My heart was utterly darkened by this grief. Whatever I looked at was death. My native country was torture to me and my father's house a strange unhappiness. Whatever I had shared with my friend became in his absence a frightful torture. My eyes looked for him everywhere in vain. I hated all places because he was not in them. Nor could they now say to me 'he will be coming' as they did when was alive and absent. I became a great puzzle to myself and asked my soul why it was so sad and why it troubled me so sorely. But my soul did not have an answer for me. And if I said "Hope in God" it would not obey me because that most dear friend whom it had lost, being a man was better and more real than the imagined deity it was bidden to trust in. Nothing was sweet to me but tears and they filled the void my friend had left in the affections of my heart.

These things are long past, Lord, and time has healed my wound. May I learn from you who are Truth? May I hold the ear of my heart close to your mouth that you may tell me why weeping is sweet to the sorrowing? Have you, although present everywhere cast away our misery far from you? You abide in yourself while we are tossed about with various trials. And yet, if we did not weep in your ears we would have no hope left. From where, then, comes the sweet fruit gathered from the bitterness of life, from groans, tears, sighs and laments? Does it sweeten it to hope that you hear? This is the true of prayer for in it there is a longing to approach you. But is it also true in grief for a lost friend and in the sorrow which then overwhelmed me? For I neither hoped he should return to life nor did I ask for this with my tears. I wept and grieved only because I was miserable and had lost my joy. Or is weeping bitter when we have the things we enjoys only to grow delightful when we lose them?

But why do I speak these things? For this is no time to ask questions but to confess to you, I was wretched as everyone is wretched who is bound by friendship to mortal things. He is torn apart when he loses them and feels the misery which he was subject to even before he lost them. So it was at that time with me. I wept most bitterly and found my rest in bitterness. Thus, I was miserable but I held even that life of misery dearer than my friend. For though I would willingly have changed it, yet I was less willing to part with it than with him; yes, I do not know whether I would have parted with it even for him, as is related (if it is not fiction) of Pylades and Orestes that they would gladly have died for one another since not to live together was to them worse than death.

But in me there had grown up some kind of feeling wholly contrary to this; for at the same time I hated exceedingly to live and feared to die, I suppose that the more I loved him, the more I hated and feared death which as a most cruel enemy had taken him from me. I imagined that it would make a speedy end of all men since it had such power over him. This is the way it was with me as I recall.

Behold my heart, O God. Look deep within me and see for I well remember it, O my Hope who cleanses me from the impurity of such affections, directing my eyes toward you and plucking me out of the net. For I wondered that others, subject to death, should live since he whom I loved as if he should never die, was dead. And I wondered yet more that I myself who was like a second self to him, could still live though he was dead. Well did someone call his friend 'half of my soul' for I felt that my soul and his were one soul in two bodies and therefore, my life was a horror to because I would not live cut in half. Therefore, perhaps, I feared to die lest he whom I loved so much should die completely.

O madness which does not know how to love men as men! O foolish man that I was then, enduring the lot of man with such impatience! I fretted, sighted, wept, tormented myself and took neither rest nor advice. For I carried about a torn and breeding soul, tired of being borne by me, yet I could not find anywhere to let it rest. Not in pleasant groves, not in games or music, nor in perfumed gardens, nor in banqueting, nor in the pleasures of the bed and couch - not even in books or poetry did I find rest. All things looked terrible even the very light itself. Whatever was not him was revolting and hateful. Only in groans and tears did I find a little refreshment and when I gave these up even for a little time, a huge load of misery weighed me down.

My soul should have been raised to you, O Lord, for you to lighten my burden. I knew it, but was neither willing not able, for truthfully, when I thought of you, you were not anything solid or substantial to me. My God was not you, yourself but one of vain imagination and error. If I attempted to lay my load on this god so that it might rest, it sank into nothingness and came rushing back on me again. I remained an unhappy place to myself where I could not stay and which I could not leave. For where could my heart flee from my heart? Where could I fly from myself? How could I not follow myself? And yet I fled out of my native country, for my eyes would seek him less where they were not used to seeing him. And so I left Tagaste for Carthage.

Time hastens on. Nor does it roll idly by.......................

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -