Calm and uproar

Wisconsin

“I’m not leaving for anywhere, am I?” says the Word of God. Imbed your home in him, place in safekeeping with him whatever you have from him, my soul—if only because you’re worn out by lies. Place in safekeeping with the truth whatever you possess from the truth, and you won’t lose anything. The things that have rotted in you will flower again, and all the afflictions that make you sluggish will be healed, and the things that are slack will be remade and renewed and hold together with you. They won’t drop you in the depths (where they themselves go), but will stand steady at your side and hold their ground in the presence of God, who also stands steady and holds his ground.

(St. Augustine, Confessions 4.16; Sarah Ruden, trans.)

Lately, I've been reading Sarah Ruden's translation of Augustine's Confessions, and it's made the book come alive in a way it never had for me before. The prose is beautiful, making Augustine's thoughts vivid, memorable, and - inevitably for 2020 - deeply cathartic. It's been an absolute pleasure to slowly take in, like reading a high-quality, meditative, contemporary novel (meant in the best possible sense). 

In my current mental space, it's impossible to separate the excerpt above from two previous literary moments in my life (Milton in college and T.S. Eliot in grad school). All three of these speak to one of the dialogues in the western tradition that I find most poignant: specifically, the interplay between identifying/pursuing the good life and coping with devastating loss. Especially during the past few years, I've been growing to appreciate how, for an overwhelming number of the authors in our tradition, the two are more closely linked than you'd initially believe them to be.

There is so little permanence in our lives, and it's something I think the world has been collectively experiencing in a profound way for the majority of this past year. Transience and wandering are recurring themes in the Confessions, and I love how Augustine touches on a paradox initially hinted at by Christ ("For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it," Matt. 16.25). By handing the promises God gives us back to Him for "safekeeping," we can be certain they will always be ours. We'll never lose the most important things in life.

Significantly, Augustine assumes that we develop this ethos by engaging with the written word. He identifies God's promises as truth, and truth can be found in Scripture. Immersion in objective truth is the best antidote to despair. (Sidebar: this doesn't necessarily involve going on some painfully-subjective pietist safari of color-coded bible study. I was recently shocked to discover that high-functioning low achievers like me can read the whole thing in a year if you do about 3 chapters a day. That's like 5-10 minutes of reading.)

I've had my share of disturbingly dark moments in recent years, but I'm starting to recognize the hand of God even in the "rock bottom" experiences, because they showed me how much I need Him. As Augustine says just a few sentences earlier, "the Word itself shouts for you to return, and there lies a place of calm that will never know any uproar, where love is not abandoned unless it abandons."