Confessions (Not Mine)

We had our field trip to Lowe's today. My random design ramblings did not find fruition, due to budgetary restraints, but I came up with something else that I rather like, as odd as it is, and possibly cliched. At any rate though, I like it, and that's what I care about at the moment.

I seem to have completely lost any semblence of artistic vision. If anyone sees my artistic vision wandering around somewhere, could you point it in my direction? Thanks.

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[excerpts from the Augustinian Confessions - sorry it's so long.... I realize most of you won't read it. That's OK.]

O Hope from my youth, where wast thou to me and where hadst thou gone away? For hadst thou not created me and differentiated me from the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, making me wiser than they? And yet I was wandering about in a dark and slippery way, seeking thee outside myself and thus not finding the God of my heart. I had gone down into the depths of the sea and had lost faith, and had despaired of ever finding the truth.

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In my inmost heart, I believed that thou art incorruptible and inviolable and unchangeable, because--though I knew not how or why--I could still see plainly and without doubt that the corruptible is inferior to the incorruptible, the inviolable obviously superior to its opposite, and the unchangeable better than the changeable. [...] But as yet thou hadst not enlightened my darkness.

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O my God, let me remember with gratitude and confess to thee thy mercies toward me. Let my bones be bathed in thy love, and let them say: "Lord, who is like unto thee? Thou hast broken my bonds in sunder, I will offer unto thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving." And how thou didst break them I will declare, and all who worship thee shall say, when they hear these things: "Blessed be the Lord in heaven and earth, great and wonderful is his name."

Thy words had stuck fast in my breast, and I was hedged round about by thee on every side. Of thy eternal life I was now certain, although I had seen it "through a glass darkly." And I had been relieved of all doubt that there is an incorruptible substance and that it is the source of every other substance. Nor did I any longer crave greater certainty about thee, but rather greater steadfastness in thee.

But as for my temporal life, everything was uncertain, and my heart had to be purged of the old leaven. "The Way"--the Saviour himself--pleased me well, but as yet I was reluctant to pass through the strait gate. [...] But I was weak and chose the easier way, and for this single reason my whole life was one of inner turbulence and listless indecision, because from so many influences I was compelled

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For thou hast said to men, "Behold the fear of the Lord, this is wisdom," and, "Be not wise in your own eyes," because "they that profess themselves to be wise become fools." But I had now found the goodly pearl; and I ought to have sold all that I had and bought it--yet I hesitated.

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Let me know thee, O my Knower; let me know thee even as I am known. O Strength of my soul, enter it and prepare it for thyself that thou mayest have and hold it, without "spot or blemish." This is my hope, therefore have I spoken; and in this hope I rejoice whenever I rejoice aright. But as for the other things of this life, they deserve our lamentations less, the more we lament them; and some should be lamented all the more, the less men care for them. For see, "Thou desirest truth" and "he who does the truth comes to the light." This is what I wish to do through confession in my heart before thee, and in my writings before many witnesses.

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But I desired to know, not to guess. And, if my voice and my pen were to confess to thee all the various knots thou hast untied for me about this question, who among my readers could endure to grasp the whole of the account? Still, despite this, my heart will not cease to give honor to thee or to sing thy praises concerning those things which it is not able to express.