2008).

That's why we're super grateful. Not only to have taken both kids to visit their namesakes, and learn the what and why of them, but also to remind them they're the reasons why we'll always revel in more heaven than hell. Amen.