Sublime

Augustine is our contemporary. He has directly and indirectly shaped the way we understand our pursuits, the call to authenticity.

WHOSE HEART ISN’T prodigal? One of the gifts Augustine offers is a spirituality for realists. Conversion is not a “solution.” Conversion is not a magical transport home, some kind of Floo powder to heaven. Conversion doesn’t pluck you off the road; it just changes how you travel.

The Barna Research Group found that twentysomethings who stay in church were twice as likely to have a close personal friendship with an adult inside the church. Those who had an adult mentor at church, aside from the pastor, were almost three times as likely to stay as those who did not.4

And in that moment Augustine’s counsels took on a new relevance for me as I realized that in this season of our marriage and in this stage on the road, the kind of detachment Augustine encouraged—the refusal to be dominated by the libido—was exactly the word I needed to hear.