On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts

by James K.A. Smith

Humans are those strange creatures who can never be fully satisfied by anything created—though that never stops us from trying. The irony, Augustine points out, is that we experience frustration and disappointment when we try to make the road a home rather than realizing it’s leading us home, when we try to tell ourselves “the road is life.” Then we foist infinite expectations upon the finite. But the finite is given as a gift to help us get elsewhere.

We cultivate indifference as a cocoon. We make irony a habit because the safety of maintaining a knowing distance works as a defense. If you can’t find what matters, conclude that nothing matters. If the hunger for home is always and only frustrated, decide “the road is life.”

Hope is found in a certain art of saying goodbye, but also in looking ahead to the day when Someone will greet us with, “Welcome home”—and knowing how to navigate in the meantime.