Giving up the bad stuff - The Confessions of St. Augustine

Wow, if you're ever struggling to give up something bad for something better (who isn't)- this book is inspiring! It is full of beautiful imagery about coming closer to God and giving up things to know Him.

I have to many favorite quotes to write, but here are a few of my favorite parts.

St. Augustine was a bit of a sex-addict, from what I read, and he tried to give it up time and time again. He was coming closer to God from his studies, and he felt like two different people. He said, "I, no doubt, was on both sides, but I was more myself when I was on the side which I approved of for myself than when I was on the [other] side... I had come willingly where I now did not will to be."

On procrastinating repentance:

He wrestled with this and he said, "The pack of this world was a kind of pleasant weight upon me, as happens in sleep, and the thoughts in which I meditated on you [God] were like the efforts of someone who tries to get up but is so overcome with drowsiness that he sinks back again into sleep. Of course no one wants to sleep forever...we often put off the moment of shaking off sleep, and even though it is time to get up, we gladly take a little longer in bed...I could still find nothing at all to say except lazy words spoken half asleep: 'A minute,' 'just a minute,' 'just a little time longer.' But there was no limit to the minutes, and the time longer went a long way."

So what got him to finally give it up?

On the power of example, stories, and mentors:

He heard the story of a very good man - Victorinus. He said, "I was on fire to be like him" and when his friend, Ponticianus, finished telling him these stories, Augustine said, "... you, Lord, while he was speaking, were turning me around so that I could see myself... you set me in front of my own face so that I could see how foul a sight I was... I had no where to to to escape from myself... in my own eyes I was stripped naked an my conscience cried out against me: 'Can you not hear me? These others, who have not been so worn out in the search and not been meditating the matter for ten years or more, have had the weight taken from their backs and have been given wings to fly.'"

What gave him the strength to be like those men?

On the power of scriptures:

He turned to the scriptures (the words of Paul) and the first verse he read struck him. He said, "it was as though my heart was filled with a light of confidence and all the shadows of my doubt were swept away." Later he says, "How glad I was to give up the things I had been so afraid to lose!" And Later, "Now my mind was free..."

On thinking we're so smart:

Sometimes we think we know so much. A pretty cool book in Augustine's day was Aristotle's Ten Elements.  He had heard it was a hard read and many people needed much help to understand it.  He finally got a copy and read it himself.  He found it very easy to understand.  He was proud of himself and then he says, "I enjoyed these books and did not know the source of what ever in them was true and certain: For I had my back to the light and my face saw things in the light, but on my face itself no light fell."  Later: "What good could my good abilities do me if I did not use them well?"

"The proud cannot find you, however deep and curious their knowledge... they can see and eclipse of the sun long before it happens, but cannot see their own eclipse when it is actually taking place."

On Plural Marriage:

One of the things that kept St Augustine from believing in the Bible at first was that the plural marriage thing.  After a while he realized something - I thought it was a really interesting way of viewing it...

"I was ignorant of that true and inward goodness which makes its judgments not from convention but from the most right and undeviating law... by this law the customs of different times and places are formed as is right for those times and those places, while the law is the same always and everywhere"

He then made some interesting comparisons to our lives, one of my favorites what this:

"[We] can see in one man and one day and one household examples of different things being suited to different members, of one thing allowed at one time and not allowed an hour later, of of something permitted or commanded to be done in one corner which is forbidden under pain of punishment to be done in the next corner..."

I thought that was an interesting way to look at it.

On Education:

"It is clear enough from this that free curiosity is a more powerful aid to learning... than a forced discipline."

"No one can act well against his will, even if what he does happens to be good."

I could go on and on with quotes - the book was packed full of them.

This book gave me a great appreciation for the truths that I know to be true.  Augustine worked so hard to find truth.  I admire him a great deal.