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This is not a book about Saint Augustine. In a way, it's a book Augustine has written about each of us. Popular speaker and award-winning author James K. A. Smith has spent time on the road with Augustine, and he invites us to take this journey too, for this ancient African thinker knows far more about us than we might expect. Following Smith's successful You Are What You Love, this book shows how Augustine can be a pilgrim guide to a spirituality that meets the complicated world we live in. Augustine, says Smith, is the patron saint of restless hearts--a guide who has been there, asked our questions, and knows our frustrations and failed pursuits. Augustine spent a lifetime searching for his heart's true home and he can help us find our way. "What makes Augustine a guide worth considering," says Smith, "is that he knows where home is, where rest can be found, what peace feels like, even if it is sometimes ephemeral and elusive along the way." Addressing believers and skeptics alike, this book shows how Augustine's timeless wisdom speaks to the worries and struggles of contemporary life, covering topics such as ambition, sex, friendship, freedom, parenthood, and death. As Smith vividly and colorfully brings Augustine to life for 21st-century readers, he also offers a fresh articulation of Christianity that speaks to our deepest hungers, fears, and hopes.… (more)
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Smith writes in the introduction:
This is not a biography. This is not a book about Augustine. In a way, it’s a book Augustine has written about yo. It’s a journey with Augustine as a journey into oneself. It’s a travelogue of the heart. It’s a road trip with a prodigal who’s already been where you think you need to go.
I admit I’m a sucker for stories about journeys. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was my favorite as a kid. That being said, Smith’s writing is engaging and Augustine’s journey is engrossing. I never thought I’d say this about a book focused on an early church father and philosophy, but it’s a page-turner. I didn’t want to stop reading.
On The Road With Saint Augustine is so engaging because Smith emphasizes that the saint knows exactly what we’re going through as we fight the pull of the world to find true meaning. Smith writes:
He only knows you because he’s been there, because he has a sense of the solidarity of the human race in our foibles and frustrations and failed pursuits. If he jackhammers his way into the secret corners of our hearts, unearthing our hungers and fears, it’s only because it’s familiar territory: he’s seen it all in his own soul.
Smith walks us through Augustine’s insights into finding oneself, friendship, sex, ambition, family, justice, and death— all of it just as relevant today for wanderers as it was in the 4th century. Smith throws in ample philosophy; with Camus, Derrida, Heidegger and more. My personal favorite is his discussion around the existentialists and Augustine.
I really enjoyed On The Road With Saint Augustine. It’s an insightful journey you won’t regret.