J. Iliana Serna, “Measuring Love with Cups” (2019)

“One of the most profound ways I’ve learned to see the world is based off a lesson in a class I took about Dante’s The Divine Comedy. My professor Dr. Glyer was explaining Dante’s vision of heaven in Paradiso. She brought up many different sized cups to the front of the classroom – some were tall and skinny, others short and wide, some small, others big. She explained that the cups represented each person’s capacity to love. The bigger the cup, the bigger the capacity to love. She explained that our cups were always changing while we’re alive. All of our little daily actions – from returning an item someone dropped, to listening to a friend in need, to showing patience for children – increase or decrease our cup size.

“She theorized that Dante placed different cup sizes in different spheres of heaven, but here’s the most important part – no matter what cup size you have, once you’re in heaven it will be full of love. The size doesn’t matter anymore, because you will be filled to the brim with love. There will be no room left for envy of another person’s cup size. In fact, there won’t be room for depression, hatred, jealousy, or anything that’s not loving. You’ll simply be too full of love for any of that.”    —Trying To Gain In Perspective, September, 2019