Greetings fellow travelers! Here is the first of a three part reflection on my journey with St. Augustine and his best known work, The Confessions. May my journey help you claim yours. Feel free to post your reactions.

JOURNEY WITH AUGUSTINE (PART 1)

Dad loved life, martinis, ideas, and books.  One of his favorite writers was St. Augustine, whose writings held a prominent place on our massive bookshelves.  Dad often quoted Augustine’s heartfelt prayer, “Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not just yet.” (Book VIII. vii. (17))

The quote is from Augustine’s spiritual autobiography and best-known work, The Confessions.  In that book, Augustine plunges into his inner being in a desperate search for honesty with himself and with God.  He reviews his life and reveals an explosive turmoil of passion, anxiety, restlessness, faith, and doubt, all held together by an unquenchable thirst for God.  I was afraid of that book, afraid that I wouldn’t understand it, or maybe that I would.  I was afraid it might force me to admit the force of my own inner turmoil.  Mostly, I was afraid of disappointing Dad.

It came as a big surprise that not everyone held Augustine in such high esteem.  In four years at seminary, I discovered that Augustine is the guy everyone loves to hate, whether or not they read any of his books!  Few seminary students had the interest or patience to deal with Augustine — his dark, brooding obsessiveness can be frustrating, repetitive, and downright boring.  Who cares about his doubts, anxieties, and endless questioning of himself, God, and the Universe? It’s easier to ignore him, or hate him.  Most people do.

There are exceptions. I remember one professor who drew our attention to Augustine’s power to name the peculiar inner conflicts that if we’re honest we all suffer: “In adversities I desire prosperity, in prosperous times I fear adversities. Between these two is there a middle ground where human life is not a trial?” (Book  X. xxviii. (9))  I get it! No matter how much success, fame, or whatever else I reach for, it’s never enough —  there’s always something more, some new desire to propel me into a frantic search for happiness.

It took years before I trusted myself enough to read The Confessions, but Dad’s love for Augustine was infectious, and eventually I dared to walk through the pages of that hallowed book.  When I did, I found a “companion on the inner way” (to borrow a Morton Kelsey title).

Augustine is on fire with love for God and God’s creation.  He aches to understand God, to know and surrender to God, while at the same time groping with the inner forces that keep him from God. As he reviews his life, Augustine rides waves of joy and sorrow, exaltation and despair.  What makes Augustine’s journey so compelling is that he directly confronts the powerful oppositional forces that exist within him: doubt existing alongside deep faith; fear and trust; arrogance and humility.  He discovers again and again what St. Paul observed centuries before: “I do the very thing I do not want to do.   (Romans 7:15)

In his groping, Augustine’s exploration of himself invites me to see what I do not want to face in myself: my doubts and anxieties, resistance and rage; my passion, unfulfilled longing, and endless questioning of myself, God, and the Universe.  Above all, Augustine helps me face my fears — a thousand different forms of fear that at the end of my life I will face God without having fully faced myself.

Augustine deals head-on with the paradox of human embodiment that has plagued Christianity from the start: if all that God created is good, if human beings are supremely good, why are there forces within us that propel human beings to act in ways that are destructive, uncontrollable and, seemingly, contrary to God’s intentions for humanity? How can that be? What are we to do with ourselves?

Augustine’s response was what came to be known as the doctrine of original sin.  Though the concept of original sin had appeared earlier, Augustine was the first to write extensively about it. Original sin was Augustine’s way of naming this aspect of humanity, reflected in the story of Adam and Eve, that leads human beings to turn away from God; to think and act in ways that are harmful to self and others and lead to suffering. But his point — the point of the doctrine of original sin — is to name human frailty, not to condemn humanity, nor contradict the message of Genesis that says what God created is good, very good indeed. (Genesis 1.31)

Augustine’s brutal honesty reflects a faith that trusts God absolutely; a faith in the perfection of God’s creation, including his creation of me. This is faith that who I am — including every drop of my restless, searching, grasping mind, and all OF my anxieties, resentments, and mistakes — is God’s raw material.  This is faith that God loves me, not when I get cleaned up and perfected, but just as I am, right here, right now. This is faith that says: Breathe, you are alive.  You are a perfect creation not in spite of your humanity, but because of it.