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I’m still reading Irving Stone’s Agony and the Ecstasy, about the life of Michelangelo. Oh, the vision of an artist.
As he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel Michelangelo sought to “visualize a God of such transcendence that everyone would cry out, ‘Yes! That is the Lord God! None other could be!’ . . . . He had always loved God. In his darkest hours he cried out, ‘God did not create us to abandon us.’ His faith in God sustained him; and now he must make manifest to the world who God was, what He looked and felt like, wherein lay His divine power and grace. . . .It was a delicate task, yet he did not doubt that he could achieve such a God. He had only to set down in drawings the image he had carried with him since childhood. God as the most beautiful, powerful, intelligent and loving force in the universe. Since He had created man in His own image, He had the face and body of a man. . . . God . . . had only to hold out His right arm to Adam, to reach one infinitesimal life-breath more, man and the world would begin.” 539-540
Stone wrote a moving scene of Pope Julius II climbing the ladder to view Michaelangelo’s God imparting life to Adam. “Do you truly believe that God is that benign?” the Pope asked. Michelangelo said: “Yes, Holy Father.” The Pope answered: “I most ardently hope so, since I am going to be standing before Him before long. If He is as you have painted Him, then I shall be forgiven my sins.” 541
God did not create us to abandon us. Well said, Michaelangelo.