Daily Devotion for Dante's Inferno (Canto 1)

Daily Devotion

"Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path."

Canto 1 (lines 1 - 3)

This Sunday, First Sunday of Lent, we begin Dante's Inferno with Canto 1.  The first concept to be addressed is "lostness."  Dante

awakens to the fact that he is lost.

When we are lost, we do not know immediately that we are lost.  The first moment of lostness is undetected

by our perceptions/awareness.  It takes us awhile before we perceive we are lost and awaken to the reality that we need to be found or guided out of our lostness.

Interesting enough, sometimes it is the observer who detects lostness before the observed is awaken to lostness.  Have you

ever been a passenger in a car and you know the driver is lost, but the driver is unaware or more likely in denial?  Especially the more stubborn the driver, the longer it takes to wake-up to the fact that one is lost.

Luke 15 is a story of a stubborn child, who wants the inheritance immediately (prior to the death of the future deceased), and goes of and squanders all the wealth of the inheritance.  When is that child lost?  Is it the moment that he perceives his lostness in the pigsty? 

Or is it the moment he asks a living father for his inheritance?  At least he wakes up to the fact that he is lost and finds his way home to the father.

Woe to the lost who have not and will not awaken from their slumber.

THOUGHT TO PONDER

"I once was lost, but now am found."

Amazing Grace (verse 1)

PLEASE PRAY

for our country to find it's way home out of this economic slumber.

PS

The Rock Gem show is Friday (3 - 9:30 p.m.) an Saturday (10 am to 5 p.m.)

Ash Wednesday, February 25

Tonight is our Ash Wednesday Service at 7 p.m.

We begin a journey together with Dante through the Inferno.  It is a journey that we may be reluctant to travel.  It is a forty day journey of self-reflection.  Some may even "give-up" something for this journey so they may travel "lighter."  Some may find the travel difficult.  Let us remember with each step of this journey God-is-with-us.  

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Thanks,

Stan