Overheard in Booth Three: St Augustine in 90 Minutes

and she said, "I found this new series, about philosophers - in 90 minutes. Really slim books you can read them on the bus on the way in to work, practically, and I had always wondered about this St. Augustine guy, I mean, he's someone you always hear about, every once in a while, in church or Sunday school, and so I picked up the one about St. Augustine, b'cz I'd always kinda wanted to know what that was all about, and it turns out that he's really just another one of those uptight Catholic guys who could never get it through his head about sex and couldn't get out from under the influence of his mom - lord haven't we had enough guys like that! - so this momma's boy has a great time in Carthage in college, has a mistress and a son, and tries to drag her back home to mom, who doesn't like that one bit and sends her off and marries him and eventually he winds up in North Africa fighting off the Vandals or whatever those guys were who were finally hacking their way through what was left of the Roman Empire,

but you know, the best thing about the book is it told about all the different heresies he had to deal with at the time, all these little offshoots of Christianity - somebody who thought they were the embodiment of the Holy Spirit, others that thought Jesus Christ was just a 'nice guy' but not much else, and it really kind of showed me that all this stuff that we're facing today about people not really believing in Jesus at all,

well, that's nothing new. I mean, if you look at it, nobody's really followed him, like, really, in like, well

never!

It's kind of comforting, and sad, all at the same time."