Paradise, and Hell: lost

With head, hands, wings or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.

. . . Hail horrors, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

John Milton was born 400 years ago today. When Milton began writing Paradise Lost in 1658 at age 50, he had been blind four years. Then for the next five years he recited the entire work to a series of assistants who wrote it down for 40 minutes every morning. Apparently he became quite annoyed if they were late. "Milton was said to have grumbled around the house, 'I want to be milked. I want to be milked.'" (Read or hear more surprising facts about Milton in National Public Radio's little piece played Sunday.)

I never read Paradise Lost, or any other Milton, but as a kid I looked through my dad's oversized 1865 copy of the book again and again, at the illustrations of Gustave Doré shown here. (Another book I got, lucky me.) Embedded in my brain are pen drawings of Lucifer - Prince of Heaven - falling from grace (example above), and of Adam and Eve being cast out of Paradise (example below). I remember feeling awed by the beauty and depth of the drawings while at the same time being stumped that God would - or could - be threatened by anyone and have to cast them out. Yet the power of the drawings pointed at the power of God, and somewhere in those batlike wings of Lucifer and in the soft vulnerability of Eve, the story did its job. I was a very obedient girl.

Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon.

Hell lost

If you are interested and have time, there was a related (in my mind) story that was also on NPR earlier, on Ira Glass's "This American Life," about Carlton Pearson, pentecostal pastor of 5,000 who fell from grace when he declared that God told him there is no Hell. When he began preaching that new theology, he was of course declared a heretic by the likes of Oral Roberts, Billy Graham and the whole evangelical community, and his congregation dwindled to 200. Makes me wonder which is more costly: Loss of Paradise, or loss of Hell?

That to the highth of this great argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.

x o x o x o x o x o x
Today's ornaments:

Peter just arrived back from his band's cruise ship gig in the Caribbean, bringing these stunning etched gourd ornaments - a pair of owls for me, a hummingbird for Don - crafted by an artisan in Bonaire, a Dutch island colony still quite untouched. They reminded Pete of the gourds his dad grows on the farm. It's time to do some etching!