Late Have I Loved You

Lately I've been enjoying the music of Matt Maher. The other day a friend pointed out to me that one of his songs, "Alive Again", was inspired by the famous prayer from St. Augustine of Hippo in Confessions. I read Confessions back when I was trying to muddle through the WEM list on my own. The words "late have I loved you" sounded familiar, but I had completely forgotten the prayer. I wondered if I had really taken the time to let that rich, beautiful prayer sink in. I searched online to find the location: Book X Chapter XXVII. Then I found my well-worn paperback copy. I saw where I had underlined stuff nearby but that prayer was unmarked.

Of all the books I've read on this quest so far, Confessions has by far been the most important. I see now that it's one I shouldn't skip over when my friends and I reach the autobiography list. Confessions must be my first official reread. I'm really excited about discovering other spiritual insights within its pages that I missed before.

"A classic is a book that with each re-reading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading." ~Italo Calvino

St. Augustine by Botticelli

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

from The Confessions of Saint Augustine

Matt Maher, "Alive Again"

What Makes a Classic? (A Repost From Last Spring)

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Now and then someone will ask me, "What makes a classic?" It's a good question -- not an easy one to answer. What feels classic to one person may not feel classic to another. 

Generally speaking, there are culturally excepted specimens most people seem to agree on. Some books, which may not suit my particular taste or personal standards, have deeply impacted the thrust of civilization. These books deserve close analysis -- whether they cause me to shudder in disgust or swoon with rapturous delight! It is a humbling thing to enter into the Great Conversation which has been going on for centuries before I was born.

I posted the following excerpts last spring. These definitions offer as good an explanation as any I've been able to find! Enjoy. (And feel free to add your thoughts in the comment box!)

Excerpts from 

Why Read the Classics?

by Italo Calvino

Let us begin by putting forth some definitions...

1.  The classics are those books about which you usually hear people saying: 'I'm re-reading...', never 'I'm reading'.

2. The classics are those books which constitute a treasured experience for those who have read and loved them; but they remain just as rich an experience for those who reserve the chance to read them for when they are in the best condition to enjoy them.

3. The classics are books which exercise a particular influence, both when they imprint themselves on our imagination as unforgettable, and when they hide in the layers of memory disguised as the individual's or the collective unconsciousness.

4. A classic is a book that with each re-reading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading.

5. A classic is a book which even when we read it for the first time gives the sense of re-reading something we have read before.

6. A classic is a book which has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers.

7. The classics are those books who come to us bearing the aura of previous interpretations, and trailing behind them the traces they have left in the culture or cultures (or just in the languages and customs) though which they have passed.

8.  A classic is a work that constantly generates a pulviscular cloud of critical discourse around it, but which always shakes the particles off.

9. Classics are books which, the more we think we know them by hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them when we actually read them.

10. A classic is a book which comes to represent the whole universe, a book on par with ancient talismans.

11. 'Your' classic is a book to which you cannot remain indifferent, and which helps you define yourself in relation or even in opposition to it.

12. A classic is a work that comes before other classics; but those who have read other classics first immediately recognize its place in the genealogy of classic works.

13. A classic is a work which relegates the noise of the present to a background hum, which at the same time the classics cannot live without.

14. A classic is a work which persists as background noise even when a present that is totally incompatible with it holds sway.

Do any of these definitions describe what a classic means to you?