Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, November 1, 2007
Feast of All Saints


My soul can find no staircase to Heaven
unless it be through Earth's loveliness.

- Michelangelo, artist, whose
Sistine Chapel was opened to
the public on this day, 1512


I was in the Sistine Chapel for the first time the day that the Pope died. Unfortunately, the place was jammed with wall-to-wall people - all of whom were in Rome waiting for the Pope to die! But at least I could stand and look up at that glorious ceiling and the apse without worrying about falling over. I was “in Heaven” for a half-hour - and of course, being a birder, I had my binoculars with me. The detail was superb.

I absolutely agree! I feel exactly as Michelangelo felt. I have always rejected, even as a young person, that this world and our bodies and all the loveliness of the Earth was in any way to be despised or rejected. It just didn’t make any sense to an INFP intuitive like me And believe me, there have been a lot of religious people and certainly Christians throughout history who have taught such nonsense. Such an attitude flies in the face of one of the few aspects of the Judeo-Christian Creation Story (or at least, the interpretation of It) I agree with - that “God looked and saw that it was very good”.

We would have no concept of the loveliness of things Heavenly were it not for the loveliness of things Earthly. Heaven can only be described with the human language of glory and beauty, in word and in art and music, and through the experience of Earth’s beauty. Heaven is Earth-writ-large - and by some magic, we sometimes manage to reach the sublime.

Let us not destroy the Earth in our greed and our carelessness.

Our soul will have no staircase to the vision of the Divine wonder of existence.

Brian+