Thinking about St. Augustine in the Midst of Hurricane Season

Today is the feast day of Saint Augustine.  While I respect his vast amount of theology and other types of writing, his work will never be as important to me as they are to so many other people.  For a more straightforward blog post about him, I did write one on my theology blog.

In the past, I might have written a post that took issue with some of Augustine's theology.  But this year, he's speaking to me from a different angle.  My Church History professor pointed out that Augustine lived until almost the end of the Roman empire, and it's important to remember that the end didn't happen with a bang. People like Augustine could see what was coming, and he must have had a sense--perhaps a deep, deep sense--of all that was going to be lost.

I finished that blog post this way:  "Augustine was living in a similar time to ours; there had been diseases and political intrigue and invaders coming from all directions, along with upheavals that kept various populations on the move. I'd like to channel some of his writing energy in response to all of these slow motion collapses."

I am not doing a good job of channeling any energy into any direction this morning.  I am keeping an eye on Tropical Storm Idalia, which I expect to blow up into a major hurricane.  Up here in the mountains of North Carolina, I'm not feeling personally threatened.  In fact, it's days like these that make me SO, so very grateful to be here, even in a house that needs updating.

Still, I can't seem to look away.  And it's more than just leftover habits from living in hurricane country.  I've lost many hours to climate doom and gloom this summer (and for many years before).  I wonder if the same was true for Augustine.  True, he didn't have social media to distract him, but I bet he spent a lot of time trying to think through the implications of what he was seeing.

Let me shift focus, while at the same time realizing a certain amount of time this week will be consumed by hurricane monitoring. My seminary classes start tonight--how quickly the summer has gone.