Project Standfast - Keeping It Divine
Dear Covenant Community –
As a school that seeks to provide a Christcentered, classical education, we are countercultural but not anti-cultural. Our ad fontes
approach to education seeks to return our
students back to the sources of Western culture.
This is why Shakespeare has been so important to
the life of our school. A fertile imagination
combined with profound insight into human
nature, Shakespeare has few peers. Dante
Alighieri, the Florentine poet born the same year
Thomas Aquinas began his Summa Theologiae
(1265), is one. In fact, T.S. Eliot is unequivocal
in his support: “Dante and Shakespeare divide the
world between them. There is no third.” Like
Shakespeare, Dante had an incredibly fertile
imagination, one that continues to influence
Christians and non-Christians alike. The Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso) is an unsurpassed work of
imagination, a grand synthesis of the medieval cosmos. “The power of imagination,” according to Wendell Berry, “is
to see things whole, to see things clearly, to see things with sanctity, to see things with love.” Dante does this for us,
revealing a cosmos where God’s love is at the center, “a love that moves the sun and the other stars.”
This year, our community, as part of Project Standfast, has the opportunity to follow Dante the pilgrim as he
experiences the fruits of sin in Hell and the habits that root out sin in Purgatory. A few brave souls may even follow
him into Paradise. Please sign up online to reserve a space and order books—look for the link to register next week.
Our first meeting on October 20 is designed to give enough background to make sense of the story – road maps for
the journey. Our final session on March 2 will end with Rod Dreher a former columnist for the Dallas Morning News
and a senior editor at the American Conservative who is writing a book about his own spiritual renewal prompted by
reading the Divine Comedy.
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Overview, pick up books (October 20, 7-8:30pm)
Inferno part 1; Cantos 1-17 (November 10, 7-8:30pm)
Inferno part 2; Cantos 18-34 (December 1, 7-8:30pm)
Purgatory part 1; Cantos 1-15 (Jan 19, 7-8:30pm
Purgatory part 2; Cantos 16-33 (Feb 23, 7-8:30pm)
Rod Dreher (March 2, 7-8:30)
*** We will be using Mark Musa’s translations for Inferno and Purgatory. Total cost: $20 ***
I know what many of you are thinking: “That Mr. Tohlen sure is sweet to offer his time, but doesn’t he know that
ain't nobody got time for that!” No doubt, we are busy, but we make time for what we find important. With all that
we have to do and all that we can do, how important is reading? For the next two weeks, leading up to October 20, I
will try to answer that question. Stay tuned for more!
Non nobis,
Brett Tohlen
Logic School Director
The Covenant School