You converted me

Today I read the introduction of this book (You Converted Me). I forgot I received it for free and was supposed to blog about it. Oops. It is basically the Confessions of St. Augustine, with notes by Tony Jones (also the modernized translation by Robert J. Edmonson). In the intro Tony writes:

I think it has the makings of a great movie, a classic coming-of-age story...

A boy grows into a man, getting into the kind of mischief that a lot of boys do (messing around with girls, stealing, getting in trouble at school). Meanwhile, his overprotective Christian mother prays fervently for the salvation of his soul, and his unspiritual father pays him little interest. The young man joins a weird, vegetarian cult, and he has a son with his girlfriend.

The young man then flees his mother to study in the big city where he's at once enthralled and disgusted by the parties and carousing around him. All the while, he's tortured internally by his conscience as he searches for "The Truth," worrying that he's going to die before he finds it and as a result be banished to hell. He moves to another city where he falls under the sway of two great Christian men who show him great love and patience, even as he dabbles in another religion.

Finally, accompanied by his best friend, he's driven by his own tormented soul, into a garden, where he frantically paces the paths, attacked from all sides by anxiety. He hears the mysterious voice of a child beckoning him, "Take up and read, take up and read," so he returns to the bench where his friend is sitting and opens the biblical book of Romans. He reads one verse, the one that he happens to glance at first, and immediately, calm overcomes his troubled heart, and twenty years worth of doubts suddenly vanish. The young man and his friend run back to his mother. He tells her of his conversion to Christ, and they embrace in joy and weeping.

Quite a story, isn't it? And it's made all the more powerful by the fact that it was written over 1600 years ago by Aurelius Augustinus, better known as Augustine of Hippo, probably the most important theologian in the history of Western Christianity...

I thought that was a pretty good intro. I have to admit, the chapters look a little long, and I'm not much on reading ancient literature - never got into Shakespeare and all that. But I may give it a try. I read another of Tony's books (The Sacred Way) and really, really liked it. He apparently lives in Edina, MN - which is where I spent the first week of my life after graduating from high school. My sister used to live there. So, heck, we're practically friends.

Anyway, that's what I read this morning. Have a nice day. :)