No doubt a lot of us would like to have a spiritual story as dramatic and suspenseful as Saint Augustine's. The funny thing is, maybe we do—and Augustine himself might have been the first one to suggest it.
Rising from the ranks of the nervous middle class through a combination of pure genius, strategic sponsorship, and nonconformist flair, Augustine was a one-man think-tank. Within his mind, philosophy, literature, politics, and rhetoric vied for attention. Augustine was poised to make an impact in whatever sector of society he focused on—he just needed to pick and choose.Augustine came to see life as a God-infused trek that brought Christ’s followers nearer and nearer to their patriq, their homeland.
Unknown to Augustine, God had decided that the impact would be in his sector—which is to say that God, the proverbial Hound of Heaven, would track Augustine down, call him away from his libertine lifestyle, and finally corner him in an idyllic Milanese garden. Tolle lege ("take and read"), uttered in a sing-song child's voice, were the words that prompted Augustine to open a nearby Bible to Romans 13:13: "Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy."
The rest, as they say, is history.
It is no surprise, then, that one of the dominant spiritual metaphors Augustine later developed was that of life as a journey—a spiritual journey. Augustine saw life as a spiritual trek that brought Christ’s followers nearer and nearer to their patriq, their homeland. This native country, never fully reached in this life, was God the Father.
As much as I revere the penetrating depth of Augustine’s thought, this was not merely his “good idea.” Refreshingly, Augustine drew out the journey language that is so prevalent in the Bible, and emphasized it as a central theme for a people who can truthfully said to be “on the way.” Jarred by a life that must surely have shaken any illusions of self-determinism, Augustine seized on the Bible's spiritual journeying motif. How could he not, when the Christian God had so carefully directed the labyrinthine pathways of his own life?
"In you are the certain causes of contingent outcomes, the unchanging origins that abide through all that changes, the eternal rationale for all irrational things that pass away." The Confessions
The journey metaphor is innately provocative in nature, implying that life's varied paths will share an ultimate destination (the triumphant, judging Christ), no matter their starting point. Augustine clarified the weight of the metaphor by arguing that all people, not merely those who knew Christ, were on a journey. Life is linear, he pointed out, and we move forward deliberately and with purpose. At all times, though with varying degrees of self-awareness, we are progressing steadily toward something. Or more accurately, Someone.
Augustine would argue that this conclusion in inevitable: Our travels take place under the eyes of God, who is the axis, the very heart of reality. God gives meaning to existence, Augustine would say, in that what he blesses, IS—and continues to be. All being is of God, and upheld by God. Everything else, including the temporary devastations of evil, can be said to be passing away. Therefore, all journeys are endowed with meaning, and ultimately judged, by their degree of relation to Christ—the final destination.
"Perfect you are, beyond all change, and today does not reach its end in you, yet it does end in you, since all days are in you, nor could they have a course of transit not defined by you." - The Confessions
According to Augustine, we all spend our lives on the road. We advance toward the homeland, or we resist; we stride toward the patriq or a darker country. We move toward an ending. Even the most robust materialist is progressing through a spiritual journey.
Some people, pricked by divine discontent, will liquidate their “assets” in order to make their way down the road. They'll sell off the trappings of a materialistic life in order to fund the "spiritual" journey, which does not negate time and space, but subdues and transcends it. In the distance, they sense the shining presence of the ultimate reality into which they are journeying: the very City of God. Others, however, will cling to what is material, tragically ignorant that their life courses, by very nature, have eternal repercussions.
Augustine never seemed to recover from the blessed shock of his conversion, and his prayerful theology reveals a profound gratitude: "Too late have I loved you, O beauty so ancient and so new" (The Confessions).
4 comments:
It is amazing how dramatically the lense through which you read the Bible can affect what you get from it.
I went to a conference this year where one of the speakers encouraged us not only to read the Bible and try to learn from it, but to journey with it and through it. To read the stories about the people in the Bible and remember that they were real people with lives and struggles not unlike our own. Just in a different time and place in the world.
I guess I already knew that, but having it put to you that way somehow makes it seem more alive, more of an adventure.
You know, as a recent (3 years) convert, St. Augustine resonates pretty deeply. When I first came across 'Late have I loved you...' I recognized the combination of joy, for having been found at all, and regret that I resisted for so long.
I love the idea of looking at the bible as describing a journey.
Augustine's conversion story--his hearing the sing-songy voice saying "Take and read, take and read"--has long been a favorite of mine: It's as though he has to believe before he comes to believe. Heeding that voice was itself a faith act, no? Many of us--even those of us who believe--would not have responded to such a voice as Augustine did, I suspect.
An old poem I wrote begins:
"I was there with Augustine
Shaking the branches of the pear tree,
And as we shook, each pear fell
Like a tear from Christ's own eyes."
Probably because I began following Christ as a 17-year-old, one part of Augustine's testimony that resonates with me is his account of the wild days of his youth. I know too well what it means to sin for the sake of sinning; or, to put it another way, to sin boldly. Having been forgiven much, Augustine expresses the depths of his gratitude that Christ reached out and grabbed him, placing his two feet squarely on the narrow path that had been scorned moments before. The Saved know how blind they were to this blessed path--the journeyway to the great City--that all the time lay before them. Once we set foot on this path, our feet tell us that they had been itching to walk it all along, had we but been willing to listen to the humbler parts of our body instead of the prideful mind.
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