I still love Augustine, so I'm going to blog about him.
Fun fact about me, I read Augustine's Confessions when I was 14 and I consider reading that to be my conversion. Reading it again, I found the page I had underlined when I knew I wanted to be a Christian, and that before I hadn't truly understood Christianity.
This is what was underlined when I was 14-
"I want to be this way. I resist these seductions of the eyes, for fear that my feet with which I walk upon Your way will become ensnared, and I lift up my invisible eyes to You that You would "pluck my feet out of the net." (ps. 25:15). You do now and always pluck them out, for they are ensnared. You do not cease to pluck them out, while I often entangle myself in snares on all sides, because You who "keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." (ps 121:4)
Interesting that one of my favorite poems (which I read my first semester of honors) ends with "Lord thou pluckest me out." and I JUST THIS WEEK realized what it was alluding to.
Honors man, it brings everything full circle.
Fun fact about me, I read Augustine's Confessions when I was 14 and I consider reading that to be my conversion. Reading it again, I found the page I had underlined when I knew I wanted to be a Christian, and that before I hadn't truly understood Christianity.
This is what was underlined when I was 14-
"I want to be this way. I resist these seductions of the eyes, for fear that my feet with which I walk upon Your way will become ensnared, and I lift up my invisible eyes to You that You would "pluck my feet out of the net." (ps. 25:15). You do now and always pluck them out, for they are ensnared. You do not cease to pluck them out, while I often entangle myself in snares on all sides, because You who "keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." (ps 121:4)
Interesting that one of my favorite poems (which I read my first semester of honors) ends with "Lord thou pluckest me out." and I JUST THIS WEEK realized what it was alluding to.
Honors man, it brings everything full circle.
That's so cool :) and honestly, the Confessions has some of the most beautify meaning of anything I've ever read. Maybe it's because I love to watch people ask questions when they don't know the answer, and that's what Augustine does constantly as he's questioning God's character and personhood. It's so beautiful to read, and so deep.
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ReplyDeleteI agree that Confessions has some of the best things to say about situations that are so applicable to our lives now, and is capable of bringing a person closer to God. It was very comforting to me on my plane ride home and back to school last week for my Grandma's funeral. What Augustine says about his friends death really hit home with me, but what really got me was the end of Book 4 when he says:
ReplyDelete"Lord our god, under the shadow of your wings let us hope-defend us and support us. You will bear us up when we are little and even down to our gray hairs will you carry us. For our stability, when it is in you, is stability indeed; but when it is in ourselves, then it is all unstable. Our good lives forever with you, and when we turn from you with aversion, we fall into our own perversion. Let us now, Lord, return so that we are not overturned, because with you our good lives without blemish-for our good is you yourself. And we need not fear that we shall find no place to return to because we fell away from it. For, in our absence, our home-which is your eternity-does not fall away."
One of the coolest things about Augustine is his obvious passion in his writing. Seriously, if there was somehow an audio book of Augustine's confessions featuring the Saint himself, I would be all over it. The work reads like a prayer, and not just any prayer, and honest prayer. This convicted me very much as I was preparing a sermon on prayer. One of the points that I made when speaking was, "if a Christian decides to hold back in his/her honesty with God, then they might as well be forfeiting any hope to build upon their dependency of the Holy spirit." Augustine never had this problem, because he was accepting of the fact that his heart needed cleansing, real cleansing.
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