I am reading Dante's Paradiso, in a new translation by Jean Hollander with extensive notes by her husband, Robert. Several times over the years I have started reading Dante's The Divine Comedy, but I never made it out of Hell. So when I read a very good review of this new translation I decided to start in Heaven. I am hoping it might help me with my attempts at a more contemplative life-style.
In the third canto the first person Dante meets in heaven says, "In His will is our peace." This line was one I heard about when we studied T.S. Eliot in college. He refers to it in his own lines:
"Teach us to care and not to care.
Teach us to sit still,
even among these rocks
our peace in His will."
I have known, then, that this is the way to a peace that can possess our hearts even in the midst of pain and worry, but getting my will in sync with God's will is not easy. As I become more aware of God living in me and, especially, as I become better able to give myself to God within me, I want God to help me think the way God thinks and to want what God wants. In that way my will lines us more with God's will and I will be more and more at peace.
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